Yield Rates of USNWR top 15

College Search & Lists
21

<p>It is interesting to compare the yield rates among the colleges within Cornell. They range from 80% in the school of Architecture to about 40% in Arts and Sciences. Yet, Arts and Sciences is the most selective of the colleges within Cornell with SATs just below Dartmouth’s. The special-focus schools within Cornell like Architecture, Hotel Management, Industrial Relations, and Agriculture have little competition from cross-admit schools so they have very high yields. Cornell Arts and Sciences is competing in the toughest league there is, the Ivies, and has a lower yield.</p>

<p>Yield is a very complicated statistic. Difficult to interpret.</p>

<p>Desirability has more to do with the SATs of enrolled students than with yield. But even SATs are imperfect measures of desirability because they don’t measure the talents required by some majors, such as art and music.</p>

22

<p>this numbers all seem to be different, but for the entering class of 2012 are there no hard numbers? bclintonk’s are different than collegehelps. I also agree that yield is complication, but when you forget specialty schools and simply look at Arts and Sciences and Engineering schools, it can be very telling.</p>

23

<p>For a particular school, the higher the yield, the lower average SAT score it has. Try to use </p>

<p>YS=yield*SAT</p>

<p>to rank the schools, not just pure yield or SAT.</p>

24

<p>^^ my numbers were for the class of 2011 (entering fall 2007)</p>

<p>^ The proposition that “the higher the yield, the lower the average SAT score” is completely false. Among the national universities at the top of the US News rankings, the highest yields for the class entering Fall 2007 were:

  1. Harvard 78.7
  2. Yale 71.0
  3. Stanford 69.9
  4. MIT 68.7
  5. Princeton 67.7
  6. Penn 65.7
  7. U Florida 62.9
  8. Columbia 59.1
  9. Notre Dame 56.0
  10. Brown 55.6
  11. UNC Chapel Hill 55.4
  12. UT Austin 53.8
  13. UVA 51.7
  14. Dartmouth 51.5
  15. Cornell 47.0
  16. Georgetown 47.0
  17. U Washington 45.6
  18. UIUC 45.2
  19. Duke 43.2
  20. Michigan 43.1</p>

<p>Among these schools, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, and Princeton had the HIGHEST average SAT scores.</p>

25

<p>I think ewho is just saying to norm for the yield-protection factor in SAT scores which is not terribly incorrect, though I don’t necessarily agree with it.</p>

26

<p>“their yield went from 99% in 2006 to 45% in 2007”</p>

<p>I don’t believe that. If it were the case, they would either have been outrageously over-enrolled in 2006 or going-out-of-business-broke in 2007. A 99% yield would have been such an unprecedented achievement in the admissions world, it would have made the national news. It would be the banner at the top of every publication WVU issued. There’s no way they had 99%.</p>

27

<p>Hanna-
I agree with you about West Virginia. They are a large, reputable university. In 2006, the IPEDS data says they had 4828 admitted and 4828 enrolled. Obviously a data entry error.</p>

28

<p>bclintonk,</p>

<p>Do you have the average SAT scores for those schools you listed? 25/75 percentile is fine too. Post them here, and I will see what I can do.</p>

<p>Any method to measure or rank HYPSM is useless. To get in, you have to crapshoot them. For everyone else, yield*SAT may give you a good indication of how difficult to get in. The higher the index, the more difficult to get in.</p>

29

<p>collegehelp, where do you find SAT averages broken down by individual colleges at Cornell?</p>

30

<p>gellino-
<a href=“http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000176.pdf[/url]”>http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000176.pdf&lt;/a&gt;
<a href=“http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000177.pdf[/url]”>http://dpb.cornell.edu/documents/1000177.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

31

<p>

</p>

<p>And even that’s highly flawed, since each school weights the SAT differently. One school may have 20-30 points of an advantage (like Harvard or Princeton).</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>IMO, the other ED-using Ivies should follow Princeton’s example (and Princeton, I think, would enroll roughly 50% of its class from ED) and eliminate ED. Then again, I think that after this year’s yield rates, they’d be too afraid–even the heavyweight that is Princeton (ranked #1 many times over the past 20 years) fell significantly in yield this year (to a 58% initial yield, I think). I can’t imagine what would happen to Penn et al if they eliminated ED. I think it’ll happen eventually, though.</p>

32

<p>

</p>

<p>Sure. I’ll go you one better. Here are the 2007 yields and 25th-75th SAT scores for the top 50 national universities in the 2008 US News ranking (ranked here by yield, highest to lowest):</p>

