Better odds for full pay applicants

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is the difference between full pay and high pay?

Full pay pays in full. My family is high pay - we pay 72k of 85k tuition. So we get FA, but it’s pretty nominal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:YCBK talked about the changes to colleges this year (todays episode):

China applications way down “They're down. Some places, 30 to 40 percent. The number one source of international applicants is down.”

Anyway, let me not go off on that. So colleges are already going through that, right? And so they're going to do the budget-cutting things, freezing salaries, freezing hirings, letting faculty and administrators go, hiring more adjunct professors and less full professors.

But they got to increase the revenue, because that's not enough. So what I'm going to share today are ways I'm fully expecting colleges to either tighten their belts, but mostly increase the revenue. And I'm particularly going to focus on ways that impact admissions.

“I feel very confident about this, but I did talk to one school this week, and they confirmed”

1. “So the first thing that popped in my mind is they're going to increase their class size. Now not everybody can do this.”

“Now, not everybody can do it to the same extent. A lot of places are constrained because there's just no capacity, especially for 2025. 2026, they have a little bit more time to plan and budget, but they're going to do it to the extent to which they can.

So for example, if you can bring $40,000 more in per kid, and you can add 250 kids, you just brought $10 million into your budget.”

“Another thing I am expecting, and this is part of how you are going to meet your class, is converting doubles to triples.”

2. “Okay, another thing. Look for more kids to get admitted in a regular decision. For schools to go out with more acceptances.”

3. Endowment is not a quick fix answer to NIH cuts with current market performance.

4. “Go to the waitlist more.” I am fully, fully, fully expecting, and I'd be very surprised if I'm wrong on this, to see more waitlist activity, more colleges going to the waitlist because remember, they want more students, so they want more students, and so that means you take more people off the waitlist because there's no way of getting more students.

5. Next thing, more focus on full pay and high pay. It's just inevitable. “If you need money, you need to get money, and you get money from tuition-paying parents. You might want more families that are full-pell students. You may in your heart of hearts feel like our school would be better with that, but that's not paying your bills.”

“Then when you take into consideration even the schools that say they truly are need blind, and I agree they're degrees of this, they still have to intentionally travel to affluent areas in their recruitment. There's no way they can say we don't have to target affluent communities. It's just the reality. So of all those schools that say they're need blind, there's a bunch of them that really truly aren't even need blind.”


“It's going to be more or less schools that are need blind, so the ability to pay is going to be prioritized, and families with money are going to have a significant advantage. Now, at the most selective schools, I'll be honest, there's so many people that can pay that don't think the school with a 10% admit rate is going to a 40% admit rate.

It just doesn't work like that. But it will be noticeable. It's not going to be noticeable like that, but it will be noticeable, especially if you work in those institutions, or if you work with a significant number of kids that apply to the schools, I'm confident you're going to see a difference.”

More to come

From Your College Bound Kid | Admission Tips, Admission Trends & Admission Interviews: 15 Changes in Admissions to Expect in 2025 and 2026, Mar 16, 2025

this should be its on thread on here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:YCBK talked about the changes to colleges this year (todays episode):

China applications way down “They're down. Some places, 30 to 40 percent. The number one source of international applicants is down.”

Anyway, let me not go off on that. So colleges are already going through that, right? And so they're going to do the budget-cutting things, freezing salaries, freezing hirings, letting faculty and administrators go, hiring more adjunct professors and less full professors.

But they got to increase the revenue, because that's not enough. So what I'm going to share today are ways I'm fully expecting colleges to either tighten their belts, but mostly increase the revenue. And I'm particularly going to focus on ways that impact admissions.

“I feel very confident about this, but I did talk to one school this week, and they confirmed”

1. “So the first thing that popped in my mind is they're going to increase their class size. Now not everybody can do this.”

