May 12, 2010, 10:23 am
The Early Line on Admission Yields (and Wait-List Offers)
By JACQUES STEINBERG</p>
<p>Before colleges turn their attention from screening the Class of 2014 to recruiting the Class of 2015, they will calculate one last measurement of this admissions season: their yields.</p>
<p>The yield is the percentage of applicants who have accepted a colleges offer of admission. This week, Ive reached out to several dozen colleges, public and private, to ask to see that math, now that nearly two weeks have passed since the May 1 deadline many institutions set for tuition deposits.</p>
<p>Harvard responded that its yield was more than 76 percent, which it said represented a slight increase over last year. Still, Harvard said it expected to admit 65 to 75 students off the waiting list.</p>
<p>Dartmouth, my alma mater, said its yield this spring was 55 percent. That is a 7 percent increase over last year a jump so large that no applicant may be admitted from the waiting list this year, according to Maria Laskaris, the dean of admissions and financial aid. (Last year, 95 came off that list, she said.) The University of Pennsylvania said its yield had held steady, at 63 percent, though Penn said it was too early to know about the waiting list.</p>
<p>As with so many statistics in admissions, applicants and their families to say nothing of journalists and admissions officers themselves should take yield figures with a grain of salt. The Wall Street Journal published an article in 2001 about one college admissions office that had put some of its best applicants on the waiting list because it felt confident they would be accepted by, and attend, more selective colleges. By not accepting those applicants, the college, Franklin and Marshall, served to keep its yield higher.</p>
<p>Many institutions also engage so-called enrollment consultants, who are able to predict, often with uncanny precision, an institutions yield from year to year.</p>
<p>Still, I am particularly interested in yield rates in the midst of the economic downturn at public and private institutions, as well as those large and small. That yields at Harvard, Dartmouth and the University of Pennsylvania did not fall is a function, in part, of the premium that many families continue to place on an elite education, even as they weather layoffs, wage cuts and falling home values.</p>
<p>That said, each of those institutions will increase its undergraduate financial aid budget at least 10 percent this fall, when compared with last, which will attract many families in a bumpy economy.</p>
<p>Other colleges and universities that have responded, so far, to my yield queries are the State University of New York at New Paltz (a yield of 21 percent, compared to 20 percent a year ago); Cornell (a 49 percent yield, up a tenth of a percentage point from last year), and Lafayette (27 percent, an increase of one percentage point).</p>
<p>The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill said its yield was 53.3 percent (compared to 53.9 percent at this time last year). But that figure is likely to rise, at it does not include all responses to the nearly 350 wait-list offers the university made. Applicants have until May 17 to respond.</p>
<p>As more universities report in, Ill update this post with the raw data, so please check back.</p>
<p>Colleges and universities that wish to send me their yield figures for this year and last as well as how many applicants have submitted deposits this year, compared to this time last year, and how many applicants they expect to admit off the waiting list this year, as compared to last can do so via e-mail, at <a href="mailto:thechoicenyt@gmail.com">thechoicenyt@gmail.com</a>. (Please note, this is a new address.)</p>
<p>Meanwhile, Id like to start a comment thread on yields whether based on reader experiences this year, or years past using the comment box below.</p>
<p>Finally, to see what some applicants and their parents are reporting, in terms of their own waiting list experiences, click on this link on College Confidential.