<ol>
<li>Harvard 78.7 1400-1590</li>
<li>Yale 71.0 1400-1590</li>
<li>Stanford 69.9 1340-1550</li>
<li>MIT 68.7 1380-1560</li>
<li>Princeton 67.7 1390-1580</li>
<li>Penn 65.7 1330-1530</li>
<li>U Florida 62.9 1140-1360</li>
<li>Columbia 59.1 1360-1540</li>
<li>Notre Dame 56.0 1300-1510</li>
<li>Brown 55.6 1330-1530</li>
<li>UNC Chapel Hill 55.4 1210-1400</li>
<li>UT Austin 53.8 1110-1370</li>
<li>UVA 51.7 1200-1420</li>
<li>Dartmouth 51.5 1330-1550</li>
<li>Cornell 47.0 1290-1500</li>
<li>Georgetown 47.0 1300-1490</li>
<li>U Washington 45.6 1090-1320</li>
<li>UIUC 45.2 26-31*</li>
<li>Duke 43.2 1340-1540</li>
<li>Michigan 43.1 27-31*</li>
<li>Georgia Tech 42.9 1240-1420</li>
<li>Wisconsin-Madison 42.8 26-30*</li>
<li>UC Berkeley 40.1 1220-1470</li>
<li>NYU 38.8 1240-1430</li>
<li>Vanderbilt 38.5 1300-1480</li>
<li>CalTech 38.1 1470-1580</li>
<li>UCLA 37.7 1180-1430</li>
<li>Wake Forest 37.0 1240-1410</li>
<li>William & Mary 36.8 1250-1450</li>
<li>Chicago 36.1 1330-1530</li>
<li>USC 34.6 1270-1460</li>
<li>Rice 34.3 1310-1530</li>
<li>WUSTL 34.2 1370-1530</li>
<li>Northwestern 33.7 1350-1520</li>
<li>Johns Hopkins 33.5 1290-1500</li>
<li>Tufts 32.5 1340-1490</li>
<li>Penn State 32.2 1090-1300</li>
<li>Lehigh 30.0 1240-1390</li>
<li>Emory 29.6 1300-1470</li>
<li>Boston College 29.1 1240-1430</li>
<li>Syracuse 28.8 1110-1330</li>
<li>Brandeis 27.1 1280-1460</li>
<li>RPI 25.7 1250-1420</li>
<li>UC Davis 24.1 1030-1290</li>
<li>Carnegie Mellon 22.4 1290-1490</li>
<li>U Rochester 22.1 1230-1420</li>
<li>UC San Diego 21.6 1130-1360</li>
<li>Case Western 20.8 1200-1410</li>
<li>UC Irvine 20.7 1070-1300</li>
<li>UC Santa Barbara 19.4 1070-1310</li>
</ol>

<ul>
<li>reports ACT scores to US News</li>
</ul>

33

<p>The correlation between yield and SAT 75th percentile in bclintonk’s post is
+.55, which is moderately high. It suggests that yield is a luke-warm indicator of selectivity, accounting for about 25% of the variability in SAT scores.</p>

34

<p>R1–ranked by the SATed yield: yield*(SAT25%+SAT75%)/2
R2-- ranked by yield</p>

<p>R1 R2 School</p>

<p>1 1 Harvard
2 2 Yale
3 4 MIT
4 3 Stanford
5 5 Princeton
6 6 Penn
7 8 Columbia
8 10 Brown
9 9 Notre Dame
10 7 U Florida
11 14 Dartmouth
12 11 UNC Chapel Hill
13 13 UVA
14 12 UT Austin
15 16 Georgetown
16 15 Cornell
17 19 Duke
18 26 CalTech
19 21 Georgia Tech
20 17 U Washington
21 25 Vanderbilt
22 23 UC Berkeley
23 24 NYU
24 30 Chicago
25 33 WUSTL
26 29 William & Mary
27 28 Wake Forest
28 27 UCLA
29 32 Rice
30 34 Northwestern
31 31 USC
32 35 Johns Hopkins
33 36 Tufts
34 39 Emory
35 38 Lehigh
36 40 Boston College
37 37 Penn State
38 42 Brandeis
39 41 Syracuse
40 43 RPI
41 45 Carnegie Mellon
42 46 U Rochester
43 44 UC Davis
44 48 Case Western
45 47 UC San Diego
46 49 UC Irvine
47 50 UC Santa Barbara
48 18 UIUC *
49 20 Michigan *
50 22 Wisconsin-Madison *</p>

<ul>
<li>Disregard UIUC, Michigan and Wisconsin since they don’t provide SAT scores.</li>
</ul>

35

<p>very impressive…</p>

36

<p>If you use updated score ranges, Stanford and MIT would roughly tie–I think they both have a median 2180. If anything, Stanford might come out very slightly ahead, with its 72% yield vs. MIT’s 66% (since I’m not sure how much higher MIT’s median SAT is, compared to last year’s, which was a 2180).</p>