“Now, not everybody can do it to the same extent. A lot of places are constrained because there's just no capacity, especially for 2025. 2026, they have a little bit more time to plan and budget, but they're going to do it to the extent to which they can.

So for example, if you can bring $40,000 more in per kid, and you can add 250 kids, you just brought $10 million into your budget.”

“Another thing I am expecting, and this is part of how you are going to meet your class, is converting doubles to triples.”

2. “Okay, another thing. Look for more kids to get admitted in a regular decision. For schools to go out with more acceptances.”

3. Endowment is not a quick fix answer to NIH cuts with current market performance.

4. “Go to the waitlist more.” I am fully, fully, fully expecting, and I'd be very surprised if I'm wrong on this, to see more waitlist activity, more colleges going to the waitlist because remember, they want more students, so they want more students, and so that means you take more people off the waitlist because there's no way of getting more students.

5. Next thing, more focus on full pay and high pay. It's just inevitable. “If you need money, you need to get money, and you get money from tuition-paying parents. You might want more families that are full-pell students. You may in your heart of hearts feel like our school would be better with that, but that's not paying your bills.”

“Then when you take into consideration even the schools that say they truly are need blind, and I agree they're degrees of this, they still have to intentionally travel to affluent areas in their recruitment. There's no way they can say we don't have to target affluent communities. It's just the reality. So of all those schools that say they're need blind, there's a bunch of them that really truly aren't even need blind.”


“It's going to be more or less schools that are need blind, so the ability to pay is going to be prioritized, and families with money are going to have a significant advantage. Now, at the most selective schools, I'll be honest, there's so many people that can pay that don't think the school with a 10% admit rate is going to a 40% admit rate.

It just doesn't work like that. But it will be noticeable. It's not going to be noticeable like that, but it will be noticeable, especially if you work in those institutions, or if you work with a significant number of kids that apply to the schools, I'm confident you're going to see a difference.”

More to come

From Your College Bound Kid | Admission Tips, Admission Trends & Admission Interviews: 15 Changes in Admissions to Expect in 2025 and 2026, Mar 16, 2025

this should be its on thread on here.

My guess is they post/advertise/spam on here, but that's ok because sometimes they have interesting topics, like this one.

What I really want to know is what will happen with my high-stats full-pay kid this round, though we only have another 8-9 days to go, unless he ends up with a slew of waitlists.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I guess we'll find out next week. Full pay, high stats, 13 schools remaining to release RD results. Schools like Tufts, BU, NYU, USC, Georgetown, etc. If my kid gets into one or two of 13, or zero, then probably no significant consideration for full pay. If my kid gets into several, then maybe that would indicate that something about the schools' process considers full pay, even the ones that are at least nominally need-blind. An algorithm, perhaps, or a DonorSearch angle.

You need to step back and realize that 50%+ of the applicants at those schools are "full pay", so it doesn't really help that much when you are talking acceptance rates in the 3-15% range. There are plenty of full pay kids who have what the school is looking for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:YCBK talked about the changes to colleges this year (todays episode):

China applications way down “They're down. Some places, 30 to 40 percent. The number one source of international applicants is down.”

Anyway, let me not go off on that. So colleges are already going through that, right? And so they're going to do the budget-cutting things, freezing salaries, freezing hirings, letting faculty and administrators go, hiring more adjunct professors and less full professors.

But they got to increase the revenue, because that's not enough. So what I'm going to share today are ways I'm fully expecting colleges to either tighten their belts, but mostly increase the revenue. And I'm particularly going to focus on ways that impact admissions.

“I feel very confident about this, but I did talk to one school this week, and they confirmed”

1. “So the first thing that popped in my mind is they're going to increase their class size. Now not everybody can do this.”

“Now, not everybody can do it to the same extent. A lot of places are constrained because there's just no capacity, especially for 2025. 2026, they have a little bit more time to plan and budget, but they're going to do it to the extent to which they can.

So for example, if you can bring $40,000 more in per kid, and you can add 250 kids, you just brought $10 million into your budget.”

