Reply to Smaller Schools = Lower Acceptance Rate

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There was a long and rancorous thread in the Private School forum a while back, about how Sidwell is "more desirable" than, say, St. Johns College high school, based on the fact that Sidwell has lower admissions rates. But Sidwell has smaller classes than St. Johns, and also has fewer applicants than St. Johns.

So what's a better measure of "desirability"? The number of applicants, or the ratio of applicants to acceptances?  Something like 100,000 kids apply to USC every year for, what, 5,000 freshman class slots? (Anybody, feel free to make my stats more precise.)  Compare this to 35,000 applications to Harvard for 2,200 slots there.

Are we to say that USC is more "desirable" than Harvard because 100,000 kids applied vs. 35,000 applications to Harvard? I would. Even if the freshman class size is larger at USC. Even if questions like relative affordability play into USC's appeal, I think that's a totally legitimate facet of "desirability."[/quote]

This is just all kinds of wrong.  This "analysis" completely ignores yield.  Harvard's yield is around 80%. Thus Harvard will offer around 1920 students a spot, even though it is has only 1600 seats.  USC's yield is 33% and they have 4500 seats so USC will offer 13,500 students.  Two thirds of students of these students USC accepts find other schools more desirable.[/quote]

Bingo - Yield, not "acceptance rate" is the metric to use for selectivity. [/quote]

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