37

<p>Looking at the rankings, it appears that cost affects yield (public vs private). Publics have higher-than-expected yields.</p>

38

<p>Here is my way to interpret the SAT weighted yield rankings:</p>

<p>The higher the rankings, the harder to get in by just relying on high SAT scores. For example, it is much easier to get in JHU than WUSTL when you have the same SAT scores, even though by yield rankings they are about the same; getting in Cornell and Duke is about the same, rather than a relative large gap by yield rankings. You have to compare similar schools. It will not work to compare CalTech and Duke.</p>

39

<p>Small correction–schools report both ACT scores and SAT scores to USNews, and then USNews elects which to use.</p>

40

<p>

</p>

<p>I’m not so sure it’s just about cost. If you compare the yields of the state flagships (and some “second” or quasi-flagships) you find enormous variation, ranging from an HYPS-like high of 70.5% at the University of Nebraska to a low of 18.6% at the University of Vermont. I very much doubt that price accounts for this variation. Nor does the perceived quality or selectivity of the public institution. UNC Chapel Hill and UVA, two of the top public flagships, rank near the top of the publics, with yields of 55.4% and 51.7% respectively. William & Mary, UCLA, and UC Berkeley, all highly regarded publics, rank toward the bottom of the publics in yield. Other top publics like Michigan, Wisconsin, Georgia Tech, UIUC, and U Washington rank right in the middle.</p>

<p>I think publics are generally just competing in a very different market than the elite privates, and that local and regional variations in cultural norms matter a great deal. In Nebraska, North Dakota, Florida, Nevada, New Mexico, North Carolina, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and other states—many of them in the Great Plains, Southeast, and Mountain West—it’s pretty much the norm to go to the State U if you get in. In the Northeast (VT, NY, MA, RI, CT, DE, NH, PA) it appears most people use their state flagship as “safety of last resort”—if they have other options (and most apparently do), they go elsewhere.</p>

<p>State flagships/quasi-flagships, ranked by yield:</p>

<ol>
<li>U Nebraska 70.5</li>
<li>U North Dakota 69.3</li>
<li>U Florida 62.9</li>
<li>U Nevada-Reno 57.6</li>
<li>U New Mexico 57.5</li>
<li>UNC Chapel Hill 55.4</li>
<li>LSU 55.1</li>
<li>Oklahoma State 54.9</li>
<li>UNLV: 54.7</li>
<li>UT Austin 53.8</li>
<li>U Alaska 53.4 </li>
<li>Mississippi State 53.2</li>
<li>UVA 51.7</li>
<li>U Kentucky 51.0</li>
<li>U Wyoming 51.0</li>
<li>U Georgia 50.8</li>
<li>Ohio State 50.5</li>
<li>Kansas State 50.2</li>
<li>U Oklahoma 49.3</li>
<li>U Alabama 49.2</li>
<li>U Missouri 47.4</li>
<li>U Tennessee 47.4</li>
<li>U Idaho 46.3</li>
<li>U Arkansas 46.0 </li>
<li>U Washington 45.6</li>
<li>UIUC 45.2</li>
<li>U Montana 43.6</li>
<li>U Michigan 43.1</li>
<li>Georgia Tech 42.9</li>
<li>Wisconsin-Madison 42.8</li>
<li>Oregon State 42.4</li>
<li>U Kansas 42.2</li>
<li>Washington State 41.7</li>
<li>U South Carolina 41.5</li>
<li>Michigan State 41.1</li>
<li>U Hawaii 40.8</li>
<li>U Utah 40.7</li>
<li>UC Berkeley 40.1</li>
<li>WVU 38.3 </li>
<li>UCLA 37.7 </li>
<li>U Arizona 37.1</li>
<li>U Maryland 37.0</li>
<li>U Mississippi 36.8</li>
<li>William & Mary 36.8</li>
<li>U South Dakota 36.8</li>
<li>Arizona State 36.2 </li>
<li>U Oregon 35.7</li>
<li>U Minnesota 35.5</li>
<li>Indiana U 35.4</li>
<li>U Iowa 34.8</li>
<li>Rutgers 34.7</li>
<li>U Colorado 34.1</li>
<li>U Maine 34.1</li>
<li>Auburn 33.8</li>
<li>Purdue 33.7</li>
<li>Penn State 32.2</li>
<li>UNH 31.1</li>
<li>UConn 30.5</li>
<li>U Delaware 30.8</li>
<li>URI 27.9</li>
<li>SUNY Stony Brook 26.6</li>
<li>UMass Amherst 24.0</li>
<li>SUNY Binghamton 22.6</li>
<li>U Vermont 18.6</li>
</ol>