“Another thing I am expecting, and this is part of how you are going to meet your class, is converting doubles to triples.”

2. “Okay, another thing. Look for more kids to get admitted in a regular decision. For schools to go out with more acceptances.”

3. Endowment is not a quick fix answer to NIH cuts with current market performance.

4. “Go to the waitlist more.” I am fully, fully, fully expecting, and I'd be very surprised if I'm wrong on this, to see more waitlist activity, more colleges going to the waitlist because remember, they want more students, so they want more students, and so that means you take more people off the waitlist because there's no way of getting more students.

5. Next thing, more focus on full pay and high pay. It's just inevitable. “If you need money, you need to get money, and you get money from tuition-paying parents. You might want more families that are full-pell students. You may in your heart of hearts feel like our school would be better with that, but that's not paying your bills.”

“Then when you take into consideration even the schools that say they truly are need blind, and I agree they're degrees of this, they still have to intentionally travel to affluent areas in their recruitment. There's no way they can say we don't have to target affluent communities. It's just the reality. So of all those schools that say they're need blind, there's a bunch of them that really truly aren't even need blind.”


“It's going to be more or less schools that are need blind, so the ability to pay is going to be prioritized, and families with money are going to have a significant advantage. Now, at the most selective schools, I'll be honest, there's so many people that can pay that don't think the school with a 10% admit rate is going to a 40% admit rate.

It just doesn't work like that. But it will be noticeable. It's not going to be noticeable like that, but it will be noticeable, especially if you work in those institutions, or if you work with a significant number of kids that apply to the schools, I'm confident you're going to see a difference.”

More to come

From Your College Bound Kid | Admission Tips, Admission Trends & Admission Interviews: 15 Changes in Admissions to Expect in 2025 and 2026, Mar 16, 2025

this should be its on thread on here.

My guess is they post/advertise/spam on here, but that's ok because sometimes they have interesting topics, like this one.

What I really want to know is what will happen with my high-stats full-pay kid this round, though we only have another 8-9 days to go, unless he ends up with a slew of waitlists.

I suspect A LOT of waitlists. Same position as you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’ve thought about this too. I don’t think Caucasian will make a difference, but I think full pay will make a difference at a lot of schools this year.

I think some people are going to decline schools they would have accepted in the past due to the $85-90k (or even $60k)price tag due to the economic uncertainty, job loss, etc.

I think that will definitely open the door at RD this cycle and massive WL movement for full pay students.

Seriously!?!? I would think most who are full pay would have targeted savings for college. If they were planning to cash flow $90K, I highly doubt they work for the govt.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:YCBK talked about the changes to colleges this year (todays episode):

China applications way down “They're down. Some places, 30 to 40 percent. The number one source of international applicants is down.”

Anyway, let me not go off on that. So colleges are already going through that, right? And so they're going to do the budget-cutting things, freezing salaries, freezing hirings, letting faculty and administrators go, hiring more adjunct professors and less full professors.

But they got to increase the revenue, because that's not enough. So what I'm going to share today are ways I'm fully expecting colleges to either tighten their belts, but mostly increase the revenue. And I'm particularly going to focus on ways that impact admissions.

“I feel very confident about this, but I did talk to one school this week, and they confirmed”

1. “So the first thing that popped in my mind is they're going to increase their class size. Now not everybody can do this.”

“Now, not everybody can do it to the same extent. A lot of places are constrained because there's just no capacity, especially for 2025. 2026, they have a little bit more time to plan and budget, but they're going to do it to the extent to which they can.

So for example, if you can bring $40,000 more in per kid, and you can add 250 kids, you just brought $10 million into your budget.”

“Another thing I am expecting, and this is part of how you are going to meet your class, is converting doubles to triples.”

2. “Okay, another thing. Look for more kids to get admitted in a regular decision. For schools to go out with more acceptances.”

