@bluebayou Based on postings here on CC Boston University offered guaranteed sophomore transfer to a lot of applicants this past year. As for how many actually transfer I have noticed many students reporting here that they are transferring to Cornell from BU, BC and Northeastern among others schools.based on this offer. The lure of an Ivy League degree is hard to turn down for some, even if it is from the UC Merced of the Ivy League. 
well done, Tom. 
But seriously, I was asking about the actual numbers of transfers to understand better whether this is actual gaming or not. For example, if only 5 students accept the GTO and move to Ithaca, it would have zero affect on Cornellâs stats should these kids have been accepted as a Fall Frosh. Thus, in such a case, no gaming. OTOH, if the number of GTO transfers is in the hundredsâŠ
@bluebayou A quick search of Cornellâs website did not show how many applicants were offered guaranteed transfer nor how many actually transferred. I didnât expect to find that information there.
Drumming up lots of applications with fee waivers, marketing and no supplemental essays has been mentioned. But adding EA is another factor. And if to be considered for honors programs and certain scholarships you have to apply EA, that drums up even more apps. There are a couple of schools that get a lot of EA apps from kids at our high school, but they are really being used as safe options, and once they get into one of their top choices, ED or EA, the acceptance is declined or the app is pulled. But that school gets to count the app in its number. If that school had no EA and just ED and RD, number of apps would drop significantly
It may have been mentioned, but not sure how/why this is gaming. Total number of applications to a school is not a rating factor in USNews.
Admission Rate is a factor in USNews (10% of 12.5%, or 1.25% of total), so a school would want to have a smaller admit rate (i.e., appearing more selective) as opposed to admitting a bunch of kids (with easy apps) that have no intention of attending.
And early apps do exactly that, particularly binding ED.
If school juices applications it totally helps. They arenât letting them in. they are saying no to the vast majority. More applications and same number of admissions equals higher selectivity score.
@privatebanker And a more academically qualified student body.
Usually Case makes extensive use of the waitlist because they are careful about housingâŠbut this year they had so many people enroll that they actually offered admittance to the people that would usually be waitlist admits for next years class.
One of my friendâs son was spring admitted to BU in the College of General Studies at full priceâŠI am sure BU says âSure, if you want to pay, you can come to BU but we know you need supportââŠI strongly encouraged the student to consider the direct admit into another university that he got a direct admite into the cyber security program with a scholarshipâŠhe was still tempted by Boston and the BU repuation but came to his senses.
And if any of the additional applicants are âbetterâ (whether in the general sense, or in the sense that specifically helps rankings like high test scores and high class rank), they can be admitted instead of those who would otherwise be at the lower end of the admit group.
The Cornell Common Data Set shows the overall number of transfers (614)
http://irp.dpb.cornell.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/CDS_2017-2018-v5.pdf
@ucbalumnus That of course is true but with 20 percent acceptance rates or 10% the percrntages rejected will do more to the equation than the smaller percentage that replaces the existing group, usually highly motivated and aligned with school admissions qualifications. But I am sure at the margins there are improvements to overall quality.
@bluebayou Drumming up a lot of applications can help in the ratings game because more applications usually result in a lower admit rate. So when Colby gave fee waivers it saw apps rise and admit rate drop, Bates dropped the essay last cycle and apps rose significantly, and UChicago with their mass mail campaign drives apps up too, and they really care about their low admit rate.
Frosh retention, 4 year grad rate and 6 year grad rate are also significant parts of the USNWR formula.
So doing spring admits and transfer admits gets those kids âoff-the-booksâ in a few ways.
First, it keeps those âotherâ enrollees out of the selectivity stats.
Second, I think it also keeps those kids out of the retention/grad rate stats. Since retention/graduation is always higher with stronger students, youâll do better if you are counting the stronger students.
For example, BU starts with 3,498 fall frosh enrollees. Times 4 would be 13,992 undergrads.
BU reports 16,349 total undergrads. So a ânetâ growth in enrollment of 2,357 from kids who arrive after first fall semester.
The private school king of transfers I believe is USC, although part of that (to be fair) reflects the common path in CA of going to CC/junior college first.
âAnd if any of the additional applicants are âbetterâ (whether in the general sense, or in the sense that specifically helps rankings like high test scores and high class rank), they can be admitted instead of those who would otherwise be at the lower end of the admit group.â
But accepting âbetterâ kids only helps your numbers if they wind up enrolling. If all those high stat-ers end up enrolling at Harvard, your numbers get diluted. So to get the desire-able kids to ENROLL, you need to deploy ED/SCEA/REA and/or merit schollies. Or you defer the top kids (Tufts Syndrome) until you can figure out that they are really interested.
End of the day, YIELD is the thing that drives the selectivity bus more than anything.
For that reason, many (including me) have observed that you can get to a pretty decent approximation of most ranking systems by simply looking at yield or YTAR (yield to admit ratio). With a few odd duck exceptions (Nebraska, Berea, BYU, etc.) a list of yield or YTAR gets you a pretty decent list of prestigiosity rank.
Of course, colleges can try to game such a measure with the âlevel of interestâ game (increasing yield rate while reducing admit rate).
I seriously doubt that increasing the number of applications is resulting in âbetterâ applicants, especially if they way a school is doing it is by mass marketing efforts, application fee waivers, and limiting essays. For example, I think the latter two are much more likely to result in weaker students applying. They realize that their odds of getting accepted are low, but hey, itâs free and they donât have to put any additional effort into the application. Why not apply?
I think it can, at least to a small extent, in that the school can attract high stats kids to use the school as their likely (safety) school instead of a peer school. As we all know, a few of those kids are going to end up at one of their likely schools. Most of the applicants are likely to be weaker candidates or students who will matriculate to another school but all it takes is a few matriculants with strong stats to make the school look better.
I know my kids applied to a couple of likely schools just because it was easy. There was no supplemental essay or application fee so they checked the box on the Common App without much thought. Had disaster befallen their application and they werenât admitted to the schools about which they were serious one of these schools might have come into play.
I think YTARâs a generally OK rule of thumb, nothing more. My reasons are here:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/19971064/#Comment_19971064