I think everyone wants to use yield protection to justify why they didn’t get in.
Maybe there are other reasons they didn’t get in.
Schools look at various things - including who can fund (those that are need aware).
It’s not just - I have great grades and a great test and many AP and therefore i’m in.
Sure, for “full need” schools that aren’t “need blind” need can be an important consideration (and certainly something for applicants to keep in mind). But GTech does not promise to meet full need (no publics do as far as I am aware), so that shouldn’t be a factor - unless they yield protect.
Of course! I always scratch my head when people are surprised “average excellent” students get rejected. The harsh reality is there are 15,000 NMFs graduating every year.
But it can be a very different calculus when you are looking at a student that has a legitimate claim on being one of the top 100 in the nation.
Colleges know who they are. There aren’t enough of them to go around. And yet schools concerned with yield may take a pass.
Could be a bit of both. I do think one thing people also forget too is that they really do score you (on their top-secret rubric–they all have one) based on your context and what is available to you in that context. If they see that you went to an incredibly well-resourced 30K per year private school (and there’s nothing in the application to show that you are a scholarship kid who takes the train in from the bad side of town) in a nice area who went to expensive Duke or Harvard summer programs, they are going to have certain expectations and those are going to be different from the kid in a rural town of a rural state who has to work and whose public school is lucky to be able to find someone who can teach pre-cal. I believe this is the case because more and more students are invoking their right to see their admission files and posting those online or making videos about them and the comments from the readers definitely discuss context, as in “This student ranks as a 1 academically based on the courses available in her context.” Or, “based on context, this student could have taken a more rigorous course load…”
Here’s a 2001 WSJ article on the matter:
Glass Floor: Colleges Reject Top Applicants, Accepting Only the Students Likely to Enroll
https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB991083160294634500
“Colleges once aimed to admit the best applicants and reserved their waiting lists for marginal ones. But today, more and more colleges – particularly those just below elite status – reject students they consider overqualified, consigning to their waiting lists those applicants whom they suspect will snub them for a better offer.”
Full text: https://archive.is/6w6hG
I have seen this a few years now at Ga Tech, in that the strongest students from our high school get waitlisted, while those lower get admitted, and in one case even got Stamps. By strongest students I am including those that were admitted to 3+ HYPSMs.
Are these multiple anecdotes definitive proof? No, but I advise students from our school that Ga Tech is much more of a crapshoot than several colleges with lower admit rates.
I don’t know. The top 100 hs football players are offered by tens of schools.
I’m not a huge believer in yield protection overall. Asking someone to go to ed2 counters this though. . But even so some highly regarded schools are 15-20%.
I’m sure I’m Maryland kids apply to UMD but also PSU u del. Rutgers
In the south UGA but also UF, Bama, u of SC, Clemson, Auburn, UTK.
You can only choose one.
That certainly doesn’t make sense! All I can think of is that we had geography on our side (very few kids from Oklahoma attend GT). She’s a girl and has had four years of engineering classes (all A’s) already? I’m really sorry-- that’s quite a blow and I’ve learned quickly that these super competitive slots are almost like looking into a crystal ball about who gets in and/or aid.
Yup. That’s what UChicago is notorious for.
Many privates.
So I get that
But do they sit in RD and say Johnny is from a wealthy zip code. He didn’t ED. he’s not coming. Reject ?
I’d hope not
But businesses they are. Businesses hire agencies to help target. Colleges likely do as well
My DD24 is writing her Chicago LOCI as I type this. Due tonight. Deferral. These schools absolutely know what “types” of schools our kids are applying to given their stats, interests and profiles and in the case of Chicago, they also know our finances (CSS was due their November 15)-- we are need based aid there and it really looked like a massive amount of public school Chicago, International and QuestBridge admissions in the first EA/ED round. None of which Chicago has to pay for them to attend. It’s a game of chicken in may ways-- especially for either the self-pay domestic kids or the need based/merit aid based kids.
I think that’s exactly what they do. The elite privates take the “other pay” kids (Questbridge and International kids) and the wealthy/elite boarding school kids who apply ED first. So, in their first round of admissions/deferrals/rejects, the institution is out exactly no foundation money to have these kids attend.
According to Who Gets in and Why, kinda?
So, things are different for in state kids at public schools. They have an obligation to their tax payers to admit as many qualified kids as they can. Of course, at a popular school like UMD in a more densely populated state like Maryland, many in state kids won’t get in, but that’s because there isn’t enough space. But I am not aware of any public school yield managing in state kids. In fact, that’s why yield numbers are typically so much lower at these flagships.
Why not? I was under an impression that everything over the paltry state/federal grants is covered by the participating colleges.
But yeah, they still do want those kids for demographic purposes.
…DS20 applied EA to MIT, Caltech (it was not yet restrictive EA back then), and UChicago. Guess which one deferred him:)
Absolutely. Especially given the fact most of the OOS students are self-pay. What was the EA in state GA rate?
Because those applicants are either self-pay or their tuition is paid for (in part) by a cooperative multi-institute, government supported cooperative. International students have to show proof of fundings before accepting admission. Wealthy families don’t qualify for need based aid at these schools. Family income threshold is $125,000 for tuition assistance (at least it is at Chicago).
This makes me feel a little bit more hopeful. I don’t think we were yield protected, but Ga Tech had some other reason besides grades/scores/coursework to pass, and hoping other colleges like what they see even if Tech didn’t. 
I think there’s a difference between enrollment management and yield protection, which I read as rejecting highly qualified applicants because they don’t think they are going to go there. Certainly all schools use some sort of enrollment management, including varying yield rates from in-state or out of state, different parts of the country, different high schools, etc.
Georgia Tech out of state early acceptance rate was 9% this year. That has been the historical early action acceptance rate for MIT or thereabouts. When you have two separate schools with very similar acceptance rates and similar applicants (MIT is always one of the top schools where accepted and enrolled GT students were also admitted) I think yield protection is a stretch.
Agree. I think some people on here are just trying to use yield protection as an excuse of sorts to explain to themselves why they did not get in. Sure it happens sometimes, but not at schools like GT. Applicants of any stat level would be happy to go here, so they most likely don’t yield protect.
Since debating is against forum rules, I’m moving on.
As for where a student from the northeast who has no cost constraints would choose to go if admitted to both MIT and GT as a math major, I’ll leave that as an exercise for readers.