3. Endowment is not a quick fix answer to NIH cuts with current market performance.

4. “Go to the waitlist more.” I am fully, fully, fully expecting, and I'd be very surprised if I'm wrong on this, to see more waitlist activity, more colleges going to the waitlist because remember, they want more students, so they want more students, and so that means you take more people off the waitlist because there's no way of getting more students.

5. Next thing, more focus on full pay and high pay. It's just inevitable. “If you need money, you need to get money, and you get money from tuition-paying parents. You might want more families that are full-pell students. You may in your heart of hearts feel like our school would be better with that, but that's not paying your bills.”

“Then when you take into consideration even the schools that say they truly are need blind, and I agree they're degrees of this, they still have to intentionally travel to affluent areas in their recruitment. There's no way they can say we don't have to target affluent communities. It's just the reality. So of all those schools that say they're need blind, there's a bunch of them that really truly aren't even need blind.”


“It's going to be more or less schools that are need blind, so the ability to pay is going to be prioritized, and families with money are going to have a significant advantage. Now, at the most selective schools, I'll be honest, there's so many people that can pay that don't think the school with a 10% admit rate is going to a 40% admit rate.

It just doesn't work like that. But it will be noticeable. It's not going to be noticeable like that, but it will be noticeable, especially if you work in those institutions, or if you work with a significant number of kids that apply to the schools, I'm confident you're going to see a difference.”

More to come

From Your College Bound Kid | Admission Tips, Admission Trends & Admission Interviews: 15 Changes in Admissions to Expect in 2025 and 2026, Mar 16, 2025

this should be its on thread on here.

My guess is they post/advertise/spam on here, but that's ok because sometimes they have interesting topics, like this one.

What I really want to know is what will happen with my high-stats full-pay kid this round, though we only have another 8-9 days to go, unless he ends up with a slew of waitlists.

I posted it - not affiliated. Just an avid listener
lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I guess we'll find out next week. Full pay, high stats, 13 schools remaining to release RD results. Schools like Tufts, BU, NYU, USC, Georgetown, etc. If my kid gets into one or two of 13, or zero, then probably no significant consideration for full pay. If my kid gets into several, then maybe that would indicate that something about the schools' process considers full pay, even the ones that are at least nominally need-blind. An algorithm, perhaps, or a DonorSearch angle.

You need to step back and realize that 50%+ of the applicants at those schools are "full pay", so it doesn't really help that much when you are talking acceptance rates in the 3-15% range. There are plenty of full pay kids who have what the school is looking for.

But isn't the question that instead of 40-50% of the class being full pay, 60-70% could be? That's a material change.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ED is already a method for identifying full pay candidates. To apply ED you have to commit to one college before you know how much merit aid you will get from various schools. That’s a calculation you can only do if you are full pay or willing to take a big risk.

Everyone on Reddit applies to ED and just waits for aid. If they don't get the aid they need they just break the ED.
This happens all the time.

But if the NPC states you need to pay $90K+, you are not getting financial aide. And then you are not supposed to break the ED. Merit aid is different than FA. And yes, if you need to/want to compare offers, then ED is NOT for you. It's your choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:ED is already a method for identifying full pay candidates. To apply ED you have to commit to one college before you know how much merit aid you will get from various schools. That’s a calculation you can only do if you are full pay or willing to take a big risk.

Everyone on Reddit applies to ED and just waits for aid. If they don't get the aid they need they just break the ED.
This happens all the time.

But if the NPC states you need to pay $90K+, you are not getting financial aide. And then you are not supposed to break the ED. Merit aid is different than FA. And yes, if you need to/want to compare offers, then ED is NOT for you. It's your choice.

sure that's how you and I view it. Not how all of the Redditors do.
I've also read this is why some AOs hate to take kids from public HSs where they've never taken anyone - or bc they had bad experiences like this with MANY kids backing out.
They give some high schools a bad name.

