“Yale University said its applications dipped after the school sent fewer mailings to high school students. The Ivy League school in New Haven, Connecticut, received 30,227 applications for the freshman class entering in the fall. The pool, its second-highest total, represented a 2 percent decline from the year before.”
Maybe UChicago has the right idea.
I wonder how many of the ~600 non-applicants would have been accepted.
After the first one or two mailings, I’m not sure how much of an effect additional mailings have on students who haven’t responded to those mailings. My son received countless mailings from UChicago and, after the first one or two, read none of them. I enjoyed them—they were unusually clever—and encouraged him to take a look, but he wasn’t interested. I do think, though, that marketing efforts early in a student’s high school career can be particularly effective. My son attended a Yale presentation at his school when he was a sophomore and ended up applying to Yale SCEA (and got in). Yale was very much on his radar for three years, even though he didn’t receive many Yale mailings.
I can understand mailings and other outreach to students who might not realize that Yale is possible for them. Most Yale applicants know of Yale without a mailing and have a good sense of what financial aid would be available to them.
It’s a good thing that the applications have dropped. Anyone who was really strong in the pool probably applied anyway. I am sure those that didn’t were just potential applicants that were shopping schools and casting a wide net. Yale still got well over 30,000 applications. They can craft a great class from that so I am glad they are not in the rat race to see who can have the most applicants which to me is a useless exercise.