@bernie12 @sagacious97
It is still quite evident that they will be pushing sophomores to Clairmont Campus. Also If they only accepted 133 more people to fill a financial gap, according to their avg yield rates of the past that’s 33-40 more students. Certainly not enough in any tuition dollars to fill any gap. It seems more likely that they expected yield rates to in fact decrease due to the increase in applications. Maybe they thought more students were applying to more universities. My evidence for this is that Georgia Tech, Georgetown, UVA, Tufts, Michigan, and may other institution at or near Emory’s caliber accepted more students than they did last year despite the increase in applications. Do all of these other Universities have financial gaps? Most likely no and the article you provided @bernie12 doesn’t provide any evidence as to why displacement was occurring or the reason for increased enrollment. It seems as though Emory assumed yield would drop because theoretically every peer school received more apps from the same (top 5%) students. I can say for a fact that Georgia Tech is having yield issues for this year especially for Mechanical engineering, so Tech was right in their assumption that their yield would decrease with increasing apps. Seems as though Emory was wrong in having the same assumption as yield either stayed constant or increased noticeably which is a good thing as it probably indicates some increase in the infamous “prestige”.
@anonymouss123
I cannot imagine it being much affected but I could be wrong. I think that a different set of rules may apply to transfers with regards to whether or not they stay on campus. Also, at the end of the day, if Emory wants to fill any enrollment gaps from retention issues, it will use transfer admissions to do so, and the retention rate is pretty consistent I believe at 95%. For this year, I would expect a similar admit rate (don’t know or remember what it is) for transfers (but Emory has traditionally been on the high end for privates), but maybe for next year, not as much because the retention issue is kind of mitigated by the larger class size.
@VANDEMORY1342 : No, but I doubt it is a TEMPORARY increase. If you increase by that amount starting next year, and continue that enrollment level, you do benefit from extra tuition dollars over time especially of these additional matriculates are at least near full pay. This is normal. They want more money. Whether there is a gap or not is speculation (however, College still has financial issues), but the dean told folks that they WANTED a higher enrollment (why would they release public evidence of this). They will likely pull from the wait-list. Not a big deal. Let us not be so idealistic to think they simply had a model that under-estimated yield by that much this year. They desired something much more than a higher yield which I doubt they would get this year at least.
Emory’s yield has been flat and yet the incoming class sizes have increased substantially since I entered in 2008 (I am an alum). The undergraduate population is about 1,000 more strong whereas more peers have stayed roughly the same. Oxford has grown a lot too. I doubt they just did it for kicks and by accident. You will not find proof of “why” but let us not be too rosy and acknowledge that Emory College was struggling financially after the recession like many other places. The budget and departmental cuts, and increased enrollment numbers add up over time and present a rational solution.
@VANDEMORY1342 : If you are a current Emory student, you can go onto the College governance webpage and you can see some of the minutes for say, the college senate. Even this year, they are still concerned about the financial health of the college. So let us say I embrace the rosey idea that Emory simply under-estimated its level interest and that the faculty I talked to lied. The college no doubt appreciates this increase. Do not under-estimate the fact of a “small amount” of tuition revenue especially if propagated over years.
@bernie12 I have a hard time believing Emory’s financial health is stark with an endowment of almost 6 billion+. Cornell has an enrollment that is 7,000 more with an endowment of 4 billion+. But i am interested, Do you know where one can find more of this info? The senate page just gives info on meeting dates.
@VANDEMORY1342 : the COLLEGE is the largest undergraduate unit and it, law, and business struggle versus peer entities and of course versus other entities within the university. Go to giving at Emory to see how the endowment is spread among the different units. Small Liberal Arts Colleges have better endowments than Emory College. And several peers with similar endowments have better endowments for the arts and letters unit.
http://www.emory.edu/home/giving/where-to-give/index.html
It is more about the allocation of monies vs. the budget of each entity. Some of the units are doing FAR better than others as expected. Emory Healthcare and the medical school comprise an extremely large portion of the endowment as is common at schools with large and powerful academic medical centers (there has been a movement for certain universities to essentially separate themselves financially from their healthcare system). The state of Emory College is nothing new.
Which portion of UC Berkeley (also a quite large endowment) do you think saw the most struggle after the California state budget cuts? Bet on it being the Arts and Letters portion.
There are two problems with your analysis.
- There's no evidence that the additional students being admitted are full pay.
- You've cited no evidence, even if the additional students are full pay, that full pay tuition covers the cost of undergraduate education at Emory or anywhere else.
- There's no evidence that the revenue associated with additional students exceeds the costs associated with additional students (e.g. additional teachers, additional housing, additional food, etc.). This is especially true at Oxford where there's really no additional housing at the moment for a big increase in enrollment.
