Reply to All these rejections and deferrals reported on DCUM and CC are shocking and discouraging

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]When applying to colleges and universities, applying to at least 3 safeties is the most important. If a student accurately identifies & applies to 3 safeties, then the number of apps to other schools should not be a concern.

If up to me, I would limit students to 12 applications although 10 is also a reasonable limit.[/quote]

With high stats kids being yield protected from safeties, it doesn't seem like safeties exist anymore.[/quote]

Not all schools yield protect. If it does, it's not a safety.[/quote]

THIS.  Not sure why some here can't grasp that.[/quote]
NP. Agree, schools that yield protect are not safeties. Food for thought: are there schools which now yield protect, but didn't appear to yield protect [i]prior[/i] to test optional admissions?

Many colleges outsource yield management to enrollment management consultants for big bucks. Those consultants use algorithms. The algorithms in the past incorporated score data and test optional students were but a tiny slice of the big picture. That all changed, of course, and the portion of test optional applicants is now much bigger [i]and [/i]more likely to enroll than a score-submitter.

It seemed that, in the past, some high-acceptance-rate colleges might accept several high stats applicants and anticipate that only a small fraction of those would choose to attend. Now, there is a sense that the algorithms cannot handle that, and so instead the high stats applicants are simply denied. [b]Something is not right with the algorithms if high stats students are being denied from colleges with 80%+ acceptance rates.[/b][/quote]

This is why I'm saying safeties don't exist anymore.  It doesn't make sense that a school would reject a high stats student if they accept so many applicants.[/quote]

It does make sense from the school's perspective when the ultimate goal is enrollment, in other words, "bottoms in seats." The problem is that the school is not in the sweet spot: highly selective/high yield OR less selective/open enrollment.

VT is moderately selective, which means that VT is trying to balance institutional priorities (e.g., 1st gen/URM/athletes, etc.), which means [b]rejecting[/b] some high stats in-state kids AND reaching enrollment targets, which means ensuring that students that are accepted enroll ([b]waitlisting[/b] high stats kids that may have better offers) but not accepting too many students, which leads to over enrollment.[/quote]
I think the problem goes back to the algorithms and the enrollment management consultants. There seems to be uncertainty that the algorithms cannot account for, whereas in previous times (pre test optional) this was not a problem. Rather than admit 5 or 7 or 9, or however many, high-stats applicants for every 1 they expect to yield, they admit none because they are afraid of under or over enrolling. In other words, their mathematical model is bad.

I suspect that the model has difficulty predicting how many would enroll because there is much greater uncertainty on what those high-stats applicants' alternative options might be. (If the enrollment management experts can't figure it out, it's even tougher for the applicants making their lists...)

So basically, I'm blaming the $15B enrollment management consultant industry for failing to figure this out. Class of 2021 they were thrown for a loop. They should have it figured out by now.[/quote]

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