How many empty slots for new students at a given school?

GMTplus7 · February 20, 2013, 8:27am

There was interest on another thread about how many empty slots there are for new students for a given school, so I thought it would be useful to post a fuller picture here.

Some considerations:

This calculation only applies to BS that are 9-12+PG. So for schools like Groton which have lower grades, don’t use this.
The class typically expands significantly in size from 9th to 10th grade. The percentage of 9th graders in a school can range from 15%-20%, so for simplicity my calculation assumes 17% 9th graders. The expansion from 10th to 11th and from 11th to 12th+PG is comparatively small.
There is enrollment attrition. In the calculation I assume that 2% of the kids drop out before they advance to the next grade
All int’l students are boarders
Less selective schools may not be as picky about maintaining their demographic distribution, so this picture may not apply to them

So here is my estimation of number of VACANCIES for a school with 1100 total students, with 15% intl & 20% day students. To estimate the number of BOY slots and GIRL slots, you have to divide all these numbers by 2.

Grade%kids#kidsnewkidsnew+2%intldaydomesticboarding
9th17%1871871872837122
10th25%2758892141860
11th28%30833355723
12+PG30%330222335___15

TOTAL100%1100________3365067___219

***** THIS IS A ROUGH PICTURE OF THE DISTRIBUTION and not to be taken as accurate numbers!!! ***** 
Overprinting these numbers are diversity targets for race, socio-economic status, geography, talent/athletes, legacies & siblings.

Be aware that these numbers are an estimate of VACANCIES. The number of applicants that a school admits will be greater than the number of vacancies, because the school knows that not every applicant will accept its offer of admission. The percentage of admitted students that accept the offer and enroll is called the YIELD RATE.

After years and years of going through the admissions cycle, BS’s have a fairly good idea of what to expect for their yield rate. A “popular” school like Andover will have a high yield rate, ~75%. This means that if there are 122 vacancies for 9th grade domestic boarders, they will divide 122 by 75% and send out approximately 162 acceptance letters for 9th grade domestic boarders, anticipating that only 75% will enroll and the remaining 25% will go elsewhere. The real situation is more complex, but this estimate gives you a rough idea.

Sometimes schools overestimate their yield and not enough admitted applicants decide to enroll. Then the school will draw from their Wait List. Typically, a 9th grade male boarding vacancy will be filled by someone on the WL who is also a 9th grade male boarder. The goal is to maintain a diversity balance of male:female, day:boarding, domestic:intl.

If a school underestimates its yield and too many admitted applicants decide to enroll, then the school scrambles to find beds. Double rooms are turned into triples…

ChoatieMom · February 20, 2013, 9:20am

GMT: I’d like to add another layer to your interesting breakdown that supports even further why applicants should cast a wide net. Your numbers represent a pretty good picture for one of the larger schools. I’d like to give you an example from Choate for the 2011-2012 admission cycle for which our son applied. Choate has over 800 students on campus, so we thought there were roughly 200 students per grade, meaning that our son was competing for one of about 100 seats (given the fairly even male/female split). Nope. Because students are added each year, there were actually only 56 male and 56 female slots for incoming ninth graders that round*. If you break those 56 seats down further into foreign/domestic, in state/out of state, full pay/FA (70/30), boarder/day, sibling, legacy, URM, hooked (athletes), then all the rest, you get a pretty sober view of how many “actual” seats your student is realistically competing for. In our case, I think DS was probably considered for only one in ten of those “vacant” seats.

Your data approximates vacancies, but those vacancies are more nuanced than the raw numbers show.

*As an aside, we were astonished when Northfield Mount Hermon told us they had only 88 seats (44 male/44 female) for incoming ninth graders that same year.

Periwinkle · February 20, 2013, 9:49am

It gets more nuanced still. Schools are sometimes off in their estimates of yield. As far as I know, they find beds for kids if more accept than forecast. However, if they end up with 15 more girls than planned for, the next year there will be fewer slots available for girls.