[Anonymous]

I think it will make much more of a difference next cycle (class of 2026). Decisions were 50% made when all the defunding nonsense started.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it will make much more of a difference next cycle (class of 2026). Decisions were 50% made when all the defunding nonsense started.

Absolutely for 2026.
But the podcast is saying there will be an impact now in 2025 because the budget "hole" is too large. Doesn't necessarily give a full-pay applicant a huge boost because there are already so many of them.

Hope people come back and report RD results and full pay, high pay, need etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My theory is that need blind schools are need blind in that they don’t look at the applicant’s financial situation individually but they have software that uses statistical analysis to make sure there will be a sufficient percentage of full pay students. The software sets the parameters- pct from private school, pct from this county or that county, etc

What is your evidence for this theory?

AFAIK, not one of the many tell-all books written by adcoms has stated this is true.

NP. I agree with the PP entirely, that algorithms drive decisions but adcoms don't have a role in the algorithms and may not know much about them at all. This is the multi-billion-dollar enrollment management industry.

What is unclear is at what point in the process the algorithms are involved, front, back, all of it, etc., and what of this adcoms can see in Slate, for example. I do believe adcoms at need-blind schools read the apps need-blind. We know for a fact that schools use algorithms to calculate likelihood of yield and we know that most colleges use the Landscape tool from College Board, which includes a lot of data at the level of the applicant's census tract.

Top colleges arrive at roughly the same % of the class getting grants year after year. They must do this by algorithm in the aggregate, like PP was suggesting.

Here is one random articles on the enrollment management industry, though plenty more can be googled:

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/revenue-and-rankings-inside-the-multibillion-dollar-industry-shaping-college-admissions-e9faaabf

Just google something like "higher ed yield algorithm enrollment management" and you'll start to get a sense of the industry. Why this matters is that, ultimately, yield algorithms do play a role in admission decisions, possibly in ways that adcoms are not paying attention to or aren't even aware of. It might boil down to some sort of yield score in Slate.

This goes way back, e.g. from 2015, Student Yield Maximization Using Genetic Algorithm on a Predictive Enrollment Neural Network Model, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283186686_Student_Yield_Maximization_Using_Genetic_Algorithm_on_a_Predictive_Enrollment_Neural_Network_Model. "The primary objective of this research is to develop a scholarship distribution model that enables academic enrollment offices to maximize student yield through efficient scholarship distribution. This paper presents the design of and tests a multi-layer feed-forward neural network (NN) in modeling the student yield factor. For this model inputs are assumed to be ACT score, GPA/class-rank, EFC, FAFSA, zip code and scholarship award amount and the single output is the student yield, where a one/zero system for accepting/declining the offer in attending the university is considered. The network is trained by applying the back error propagation algorithm, and is tested on holdout samples."

The available data here in 2025 are more detailed. It's all about the data.

I heard that colleges can see when (by date) you added them to your “list” in scoir and who else is on your list. Is this true??

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of information out there about Landscape, and its role in AO review:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/18l9emm/is_there_really_a_list_of_the_high_schools_of/


"But US colleges can, and some do, use data about high school locations as part of their contextual evaluation. There is actually a College Board product called Landscape which, among other things, is offered for this purpose. You can read a bit about it here:

https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/landscape/comprehensive-data-methodology-overview.pdf

There are two relevant parts of Landscape with respect to your question. As part of the general high school information section, Landscape will categorize high school locations geographically:


Locale: This measure is based on the high school’s location, and relies on the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) system of classifying geographic areas into 4 categories: City, Suburban, Town, and Rural (NCES locale framework).

– City and Suburban types are further divided into Large, Midsize, and Small, based on the population of the city or suburb (e.g., City: Midsize).

– Town and Rural types are further divided into Fringe, Distant, and Remote, based on the proximity of the town or rural area to an urban area (e.g., Rural: Remote).

