Class of 2012 Statistics

Colleges & Universities Harvard University
1

<p>The media has started to publish statistics. Here’s a New York Times article, I know that The Harvard Crimson will be publishing something tomorrow, and I’m sure that the Harvard News Office will release something in the next day or two with even more details. </p>

<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/education/01admission.html?_r=1&ref=education&oref=slogin[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/01/education/01admission.html?_r=1&ref=education&oref=slogin&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

2

<p>Thanks for the link. By my crude calculation, that indicates Harvard expects a yield of 83 percent with no early round–wow.</p>

3

<p>From The Crimson: [The</a> Harvard Crimson :: News :: College Admissions Rate Drops to 7.1%](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=522754]The”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=522754)</p>

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4

<p>Here is The Harvard Crimson’s article:</p>

<p><a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=522754[/url]”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=522754&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

5

<p>Wow, that was fast lol</p>

6

<p>Oh, wow. I thought it’d be 8%. Dang…</p>

7

<p>Crap.</p>

<p>Now that it’s over, I feel bad for my little brother who has to do all this next year… it’s only going to get worse, eh?</p>

8

<p>This sucks for me…it’s gonna be even lower next year.</p>

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<p>"7.1 percent of applicants were accepted to the Class of 2012, according to figures the Admissions Office released yesterday. Just under 9 percent were admitted last year. </p>

<p>This year, 1,948 high school seniors will receive big envelopes from the admissions office—110 fewer than last year. </p>

<p>The admitted students were selected from a pool of 27,462 applicants, reflecting an 18-percent increase from 22,955 last year. </p>

<p>A record 11 percent of the admitted students come from African American backgrounds. Over 18.5 percent are Asian American, 9.7 percent are Latino, and 1.3 percent are Native American. Just over half of the admitted students are women. …</p>

<p>Fitzsimmons said that the admissions office might be relying more than usual on the waitlist—which numbers in the “many hundreds”—to fill up the Class of 2012. </p>

<p>“Honestly, nobody knows what’s going to happen,” he said. “No matter how many mathematical models one might use, there’s just too much uncertainty.”…</p>

<p>The socioeconomic makeup of the Class of 2012 is not yet clear, partially as a result of the elimination of early action, which made many families less anxious to get in their financial aid forms early, according to Fitzsimmons…</p>

<p>As of now, over 25 percent of the Class of 2012 is eligible for Harvard’s old financial aid program, which eliminates tuition costs for families earning under $60,000. </p>

<p>The average financial aid package this year is about $40,000, close to 78 percent of the total cost of attendance…"
[The</a> Harvard Crimson :: News :: College Admissions Rate Drops to 7.1%](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=522754]The”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=522754)
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10

<p>A later article I saw </p>

<p>[Bloomberg.com:</a> U.S.](<a href=“Bloomberg Politics - Bloomberg”>Bloomberg Politics - Bloomberg) </p>

<p>shows that Harvard’s educated guess is a yield of 85 percent. That’s amazing.</p>

11

<p>An 85% yield expectation doesn’t surprise me. With the average financial aid’s being $40 k a year at what is often regarded as the world’s most desireable university, I actually expect Harvard to have an even higher yield.</p>

<p>It will be interesting to see where students go who turn it down. Unlike previous years, I doubt that many will take the lucrative merit aid packages that places like Wake Forest and Emory offer.</p>

<p>I also think that the financial benefits will make it unlikely that H will lose many to MIT or CalTech.</p>

<p>And fun in the Stanford sun won’t seem very appealing if parents have to pay big bucks for their student to enjoy that nice weather.</p>

<p>I’m projecting a yield of 90%.</p>

12

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<p>Then it’s housing crunch time, because Harvard did dare to admit more students by the end of the admission round than it has freshman dorm spaces. I too would actually have planned on the basis of an even higher yield figure, knowing that there is a large number of outstanding students on the waiting list. If Harvard gets the number of enrolled freshmen it desires from the regular round admitted pool, the admission office staff is going to look even more like geniuses than they already do. It’s a tough year to make a prediction in.</p>

13

<p>Yes, I’m expecting that the housing crunch will continue, and next year’s admission rates will be even lower.</p>

14

<p>Here’s the Harvard News Office’s article:</p>

<p>[A</a> record pool leads to a record-low admission rate — The Harvard University Gazette](<a href=“http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2008/04.03/99-admissions.html]A”>http://www.news.harvard.edu/gazette/2008/04.03/99-admissions.html)</p>

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15

<p>How many people in the waitlist?
Is it about 10% of the applicants?</p>

16

<p>An 85% yield of the kids they accepted leaves the class size within 20 of last year’s. They’d better hope they don’t get 90% or they’ll be sleeping out in the Yard!</p>

<p>My guesstimates had a yield of 88.5% and 1850 admits (1637 freshmen), then 13 from the waitlist to get to 1650.</p>

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<p>[The</a> Harvard Crimson :: News :: College Admissions Rate Drops to 7.1%](<a href=“http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=522754]The”>http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=522754)</p>

18

<p>This has been posted already…</p>

19

<p>The Bloomberg News article </p>

<p><a href=“Bloomberg Politics - Bloomberg”>Bloomberg Politics - Bloomberg; </p>

<p>shows how much Harvard has had to think about what its yield might be. </p>

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20

<p>I would be extremely surprised if their yield is as high as 85% (and I don’t think they think it will be either). Given that they over-admitted the last two years, and that yield is harder to predict this year given the elimination of early admissions and the new financial aid policy, they erred on the side of conservatism. At the same time, they increased their wait list and they’ve made clear that they expect to be using their wait list more heavily this year than in prior years.</p>

<p>In the past, the yield from the early admits has been close to 90%, with the RD yield in the low 70’s, for a blended average of about 80%, so one would expect that eliminating early admissions would hurt yield. This may be offset by the extension of their financial aid initiative, and the two countervailing factors do make yield prediction difficult. But I think they’d be happy to match the overall 80% level that they’ve reached the last few years. Which would mean admitting close to 100 students off the wait list to meet their enrollment target.</p>

<p>Bottom line is that I think there’s some real hope this year for those of you who remain on the wait list.</p>