PxAlaska · February 20, 2013, 10:16am

I was speaking to an AO from SPS back in December and he told me they have been accepting more students lately. He says instead of turning down qualified students, they make rooms. Namely large singles → doubles. Large doubles → triples. As the years go by this probably can’t continue. I wonder if they’ll build an extra dorm building or start denying more people.

UKgirl23 · February 20, 2013, 10:42am

Do schools generally accept less than the estimated yield, to minimise their chances of ‘scrambling for beds’? Accepting people off the waitlist seems a lot easier! I’ve recently been struck by how much yields vary; since offers went out in December, Westminster (UK) has had a 100% yield this year, so not luck for those on the waitlist, but a schol my brother’s appying to has around a 30% yield. I had thought that all schools would have a roughly similar yield, as applicants will apply to schools of a similar range, meaning that basically all schools will be the top choice for some people, and the bottom/safety for others, but I guess this isn’t the case.
Also, I had assumed that schools wouldn’t know if current pupils were leaving by the time they offered places to new pupils for that grade. Will they just guess that a few will, or are they more likely to offer these places to people on the waitlist later?

GMTplus7 · February 20, 2013, 10:46am

Caveats from my original post:

*** THIS IS A ROUGH PICTURE OF THE DISTRIBUTION and not to be taken as accurate numbers!!! ***

Overprinting these numbers are diversity targets for race, socio-economic status, geography, talent/athletes, legacies & siblings.

The real situation is more complex, but this estimate gives you a rough idea.

kidsparent · February 20, 2013, 11:05am

The numbers seem in line with what we were told last year by the admissions staff at Exeter. Exeter has about 1100 students, including PG’s and we were told, in round numbers, that they had about 150 slots to fill with 9th grade boarders, from a pool of about 1500 applications that met this profile. That would equate to 75 boys and 75 girls.

I think Exeter may take a larger 10th grade class than you accounted for, or the other delta may be due to “prefilled” slots rather than the general pool.

I definitely recall the ratio for this pool was 10/1 or a 10% chance mathematically. I do not know the current yield, but it can’t make the chance of acceptance much different than 13%.

GMTplus7 · February 20, 2013, 11:19am

@kidsparent,

The %kids per grade is a composite of different schools’ stats. It would be better if I could upload an Excel spreadsheet so people could put in accurate stats to reflect a particular school.

The takeaway from my generic table is that, as Choatiemom wrote:

An applicant is only eligible for a specific bucket of vacancies

RuralMama · February 20, 2013, 12:37pm

@UKGirl: We’ve already had to send off our deposit for next year. The schools pretty much know by now who is coming back and who isn’t.

mountainhiker · February 20, 2013, 12:58pm

Not all schools expand the class size greatly from 9th to 10th grade. I can share some pretty specific numbers for Thacher:

Each year, the freshman class is approx. 29 girls and 29 boys, including about 10% day students (primarily families that live in Ojai). Sophomore year, they add approx. 4 girls and 4 boys. It is pretty unusual for Thacher to admit new juniors, but it does happen. Last year, I believe the admit rate was 12%, and yield was 84%.

alooknac · February 20, 2013, 8:23pm

This is just a hunch on my part, but I think most schools get a lot more applicants for 10th grade vs. 9th grade, so the odds of admission to 9th grade may be a little better than some of the assumptions above.

My hunch is based on remarks by at least one AO and the fact that generally the classes do expand greatly between 9th and 10th (at most eastern BS anyway). A lot of kids just aren’t ready for BS or the application process in 8th grade. Still others need to experience a year at their local school to know they want something different. I can think of lots more reasons.

I did not realize ahead of time that at my D’S school, the class size about doubles, but I’m glad she got in on the ground floor and has been able to get to know all her classmates and then next year she will get to know the new kids.

MBVLoveless · March 6, 2013, 2:39pm

Great thread.

PxAlaska · March 6, 2013, 5:51pm

More applicants for 10th grade than 9th? I don’t believe that. I agree with your reasoning that (in my opinion) living away from home at 14 is still pretty tough. But I think there are equal if not more 9th grade applicants.

AmbiD77 · March 6, 2013, 9:40pm

I’ll second that!! :D

How many empty slots for new students at a given school?

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