<p>I believe you’re referring to the “Revealed Preference Ranking” (.pdf found here).</p>
<p>Figure 1 on p. 8 shows the graphs you refer to. In this paper, they do use the term “strategic admissions” for this practice.</p>
<p>Good catch, mootmom, that must be the document that popularized that term. (Byerly has used that term for that practice in online posts here on CC, following the usage of the revealed preferences study authors.)</p>
<p>I’ve also heard the term “strategic admissions” used in the context where a college will deliberately reject all the applicants from a HS to send the GC a message. If a college feels it isn’t getting its fair share of the HS’s top students because the GC isn’t encouraging the kids to apply and/or accept, the college sends a message “shape up” as part of their strategy for getting good students.</p>
<p>Mikemac:</p>
<p>Sounds more like “strategic rejections.” Ouch!</p>
<p>thanks, mootmom! Although some of the nomenclature is a little too techy for my taste, page 5 describes it aptly. And the top of p. 6, with the sentence beginning “Finally,” explains a heretofore seemingly contradictory phenomenon – an explanation which I had guessed. So film & tokenA, you’re being verified here, too. Thanks all.</p>