<p>tokenadult: Exactly! It’s also good practice for interacting with admissions reps. Lots of introductions, handshaking, asking questions, all that.</p>
<p>poster said–
Colleges with very low yield don’t need to be shown the love because they don’t really worry about a low yield and accept the fact that they are a safety school for thousands. It’s the schools in between that are needy for love.</p>
<p>what is the working definition, or thresholds, of ‘high yield’ and ‘low yield’?</p>
<p>My working definitions (which have no basis other than my own gut feeling):
Low yield = 30% or lower
High yield = 70% or higher
It’s all the folks in the middle who “need to be shown the love.” </p>
<p>But again, I could be all wet.</p>
<p>I think this kind of thing is mostly common sense. Schools with low yields want higher ones, so they accept students who they think are likely to enroll. Schools with high yields, like the Ivies, know they can pick and choose from the cream of the crop.</p>
<p>One thing that does NOT necessarily show demonstrated interest is doing a school’s summer program. Very few schools are more likely to admit you if you did theirs.</p>
<p>On another note, most schools recognize that most kids aren’t wealthy enough to fly out to visit them and interview. For instance, NYU says explicitly that they don’t interview BECAUSE it would be unfair to low income families.</p>
<p>In response to Hemp (I think) who said calling multiple times is a good idea, if you go on many school’s websites right now you will find notices along the lines of, “Please do not call with admissions enquiries unless it is an emergency. Our officers are currently swamped with applications and need all the time they can get.”</p>
<p>Although written in 2005, I think this article remains helpful:
[Admissions</a> anguish: how parents and students grapple with the ever-taxing college admissions process | University Business | Find Articles at BNET.com](<a href=“http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0LSH/is_6_8/ai_n13816987/pg_1]Admissions”>http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0LSH/is_6_8/ai_n13816987/pg_1)</p>
<p>It begins addressing demonstrated interest on page two.</p>
<p>Perhaps the demonstrated interest quotient most comes into play when an applicant is extremely qualified (top 25%) for one of the just-below-ivy schools that are most sensitive to yield. Adcoms might be leary to offer an acceptance (with a high chance of being turned down) to such a desirable kid if he didn’t visit campus, but also didn’t show up at the college rep visit to his high school, or bother to sign up for an optional interview. I guess I’m suggesting, then, that kids do at least all the small, inexpensive things they can. :)</p>
<p>Most schools, from the ivies on down, can tell that a lower in their particular pool/borderline applicant is going to snap up an acceptance, based on past experience. This level applicant would have less need to demonstrate interest, I’d imagine. But at the highest rung, even Harvard doesn’t want to lose a stellar admit to Princeton–so for such a super desirable kid, showing strong interest in a school (in their Why Harvard? answer, say) might make a difference. I guess I’m saying, demonstrated interest comes into play when adcoms evaluate their most competitive applicants. Do you agree?</p>
<p>Re: how to show interest, an interview can be a good opportunity for a student to actually tell the alum interviewer how wild the student is for the school by showing they know particular programs or professors–and it isn’t a bad idea to remind student this is a chance to make clear how interested they are. Also, sending an email update with latest awards/honors provides a great opportunity for the student to add a personal note to show enthusiasm for that particular school.</p>
<p>
No. Neither Harvard nor Princeton care about demonstrated interest. They don’t even have a mechanism to track it. You don’t sign in for tours, they don’t record telephone contacts, etc. They assume that each applicant really wants to go to the school. With a yield of 70% or better, they don’t care about interest.</p>
<p>Perhaps, Chevda, but Stanford said they, in fact, do look at the Why Stanford question very carefully in committee. In other words, while Stanford doesn’t track tours, etc, either, and couldn’t care less who is interested (assuming most are) at the point of application, they are not immune to trying to calculate who really wants to go to Stanford and guard their yield within the upper echelon of students. This was told to us by the director of admissions so I think we need to be careful when believing even these top schools don’t care–at least at the level where that decision to admit a very qualified is being made.</p>
<p>madbean, I think we may be talking about two different things.</p>
<p>No one denies that writing a well-crafted “Why Harvard” or “Why Stanford” as part of the application itself is helpful, and indeed, essential to get admitted to top schools. The entire application needs to be well-crafted.</p>
<p>However, I think this thread (or at least my answer above) dealt with ways to show the love in addition to or outside of the application itself. That’s how I define the “show us the love” or the “demonstrated interest” factor.</p>
<p>With that definition in mind, then, I think we can state that Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Stanford don’t care about “demonstrated interest” outside of the application. You don’t need to “show them the love”. You need to show them why them, that you’ve done your research and are suited to the school.</p>
<p>Other schools, however, do want you to “show them the love” outside the four corners of your application. These are the schools that track visits, e-mails, phone calls, interviews and use them as part of the application review. This would include schools such as WUSTL, Tufts and University of Rochester.</p>
<p>Ah, yes, Chevda. Sorry for the misunderstanding.</p>