Landscape also provides various "indicators" for an applicant's residential neighborhood and high school, which are census-tract based:


Neighborhood and high school indicators are provided: (i) at the neighborhood level, which is defined by a student’s census tract, and (ii) at the high school level, which is defined by the census tracts of college-bound seniors at a high school. Applicants from the same census tract share the same neighborhood data and indicators; applicants from the same high school share the same high school data and indicators.

The indicators are:

College attendance: A measure based on the predicted probability that a student from the neighborhood/high school enrolls in a 4-year college (aggregate College Board and National Student Clearinghouse data)

Household structure: A measure based on neighborhood/high school information about the number of married or coupled families, single-parent families, and children living under the poverty line (American Community Survey)

Median family income: Median family income among those in the neighborhood/high school (American Community Survey)

Housing stability: A measure based on neighborhood/high school information about vacancy rates, rental vs. home ownership, and mobility/housing turnover (American Community Survey)

Education level: A measure based on typical educational attainment of adults in the neighborhood/high school (American Community Survey)

Crime: The predicted probability of being a victim of a crime in the neighborhood or neighborhoods represented by the students attending the high school. Data provided by Location, Inc. For more information, please visit http://www.locationinc.com/data.

These 6 indicators are averaged and presented on a 1-100 percentile scale to provide a Neighborhood Average and a High School Average. A higher value on the 1-100 scale indicates a higher level of challenge related to educational opportunities and outcomes.

One of the interesting aspects of this is that high school indicators are (reasonably) determined by the census tracts of the college bound students. As they explain in a footnote:


4. A high school’s college-bound seniors include those who participate in a College Board assessment.

Anyway, point being this is way more sophisticated than a list of high schools in rich zipcodes. But, say, a high school might be categorized as having a Suburban:Large location, and then get relatively low scores on the six "challenge" indicators meaning the college-bound seniors come from census tracts with high college attendance, many two-parent families, high family incomes, lots of owned homes with low vacancies, lots of high-education adults, and low crime.

And of course colleges do not have to use Landscape, or they can supplement it in various ways, as they see fit. But it is helpful to know this exists."

____

"Not a list that crude, but my understanding is products like Landscape (see other post) are regularly used by College Board members in the application process, or some equivalent. This is often implicitly part of what they are referring to when they talk about evaluating applicants in context, resources by type of area (high or low), advantages/disadvantages by type of area, and so on.

Products like Landscape, if the college so chooses, will tag each application with a handy set of residential and high school indicators that the colleges can then look at when evaluating each application. In many cases, many of the competitive applicants are likely to blur together, because of course many of them come from the same sorts of areas and high schools. But if a college is interested in taking context into account in certain cases, or wants to target certain kinds of diversity (still allowed), or so on, it has this sort of product available."

Landscape is used by most colleges. But, no one really knows the extent to which AOs see this aspect. Generally, I don't think they do. Landscape data is not directly showing up in the AO's Slate application review portal. There may be a score somewhere, but it would probably be from the outside enrollment management consultant that uses Landscape data among other factors in the school's yield algorithm. Different schools would be have different algorithms.

What does show up in Slate is website clicks over time. In Slate, AOs can literally hover over a data point on a timeline graph and see what page the applicant clicked on, on a specific date.

I am friends with an AO at a T10 and the VP of Enrollment Management at my R1 public. Both have told me that Landscape and other software (algorithm) are used to shape the class (gender balance, majors, financial aid, merit, etc.) post AO application reviews. The report goes back to the Dean of admissions who instructs AO to make cuts or additions were needed. At my institution and my friend at the T10, the AOs can see the 1-100 percentile scale score described above on Slate within the context of SAT/ACT scores or TO and curriculum rigor.

DP. Thanks. It sounds like the bolded is where algorithms really comes into play. My guess is that Landscape may be more useful for the value it adds in the financial area than for score context. The AOs may really be privy to the entirety of reasoning behind the additions and cuts that the Dean of Admissions makes based on the algorithm results for class shaping.