@bernie12 Makes more sense but still needs more questioning. I was under the impression that University entities were more collaborative. Money was shared between each other. If Emory medical school has such a strangle hold on endowment it should be ranked higher than what it is IMHO. And UCB does not have a large Endowment for its size, 1billon+ to be exact.
@FourScoreFour: There is indeed no evidence on paper, but we traditionally know that universities rely on tuition dollars to help raise revenue (it is not a sustainable model and usually does not make a profit, but I can imagine it as helping to mitigate the fact that very expensive schools must discount many of the matriculates). And no, you cannot bank on the extra matriculates being full pay, but in a situation where the administration desires a higher enrollment, this would certainly be ideal. Oxford actually does have several recent hires and has expressed interest in growing the enrollment overall and not just the yield (and it has grown substantially) well before now. Part of the new construction, renovations, and the other housing they built suggest this. Emory has been doing this(helping raise more revenue) through increasing various summer programs and I believe increasing enrollment steadily over time even without an increase in the amount of housing available to sophomores (there is evidence that they had a desire to deal with the increase. I wonder if older capital project documents are available because they were planning to build additional sophomore housing near Woodruff. The dorm next to Woodruff was supposed to come down eventually). So they likely want to deal with the increase, but I am just saying that they seem to really desire this increase. I doubt they were accidental
The only evidence I can provide is that Emory College is still concerned about increasing its financial health: https://secure.web.emory.edu/college/governance/committees/college-senate/index.php
If you have access, go to the March minutes for the college senate where they discuss some issues with the board of trustees members. They were asked on the spot about the issue of the College’s health.
I could only suspect that increases in enrollment over the years fit nicely into this picture. It doesn’t solve the problem completely but anything it helps. I am going based upon what I know or have read about the colleges financial struggles.
Oxford also had many of their minutes available before the switch to the new improved website (very nice!).
Regardless, you all seemed so concerned about why I am preposing this. It isn’t to bash Emory. It is just to suggest that they have incentive to continue to raise the enrollment and this is unlikely to just be a severe miscalculation on the adcom’s part. Emory has been admitting steadily increasing amounts of students for maybe the past 3-4 cycles. This was not the only year. Even when it hit 20k the first time, it admitted more than the lower previous years. That is not the best yield increasing tactic, but it does increase or keep higher enrollment levels (without changing the yield). This kind of just is what it is, but I do not suspect it will affect transfer access right away at least.
Basically, whatever you see today is just a continuation of the trend started maybe in 2012. There was an ECAS self-study report (released in 2015) that you can look at that describes the “modest” increase in enrollment I describe as a way to mitigate the financial challenges. Nothing is new:
"The financial story of the College is simultaneously a story of success
and a story of tremendous challenge. Since the time of the last self-study, the College has
absorbed unprecedented increases in financial aid expenses while maintaining its sense of
ambition and momentum. This section provides an overview of the steps we have taken
to meet these expenses, including holding faculty salaries to small increases, receiving
support from the central administration, and increasing student enrollment modestly. "
So if I am wrong about the reasoning for this current increase. I am betting that no one in the college is firing anyone in admissions if this is indeed a “bad” outcome for a usual reliable model. Up until now, it has indeed been deliberate. I don’t necessarily think it is bad. But Emory will have to strengthen the endowment and finances of the college if it wants to deal with this correctly.
@VANDEMORY1342 : Well you are talking in a U.S. context. UCB has a strong endowment of about 4.something billion. I do not know how it is allocated among units though. Also, keep in mind that a place like UCB may be like Duke where they have access to another endowment that goes unreported with the rest of the endowment, but most of the top 20s, even the publics are very wealthy in terms of total endowment. And yes, medical centers are sometimes issues financially. It is a tricky balance. I think Sterk may want to do another campaign soon, and I hope the college can have a bigger emphasis in it.
@bernie12 I have no idea of these minutes you speak of.
@VANDEMORY1342 : You mean “had”, well now you know 
. Check the documents and materials sections of each category. And you have access to whatever they show.
It is a key way I keep up with Emory (especially if I want an unfiltered view of what is happening). You learn some very interesting things and get an idea of how highered works. Believe me, I am not bashing Emory. Emory reflects the situation many even elite schools are in (maybe you remember the whole Virginia situation where the chancellor was blunt about the state of affairs at UVA and her fellow colleagues basically ousted her for being so public and open about it). I would argue that most places are just much better at hiding stuff.
@bernie12
Thanks Im not able to view them right now. But can u give a synopsis? Are they working on new investments. You can direct message me. I think we derailed this thread enough already.
Meanwhile 2 more days until we receive results!!!
Decisions are gonna be May 2nd at 3PM. I’m sooooo nervous
so nervous
It’s seriously going to suck so much if this is the one year that they have a low transfer acceptance rate.
Real talk tho, why is this thread dead?
i really really hope not … @Dontskipthemoose
Good luck everyone!