Yield Protection

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:virginia tech big time

1. VT is not a safety.
2. VT does not yield-protect and says as much right on their website.

"Yield Protection
Virginia Tech does not participate in yield protection."

https://www.vt.edu/admissions/undergraduate/counselor-corner.html#:~:text=Virginia%20Tech%20does%20not,participate%20in%20yield%20protection.

OP here.
I’ve heard that if you have over a 1500 SAT to watch out with VT. That’s really sad because it’s a top choice for my son. He submitted his app early (yesterday) plus we toured in Jan. Hopefully that signals to VT, that he is interested.

Next someone will say that VT doesn't care about DI. VT does care about DI AND yield protects regardless of what a lot VT cheerleaders come on here to say. If the department that your son is interested in has any sessions at all, make sure you attend to show interest even if you have attended a similar event previously. Engage with the department staff.

A lot of schools yield protect even though their stated policy may be "we don't yield protect". What are you going to do? Sue them? Kinda hard to prove your case given the opacity of the process. Don't really blame them though..A school that doesn't yield protect would pretty much admit every student that meets their academic/other threshold/standard for admission and deal with the consequences of low yield and waitlist management. Tech chooses not to do that and that's fine. People just need to be aware of this and plan accordingly.

If VT admitted every student that is in their profile, they would over enroll every year. Having the stats isn’t enough. If your kid had the stats and didn’t get in it’s not because of yield protection, it’s because that’s how selective admissions works. You can accept reality and move on or keep going in circles.

So you do admit they don't admit people that may fit their profile of an admitted student but they choose to not offer admission because that kid likely won't attend? That's the very definition of yield protection. And get over the stupid notion that these kids only have stats but are deficient in other ways. That might have worked in 1970 but no longer. Every high stats kid knows the game and plays it well.

No. That’s not what I said. Having the stats is only the starting point. VT reserves the right to reject a high stats kid that writes a bad essay or has boring activities.

Was waiting for someone to spew this bullsh*t. A 1590 kid, who likely got into school(s) tiers above Tech, suddenly 'writes a bad essay or has boring activities'? Occom's razor. Look it up.

1590 isn't enough. VT has their own essay that can determine admission or rejection. If that essay is written poorly or the kid comes across as a bad fit for VT, the kid is getting rejected.

but don't you realize, it's not the essay? It's that their kid was "yield protected". (Sarcasm off now)

If a kid truly wants to go to tech, they will write an essay that is convincing. I told my kids---each college is your number 1 choice whenever you are writing their essays or communicating with someone at that school. IT's your job to sell yourself to them. Plenty of kids do just that.

But if Tech is truly your kid's safety and they already think with a 1590 they are in, then they might not do well on the essay and any other communication with the school.

This is what the world has come to. People are arguing that a kid with a 1590 should not get a chance to become an engineer unless he can write a compelling essay.

Nobody ever said they cannot become an engineer. There are literally 100s of schools with excellent engineering majors. If anything, engineering is one where you simply want ABET certification. My engineering kid (1500/3.98UW/8AP) had these results

T10 ED deferred, then rejected
T20 WL
T20 Rejected
T30 WL
T40 Accepted
T50 Accepted (excellent merit)
T50 (State flagship) Accepted direct admit to engineering (acceptance rate is 25-30% or lower)
T50-60 Accepted, 1st year overseas (acceptance rates for main campus are 5%)
T60 Accepted (excellent merit)
T100 Accepted back in Oct (nearby state school with good engineering 70% acceptance rate and reciprocity for tuition).

exactly what we expected happened---WL or rejected at T30 schools.
Everything else they got accepted In reality they only got "rejected" at 2 schools, WL at 2 and accepted at all the other.

And chose between the T40, T50 (with excellent merit) and the T60 (which was their top safety and is that good it stayed in contention thru April)

There were at least 10-20 other schools my kid could have applied to for engineering (that don't have any direct admit stuff, so you get in you can be an engineer) in the T120-150.

If that isn't "good enough" for a student, then they need a life readjustment. The world is going to get real fast for them. Imagine their first job, when they realize that 50%+ of the people in the exact same position, starting with the exact same pay attended a "non-elite" school.
Or when they realize the same holds true thru the org structure, including their next 3 levels of bosses

+100 to all of the above, and especially the bolded. That's why the new WSJ rankings are so interesting - the point being that you can achieve the same outcomes as elite school grads even if you don't attend said "elite" school.

Because the outcome has 99% to do with the student and very little to do with the school. These really smart kids have the drive and determination to excel wherever they go. The vast majority of people cannot afford elite private schools so only state schools are on their radar. They apply to several in state and attend the one that's best for them along with the best price for affordability for their family. I attended a T10, and grad school at a T20. Vast majority of people I have worked with did not attend an elite school (and I'm of the age where it was easier to get into most of them, still had to be really smart but easier). I dont' care where you went to college. I care about quality of your work, can you communicate, do you get stuff done on time, etc. What you do on the job matters most.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My high stat kid from 23 applied to Pitt and UMN. As soon as those acceptances came in OCTOBER it was only top 50 thereafter. If you can find a rolling admissions school you like, APPLY!

