<p>Sorry, but I don’t agree with this at all – especially your “near certainty.” Students choose schools for many different reasons – sometimes financial, sometimes academic, and sometimes it’s just personal – a desire to participate in D1 sports or an interest in attending a Jesuit school or just a general feeling about a particular school being a better “fit.” </p>
<p>HYP may well have the highest yields but none of them have 100% (the last data I saw, even Harvard was getting only 76%), so clearly there ARE students turning down HYP for other schools. Also, HYP financial aid is only the “best” if you actually get some. For families that do not qualify for financial aid and will be full pay, the COA for BC and HYP is pretty much the same, so again I don’t see any automatic advantage to HYP over BC – unless you want to buy into the “prestige” argument.</p>
<p>Except that HYP offers need-based aid to a whole LOT more families; up to $180k income will earn a significant discount at those schools. No other schools are wealthy enough to be that generous. So sure, for those in the $200k income range, COA is similar. (But that is, what, the top 1% of income in the US? Are BC students that wealthy?)</p>
<p>I agree that students choose colleges for all kinds of reasons, (including prestige). But, in the past four years, I have yet to see one poster on cc who admitted that they turned down HYP for BC. (Doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen, of course.)</p>
<p>Regardless of my opinion (based on pure speculation, I’ll admit), the simple fact is that cross-applications are a meaningless data point.</p>