TYPO, should say: The AOs may NOT be privy...

PP again: yes, my understanding of the process based on info from my friends is that you are correct about AO's knowledge of the reasoning behind cuts and additions. However, to clarify, it seems like Landscape is primarily used to determine if a high school is under- or over-resourced to put class choices (e.g., 14 APS vs 2 APS vs 0 APS [non available]), grades, and SAT scores (1400 at a school that averages 1100) in context when reading applications and deciding who moves forward in the process (e.g., 2nd round, committee). I'm not sure what you mean by financial area.

I think I understand now what you mean by financial area. I was told that the Landscape data is used in the algorithm to shape the class. Both schools use enrollment management software/platform that pulls data from Landscape, Slate and the college's enrolled student database to feed the algorithms that shape the class, determine merit and/or financial aid, and yield. I got to see a demonstration of yield predictions and I was amazed at the complexity of the calculations to predict if an applicant is more likely to accept vs decline.

Yes, they pull data from various sources. College AO can pull up students that graduated from the same high school as your DC applicant and see what their GPA was in high school (compare it to your DC’s) and see what their GPA is now in college. They use this to predict how the applicant might perform at the college. All right there when reviewing the application.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Lots of information out there about Landscape, and its role in AO review:

https://www.reddit.com/r/ApplyingToCollege/comments/18l9emm/is_there_really_a_list_of_the_high_schools_of/


"But US colleges can, and some do, use data about high school locations as part of their contextual evaluation. There is actually a College Board product called Landscape which, among other things, is offered for this purpose. You can read a bit about it here:

https://secure-media.collegeboard.org/landscape/comprehensive-data-methodology-overview.pdf

There are two relevant parts of Landscape with respect to your question. As part of the general high school information section, Landscape will categorize high school locations geographically:


Locale: This measure is based on the high school’s location, and relies on the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) system of classifying geographic areas into 4 categories: City, Suburban, Town, and Rural (NCES locale framework).

– City and Suburban types are further divided into Large, Midsize, and Small, based on the population of the city or suburb (e.g., City: Midsize).

– Town and Rural types are further divided into Fringe, Distant, and Remote, based on the proximity of the town or rural area to an urban area (e.g., Rural: Remote).

Landscape also provides various "indicators" for an applicant's residential neighborhood and high school, which are census-tract based:


Neighborhood and high school indicators are provided: (i) at the neighborhood level, which is defined by a student’s census tract, and (ii) at the high school level, which is defined by the census tracts of college-bound seniors at a high school. Applicants from the same census tract share the same neighborhood data and indicators; applicants from the same high school share the same high school data and indicators.

The indicators are:

College attendance: A measure based on the predicted probability that a student from the neighborhood/high school enrolls in a 4-year college (aggregate College Board and National Student Clearinghouse data)

Household structure: A measure based on neighborhood/high school information about the number of married or coupled families, single-parent families, and children living under the poverty line (American Community Survey)

Median family income: Median family income among those in the neighborhood/high school (American Community Survey)

Housing stability: A measure based on neighborhood/high school information about vacancy rates, rental vs. home ownership, and mobility/housing turnover (American Community Survey)

Education level: A measure based on typical educational attainment of adults in the neighborhood/high school (American Community Survey)

Crime: The predicted probability of being a victim of a crime in the neighborhood or neighborhoods represented by the students attending the high school. Data provided by Location, Inc. For more information, please visit http://www.locationinc.com/data.

These 6 indicators are averaged and presented on a 1-100 percentile scale to provide a Neighborhood Average and a High School Average. A higher value on the 1-100 scale indicates a higher level of challenge related to educational opportunities and outcomes.