I always wonder if anyone ever actually goes to Pitt or MN. They're always touted as the rolling safeties that reassure people while they apply to "better" schools, but I never hear about anyone actually going there.

UMN is the state flagship, so yeah it's a top school for most in living in the state. Excellent school and affordable.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The two schools with very obvious yield protection at our private, based on Scattergrams, were Tulane and Northeastern, only the middle third of the class was green territory. This was for 2023 cycle, so basically the first three years post covid.

Northeastern get 100K apps from high stat kids and acceptance rate is mid single digit for Boston campus.
You can call it yield protection or whatever but the school has luxury to pick and choose right students with high stats for the school who want to be there.

+1000

Yield protection does not happen at schools with single digit acceptance rates.

It happens at like a CWRU with a 35-40% acceptance rate and yield issues. For them, if you are really high stats (higher than 80-90%) and you do NOT demonstrate considerable interest, they might not accept you. They smartly figure you are likely getting into one of the 10+ t25 you applied to and going there. So unless you convince them otherwise, they will offer the spot to someone more likely to attend.

And that’s fair and reasonable, they want students who want to attend not ones who will turn them down

Tufts is 10% acceptance rate and yield protection was named for them.

Colleges can can get to a very low acceptance rate by inducing people to apply through marketing and doing things like counting incomplete applications.

it was named after them in the 90s. They didn’t have a 10% accept rate then.

Exactly right. If Tufts ever "yield protected" it was 25+ years ago when then had a 40% admit rate and a 30% yield. Now that they have a 10% admit rate and a 50% yield, there is no chance they are doing "yield protection". They don't need to!

And back then I don't blame them for "yield protecting". A college's goal is to fill their freshman class and maximize yield (ie not need to go to the WaitList). In order to do that, you need to accept students who actually want to attend your school, ideally as a top choice. For years, Tufts has been the "next lower tier" for those wanting to attend Ivies. It's in the NE/Boston, similar size to many T25 schools. So they quickly learn which zip codes/private boarding schools (there are many in the NE) actually have students with those stats matriculate at Tufts. When they realize it's very small, they will be less likely to admit students with those stats/background. They would rather take a risk on a 1500/3.96UW/8AP kid versus a 1590/4.0Uw/12AP kid because their data tells them the first actually wants to attend, the 2nd is using them as a safety.
FYI-there are ways for a high stats kid to convince a school otherwise---you actively communicate with the AO/Dept of intended major/etc and make it known you are interested. I'd bet that is the difference between the really high stat kids who get accepted vs ones who are deferred or WL or rejected---the school believes they want to attend.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My high stat kid from 23 applied to Pitt and UMN. As soon as those acceptances came in OCTOBER it was only top 50 thereafter. If you can find a rolling admissions school you like, APPLY!

I always wonder if anyone ever actually goes to Pitt or MN. They're always touted as the rolling safeties that reassure people while they apply to "better" schools, but I never hear about anyone actually going there.

PP. Valid question. Mine ended up at UMD (from NOVA). However with undergrad enrollment of 20k and 45k people must. It would appear they don't concern themselves with yield.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My high stat kid from 23 applied to Pitt and UMN. As soon as those acceptances came in OCTOBER it was only top 50 thereafter. If you can find a rolling admissions school you like, APPLY!

I always wonder if anyone ever actually goes to Pitt or MN. They're always touted as the rolling safeties that reassure people while they apply to "better" schools, but I never hear about anyone actually going there.

Actually, 52,000 go to MN- https://twin-cities.umn.edu/academics-admissions

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My high stat kid from 23 applied to Pitt and UMN. As soon as those acceptances came in OCTOBER it was only top 50 thereafter. If you can find a rolling admissions school you like, APPLY!

I always wonder if anyone ever actually goes to Pitt or MN. They're always touted as the rolling safeties that reassure people while they apply to "better" schools, but I never hear about anyone actually going there.

UMN is the state flagship, so yeah it's a top school for most in living in the state. Excellent school and affordable.

Oh no, I didn't mean to demean the schools. I know UMN is a good school - mainly I was talking about people around here (DMV) who always talk about getting those rolling acceptances in hand, as they then move on to other schools.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Yield protection = how people convince themselves their kid was too good for that selective school when they actually got the expected, most common outcome.

+1000
It’s a face-saving expression for a lot of parents who deluded themselves into thinking their kid was better than they actually were.

How do you explain it when a kid is rejected to somewhere like Holy Cross and admitted into 3 ivies: Yale, Cornell and Brown?