<p>Although I realize it was moving off-topic, I was answering the statement that most selective colleges do not care a whit about their yield. I just wanted to share the input (and my surprise, really) that some top schools do, but again, perhaps only when they are at the point of trying to make final decisions. Another incentive for the highly qualified applicant to make those “why” answers as compelling as possible.</p>
<p>Now, back to the original thread…</p>
<p>Tip-top colleges couldn’t care less how much you want to go there. They’ve got tens of thousands of kids who would kill to go there. Schools that are good but not quite the top (WUSTL, Emory, USC, etc.) seem to consider demonstrated interest, at least in my experience.</p>
<p>The essay that indicates “Why I want to attend…” intrigues me. I’ve seen essays where students will ramble on about the history of the school and why it would be “so awesome” to go there. Really shallow stuff. What I’d like to see on this post is what substantive elements have been used to illustrate interest in the school. </p>
<p>An obvious part of the “Why I want to attend…” essay would be to find a professor on the school’s website who’s written 5 books on a particular subject, and then indicate that this professor is the GO-TO guy in the country who happens to teach exactly what you want to major in. This would demonstarte serious research of the school and indicate what all schools like to see - a right-fit for each other. Tah-dah!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Great idea for the kid who knows “exactly what you want to major in.” Then you have what I believe are the majority of kids - the ones on these boards who say, “I’m undecided! What do I do?” That doesn’t mean that the kid hasn’t researched the school or doesn’t believe it’s a good fit. It’s not as easy to show for the kid who wants to explore all sorts of subjects they’ve never seen in high school (like archaeology, astronomy, astrophysics, egyptology) or figure out what they’re interested in in depth. </p>
<p>It also doesn’t work for LACs, which are much more focused on teaching than on publishing, or for the kid who is much more concerned about the quality of the teaching than about the professor’s career. It also doesn’t show “fit” if it appears that the kid thinks she’ll be able to study with/work with the professor as an undergraduate and the school knows that there’s a snowball’s chance in hell of that happening for an undergrad.</p>
<p>Besides, saying that the professor is the GO-TO guy in the country works only if the professor is in fact the go-to guy. If the professor is a minor scholar in the field (and there are many; that’s not to put down the scholarship or the professor), and the student says he’s the go-to guy, then it shows either that the student didn’t research the school or the professor, or is simply a boot-licker.</p>
<p>Agreeing with the areas of agreement in the two preceding replies, I would say it is always a good idea for a student to think carefully about the “why college X?” essay and to come up with reasons for attending college X that match the student well.</p>
<p>surprised no one has linked to this yet:
[SSRN-A</a> Revealed Preference Ranking of U.S. Colleges and Universities by Christopher Avery, Mark Glickman, Caroline Hoxby, Andrew Metrick](<a href=“http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=601105]SSRN-A”>http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=601105)</p>
<p>read pg. 6-7: unless i’m completely off the mark, even some top schools (princeton) exhibit “tufts syndrome.”</p>
<p>Princeton claims it has changed its admission practices in that regard.</p>
<p>what’s tufts syndrome?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>“Tufts syndrome” is an informal name for the practice of denying admission to applicants whose applications are so strong that it is likely they will be admitted to a more prestigious college, where they “really want to go.” Such a practice of strategic admission to manage the college’s yield of enrolled students from among the group of admitted applicants may no longer be practiced by Tufts (that is the claim of the Tufts admission office) and may not be commonplace anywhere anymore, now that the U.S. News college rankings no longer consider yield as a ranking factor. Tufts in particular has made some reforms of its admission process under the new leadership of Robert Sternberg (formerly a professor at Yale, and a researcher on new ways to assess human talents), so perhaps it is unfair to call this presumed practice “Tufts syndrome.” The term comes from an article published in the Wall Street Journal several years ago. </p>
<p>Today the subject of this thread is whether or not there are still colleges for which it is strategic on the part of an applicant to make extra clear that the applicant is sincerely interested in that college as the applicant sends out multiple applications. Harvard (and a few other colleges) can count on enrolling the majority of the applicants that it admits. Some other colleges enroll considerably less than 33 percent of their admitted applicants. Some colleges don’t care about that issue, but perhaps some colleges still like to target their offers of admission to the applicants most likely to accept those offers and enroll. This thread raises this issue so we can discuss and try to figure out which colleges, if any anymore, are most sensitive to this issue.</p>
<p>
I believe you underestimated the number of UG students doing research nowadays. Here’s the data from the University of Washington:</p>
<p>“100% of Materials Science & Engineering majors are involved in undergraduate research;
More than 160 undergraduates currently participate in research with the Department of Physics;
Every year, 7000 undergraduates participate in research.” (note: that’s about one in four.)</p>
<p>I didn’t know they snow in hell…</p>
<p>Actually, your statistic just shows that undergraduates do research. It does not show that they do research with the preeminent scholar or the “go-to guy” in his/her field. I’d be willing to bet that the vast majority of these undergraduates are doing research under graduate students.</p>
<p>Don’t start collecting coal for your snowman yet.</p>