One of the interesting aspects of this is that high school indicators are (reasonably) determined by the census tracts of the college bound students. As they explain in a footnote:


4. A high school’s college-bound seniors include those who participate in a College Board assessment.

Anyway, point being this is way more sophisticated than a list of high schools in rich zipcodes. But, say, a high school might be categorized as having a Suburban:Large location, and then get relatively low scores on the six "challenge" indicators meaning the college-bound seniors come from census tracts with high college attendance, many two-parent families, high family incomes, lots of owned homes with low vacancies, lots of high-education adults, and low crime.

And of course colleges do not have to use Landscape, or they can supplement it in various ways, as they see fit. But it is helpful to know this exists."

____

"Not a list that crude, but my understanding is products like Landscape (see other post) are regularly used by College Board members in the application process, or some equivalent. This is often implicitly part of what they are referring to when they talk about evaluating applicants in context, resources by type of area (high or low), advantages/disadvantages by type of area, and so on.

Products like Landscape, if the college so chooses, will tag each application with a handy set of residential and high school indicators that the colleges can then look at when evaluating each application. In many cases, many of the competitive applicants are likely to blur together, because of course many of them come from the same sorts of areas and high schools. But if a college is interested in taking context into account in certain cases, or wants to target certain kinds of diversity (still allowed), or so on, it has this sort of product available."

Landscape is used by most colleges. But, no one really knows the extent to which AOs see this aspect. Generally, I don't think they do. Landscape data is not directly showing up in the AO's Slate application review portal. There may be a score somewhere, but it would probably be from the outside enrollment management consultant that uses Landscape data among other factors in the school's yield algorithm. Different schools would be have different algorithms.

What does show up in Slate is website clicks over time. In Slate, AOs can literally hover over a data point on a timeline graph and see what page the applicant clicked on, on a specific date.

I am friends with an AO at a T10 and the VP of Enrollment Management at my R1 public. Both have told me that Landscape and other software (algorithm) are used to shape the class (gender balance, majors, financial aid, merit, etc.) post AO application reviews. The report goes back to the Dean of admissions who instructs AO to make cuts or additions were needed. At my institution and my friend at the T10, the AOs can see the 1-100 percentile scale score described above on Slate within the context of SAT/ACT scores or TO and curriculum rigor.

DP. Thanks. It sounds like the bolded is where algorithms really comes into play. My guess is that Landscape may be more useful for the value it adds in the financial area than for score context. The AOs may really be privy to the entirety of reasoning behind the additions and cuts that the Dean of Admissions makes based on the algorithm results for class shaping.

TYPO, should say: The AOs may NOT be privy...

PP again: yes, my understanding of the process based on info from my friends is that you are correct about AO's knowledge of the reasoning behind cuts and additions. However, to clarify, it seems like Landscape is primarily used to determine if a high school is under- or over-resourced to put class choices (e.g., 14 APS vs 2 APS vs 0 APS [non available]), grades, and SAT scores (1400 at a school that averages 1100) in context when reading applications and deciding who moves forward in the process (e.g., 2nd round, committee). I'm not sure what you mean by financial area.

I think I understand now what you mean by financial area. I was told that the Landscape data is used in the algorithm to shape the class. Both schools use enrollment management software/platform that pulls data from Landscape, Slate and the college's enrolled student database to feed the algorithms that shape the class, determine merit and/or financial aid, and yield. I got to see a demonstration of yield predictions and I was amazed at the complexity of the calculations to predict if an applicant is more likely to accept vs decline.

Yes, they pull data from various sources. College AO can pull up students that graduated from the same high school as your DC applicant and see what their GPA was in high school (compare it to your DC’s) and see what their GPA is now in college. They use this to predict how the applicant might perform at the college. All right there when reviewing the application.

Is this info just for the regional AO? OR when they are in the "glass admissions room on the 3rd floor of the Dartmouth Admissions office" in committee and use the smartboard to show the highlighted portions of the application, and the kids' story, is this also part of the discussion? Or, as I suspect, has this data been reduced to a "score"?