They didn’t convince holy cross they really wanted to attend. hC smartly figured that out and chose to admit someone who actually wants to attend

Holy Cross requires an interview. Maybe not all "smart on paper" people are impressive in person?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My high stat kid from 23 applied to Pitt and UMN. As soon as those acceptances came in OCTOBER it was only top 50 thereafter. If you can find a rolling admissions school you like, APPLY!

I always wonder if anyone ever actually goes to Pitt or MN. They're always touted as the rolling safeties that reassure people while they apply to "better" schools, but I never hear about anyone actually going there.

UMN is the state flagship, so yeah it's a top school for most in living in the state. Excellent school and affordable.

Oh no, I didn't mean to demean the schools. I know UMN is a good school - mainly I was talking about people around here (DMV) who always talk about getting those rolling acceptances in hand, as they then move on to other schools.

I know two people who went to UMN this year and several who went to Pitt. So yeah - they do go.

[Anonymous]

Every school needs to yield manage.
If not, over-enrollment or under-enrollment happens.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Every school needs to yield manage.
If not, over-enrollment or under-enrollment happens.

lol no the sh*t-tier schools that admit over 80% don’t care about yield and certainly don’t yield protect.

If “too many” kids enroll, they’ll put them three to a room in a hotel.

Pitt was doing this a few years ago.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I only wish that ALL schools would use ED so that those who are really serious about attending can express that.

I only wish every family was wealthy enough that they didn’t have to consider merit aid when deciding where to attend.

Yep. I wish ED didn't exist at all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Every school needs to yield manage.
If not, over-enrollment or under-enrollment happens.

lol no the sh*t-tier schools that admit over 80% don’t care about yield and certainly don’t yield protect.

If “too many” kids enroll, they’ll put them three to a room in a hotel.

Pitt was doing this a few years ago.

Pitt is not a crappy school.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Case Western

What Case does is more, they have a yield problem. Not that many want to be in Cleveland. And yes, they do end up with a lot of people who wanted T25 schools but didn't get in. Case uses merit to entice you as well. They want to make offers to students who want them. That's their job. So you must show demonstrated interest, especially if you are above the 80% for stats, otherwise they might assume you are "applying just because" and most likely will attend elsewhere. But if you show interest, you can get accepted. My 1520, 3.98UW/10 AP kid got accepted (female, engineering) and got the top Merit award. ($42K/year).

How much would it be then per year including housing?

You can search and find the current costs. This was 2 years ago. So instead of $85K, it would have been 43K. Instead we are paying $90K (fully funded 529 and not a financial issues for us). But if we had been searching merit, that was our best choice and a damn good one if your budget is $30-35K (in state) easily and willing to stretch.

I have a CWRU freshman. He got $35k /year in merit aid, which brings the yearly cost, tuition plus rm/board/fees to right around $50k. More than in-state in MD, but much more doable than full cost at Case or elsewhere. And so far he is really happy.
Based on the data I’ve seen, if Case is yield protecting, they are pretty bad at it. They are clearly competing with very highly ranked schools for their students, and don’t have the cache of the Ivys. They do have a lot of really smart, motivated students. My kid is really happy so far.

[Anonymous]

I’m from Cleveland and Case and Cleveland are both underrated. Cleveland has a lot of culture, diversity and world-class healthcare.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Case Western

What Case does is more, they have a yield problem. Not that many want to be in Cleveland. And yes, they do end up with a lot of people who wanted T25 schools but didn't get in. Case uses merit to entice you as well. They want to make offers to students who want them. That's their job. So you must show demonstrated interest, especially if you are above the 80% for stats, otherwise they might assume you are "applying just because" and most likely will attend elsewhere. But if you show interest, you can get accepted. My 1520, 3.98UW/10 AP kid got accepted (female, engineering) and got the top Merit award. ($42K/year).

How much would it be then per year including housing?

You can search and find the current costs. This was 2 years ago. So instead of $85K, it would have been 43K. Instead we are paying $90K (fully funded 529 and not a financial issues for us). But if we had been searching merit, that was our best choice and a damn good one if your budget is $30-35K (in state) easily and willing to stretch.

I have a CWRU freshman. He got $35k /year in merit aid, which brings the yearly cost, tuition plus rm/board/fees to right around $50k. More than in-state in MD, but much more doable than full cost at Case or elsewhere. And so far he is really happy.
Based on the data I’ve seen, if Case is yield protecting, they are pretty bad at it. They are clearly competing with very highly ranked schools for their students, and don’t have the cache of the Ivys. They do have a lot of really smart, motivated students. My kid is really happy so far.

Case is phenomenally good at yield protection. What they do is, in RD they put the kids who they suspect are out of their league on the waitlist, but also tell them that if they get in off the waitlist they’ll get a big merit award. Then, after they confirm that a kid will say yes, they admit him. One by one. Low admissions rate. 100% yield. High-stats kids. Brilliant if infuriating system.

It comes up on here every spring, because the merit + waitlist combination confuses a lot of people.