The UCs do not yield protect. However, UCB specifically has the most holistic admissions of any UC campus, so it’s not uncommon for UCB to admit some kids that other UCs overlook. We see this happening every year.
4 Likes
I don’t think there is yield protection in the Uc system but there seems to be a local service area bias. The CSUs explicitly state that bias in their gpa/impaction score calculations but the UCs don’t say anything of that sort. If you take a group of students who are likely to be admitted to UCLA and UCB you will see greater admit rates for NorCal kids at UCB and for SoCal kids at UCLA. For some UCs the out of state admit rate is much higher than in state rates (UCI famously). That’s again not yield protection but more about hitting a budget target.
1 Like
From what I’ve seen in past years CWRU definitely seems to defer many kids with very strong stats and obviously strong credentials. It appears to be some kind of yield protection (although my guess is that they are likely to admit your D in the RD round with similar merit). My guess is that they hope these kids will switch to ED. (And many kids with these stats have now been admitted to another school in ED and will drop out of the process.)
They deferred my D26 as well (who has stronger credentials than her brother S23 who had been admitted in the EA round), and although she was originally very interested in Case, I think she will lose interest, because even if they admit with good merit in RD, we won’t be able to schedule a trip to Cleveland on such short notice.
1 Like
Which is our situation. Once D26 got admitted ED, she really didnt care. She was like, whatever.
The more boxes you check off according to their own Institutional priorities, the less likely you’ll be admitted.
I understand they want to manage their yield, but at 15-16%, whatever they’re doing, that’s not working either.
I suspect that what we all loosely term as “yield protection” is probably a much more complicated calculation.
Out of curiosity, I checked out CWRU on Schoolinks (which, full disclosure, my D was accepted to in December, EA nursing, and it is high on her list). Based on the data in Schoolinks for my D’s particular high school – a large, midwest test-in public high school that sends a bunch of kids to CWRU every year – there does not appear to be significant yield protection. In other words, the higher the GPA and test score, the more green dots on the scattergram (although initial deferrals are not clearly indicated).
I’m not saying that CWRU (and Tulane and others) are not actively engaging in “yield protection” when it comes to @CFP ‘s kid and others. Just that there are probably a lot more variables than that one individual student’s stats (such as high school, location, major, etc.) that probably go into the calculus. Last month, my D was deferred from TCU’s nursing program, and her stats are well above the 75th percentile mark there. We are not sure why, but she did a LOCI and moved on.
I can understand colleges trying to guess which students are most likely to accept offers. What I have a harder time understanding are schools like Michigan and Texas that defer the vast majority of EA applicants. To what end? Today on The College Navigators Instagram page, she said that last year Michigan accepted 7,000 kids EA, rejected 7,000, and deferred 53,000. They can’t possibly reevaluate 53,000 applications. Why not cut more kids loose? UT Austin was the same (accepted 5,000 EA and deferred like 90,000). Does anyone understand the rationale here?
3 Likes
It’s possible D26 couldve gotten accepted in the regular round and/or they look at past history that shows the tippy top students at a highly competitive New England school may not attend given how many other options there are in the area. But Id still say that’s a form of yield protection but it doesnt matter.
I think they have too many applications and just not enough time to go through them so they’re deferring to buy time and just rejecting the ones who aren’t meeting their academic benchmarks.
2 Likes
Oh, I totally agree that it’s yield protection. My point was only that it’s probably (hopefully?) a more thoughtful calculation than high stats = defer.
Re: Michigan et al, I get that deferral buys them 8 more weeks. But they also have another (40,000?) RD application to get through too. Keeping kids on the bubble makes sense to me, but it doesn’t seem possible that 53,000 EA applicants are either on the bubble or haven’t had their applications reviewed yet.
I remember last year, UT EA was a disaster as people seemed to get decisions in waves. I dont think all these students are on the bubble. I think their apps just haven’t been reviewed. I know it sounds crazy.
2 Likes
Michigan is unfolding similarly this year, with weird unpredictable waves, in part due to implementing ED for the first time. It feels very chaotic.
I posted this on the Miami Ohio thread, but sharing it here - D26 was notified tonight that she was a finalist for their presidential fellows scholarship. It’s a full ride plus a one-time $5K stipend toward study abroad, research, etc.
They select about 65 to 70 students as finalists, then choose up to 15 of those to receive the award. To compete, the student has to attend a mandatory Scholars weekend on Feb 15-16. (Miami provides hotel and up to $300 plane ticket for student and guest.)
The weekend consists of interviews of various kinds, receptions with the president, essays and “scholarly response” scenarios, whatever that means. I don’t know that my kid is any good in high pressure situations like this.
We talked at length about what D26 wanted to do, especially since we already had plane tickets booked for another college visit those days. She thought it would be silly NOT to pursue it.
I am conflicted – I have some reservations about Miami Ohio, and I’m trying VERY hard to keep my mouth shut and let D26 run this show. (Does it make sense to choose it over the “better” schools she’s gotten into, even with a full ride? Is the lack of diversity and political bent of the area a deal-breaker? Is the Greek and party reputation plus the rural setting a problem?)
But we’re going to go and see what happens. From what I read, even if she isn’t awarded the presidential, she could still score a pretty big scholarship from attending the weekend.
27 Likes
Fabulous, whatever the final decision/outcome!
3 Likes
Amazing that she was chosen. I don’t think there’s any downside to attending and seeing what happens. It would be great practice to do the interviews regardless of what she ultimately ends up deciding to do.
4 Likes
Congratulations on her getting to the next round! I think the Fellowship does have some pretty great opportunities- but I do think fit is important too. Hopefully the visit will help clarify is she wants to go there.
FYI— My daughter didn’t make it to that round and she was a little bummed - but I reminded her there was no Target in Oxford, Ohio. (We joke that at a minimum there needs to be a Target and at least a few thrift stores in her college town).
5 Likes
Yes, that is exactly it. They seem to defer, then later admit these kids.
1 Like
Case Western defers and then waitlists a lot of the very-high-stats kids from our school as well.
1 Like
Out of curiosity, I looked up our high school’s scattergram on SCOIR for Case Western. There’s a mix of accepted vs waitlisted. 1 student with a 4.3 GPA & 1460 SAT got accepted, but students with high GPA & test scores got waitlisted. Looks like 13 accepted, 15 waitlisted, 1 deferred, 1 student (1500 SAT, 4.7 GPA) denied. Interesting!
This is a yearly event. I saw a CC thread 4 years ago on the exact same topic.
When we visited, we spoke to the head of admissions - He was very likeable and upfront about costs, merit, etc,
It seems like a very odd strategy which would make more sense if it’s working. But 15%-16% yield rate, it’s obviously not working.
They’ve had the same strategy for years but their yield isnt going up.
Can someone explain to me why people still do not understand that you simply DO NOT reheat FISH in the employee microwave, which happens to be right next to my office 
13 Likes
Tell them the best way to eat fish is sushi and give them a takeout menu.
4 Likes
Do you need a service like Naviance to do that? Our school doesn’t have any of that software so I can’t look up any of these interesting data points for our area.
1 Like