Unless I'm misreading the data, its very interesting that some of these "elite" schools have less than half of the people admitted actually accept and go to the school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WTF

Northwestern 34.2% --> 9.1%
JHU 35.1% --> 11.2%
UChicago 41.5% --> 6.2%
Vanderbilt 46.3% --> 9.1%

WTF is happening

Common app and application fee waivers.

Not just that. The desirability of certain schools also is increasing. Look at the yield and draw rates.

All those schools are in or adjacent to cities, which college students seem to prefer these days to LACs.

+1 even for SLACs, notice how Swarthmore and Pomona's draw rates have increased more than Williams / Amherst. Those two are suburban LACs that advertise their location in a major metro area.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WTF

Northwestern 34.2% --> 9.1%
JHU 35.1% --> 11.2%
UChicago 41.5% --> 6.2%
Vanderbilt 46.3% --> 9.1%

WTF is happening

Common app and application fee waivers.

Not just that. The desirability of certain schools also is increasing. Look at the yield and draw rates.

All those schools are in or adjacent to cities, which college students seem to prefer these days to LACs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WTF

Northwestern 34.2% --> 9.1%
JHU 35.1% --> 11.2%
UChicago 41.5% --> 6.2%
Vanderbilt 46.3% --> 9.1%

WTF is happening

This is pretty crazy

It's called enrollment management. Colleges pay big bucks for it. But that number is mis leading of looked at in isolation. Any college can have real low admit rates. Just reject most of the applicants. The challenge is to reject large numbers but convince the folks you did admit to attend. That's not easy. Your brand must be strong enough to exert that kind of market power either by committing enough applicants to apply early decision or be so popular that very few will turn you down even when they can. Either way very few have that kind of market power and can still get students who's can score in the top1% on tests.

Anonymous wrote:WTF

Northwestern 34.2% --> 9.1%
JHU 35.1% --> 11.2%
UChicago 41.5% --> 6.2%
Vanderbilt 46.3% --> 9.1%

WTF is happening

This is pretty crazy

I guess this is why Chicago waives application fee for everyone. My DC did not plan to apply to Chicago but then thought why not just give it a shot since no fee for the application. It was a free rejection as expected to just help Chicago lower their admit rate. If there were a fee involved, we would not have wanted to waste the fee to try.

Anonymous wrote:Most kids won't qualify for a fee waiver and the top schools don't need to offer them. The issue is the high number of students applying to the same top 25 schools. Test optional is also driving the increase in applications and schools are benefiting financially & lower yield rates.

My kid got fee waiver offer from UChicago and WashU this year.

Most kids won't qualify for a fee waiver and the top schools don't need to offer them. The issue is the high number of students applying to the same top 25 schools. Test optional is also driving the increase in applications and schools are benefiting financially & lower yield rates.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:WTF

Northwestern 34.2% --> 9.1%
JHU 35.1% --> 11.2%
UChicago 41.5% --> 6.2%
Vanderbilt 46.3% --> 9.1%

WTF is happening

Common app and application fee waivers.

Not just that. The desirability of certain schools also is increasing. Look at the yield and draw rates.

Anonymous wrote:WTF

Northwestern 34.2% --> 9.1%
JHU 35.1% --> 11.2%
UChicago 41.5% --> 6.2%
Vanderbilt 46.3% --> 9.1%

WTF is happening

Common app and application fee waivers.

WTF

Northwestern 34.2% --> 9.1%
JHU 35.1% --> 11.2%
UChicago 41.5% --> 6.2%
Vanderbilt 46.3% --> 9.1%

WTF is happening

Anonymous wrote:This is really interesting. By looking at the historical trends, you can clearly see which universities have been good at gaming the rankings....

or good at making progress

Three key ratios that are based on those numbers: Admit rate, or the percentage of applicants offered admission; yield rate, or the percentage of those offered admission who enroll; and the lesser-known draw rate, which is calculated by dividing the yield rate by the admit rate. It's a much better indication of market power and market position, and it's much harder to manipulate than admit rate; in fact, if you try to manipulate admit rates, it's likely the cost will be a lower yield and a drop in draw rate.

Admit, yield, draw rates in 2002:

Harvard 10.2% 78.0% 7.68
Princeton 11.7% 70.7% 6.02
Stanford 12.7% 69.2% 5.44
Yale 13.8% 63.6% 4.62
Columbia 14.0% 60.7% 4.32
MIT 16.2% 56.8% 3.52
Brown 16.9% 59.2% 3.51
Penn 21.0% 62.1% 2.96
Dartmouth 20.5% 51.1% 2.49
Amherst 18.3% 42.7% 2.34
Georgetown 21.2% 44.9% 2.12
Williams 22.8% 48.0% 2.11
Caltech 21.4% 45.0% 2.10
Rice 23.8% 41.6% 1.75
Pomona 22.6% 39.2% 1.73
Berkeley 24.7% 42.6% 1.73
Notre Dame 34.2% 58.3% 1.70
Duke 26.3% 44.0% 1.67
Bowdoin 24.7% 41.1% 1.66
Swarthmore 24.0% 39.8% 1.66
Cornell 28.0% 43.5% 1.55
Middlebury 27.5% 40.2% 1.46
WashU 23.5% 29.2% 1.24
Northwestern 34.2% 40.8% 1.20
JHU 35.1% 36.0% 1.03
UChicago 41.5% 32.9% 0.79
Vanderbilt 46.3% 34.7% 0.75

Admit, yield, draw rates in 2019 (pre-pandemic):

Stanford 4.3% 82.3% 18.97
Harvard 4.6% 82.1% 17.70
UChicago 6.2% 80.8% 13.09
Princeton 5.8% 70.4% 12.20
MIT 6.7% 77.2% 11.53
Yale 6.1% 69.2% 11.37
Columbia 5.4% 61.5% 11.29
Penn 7.7% 69.6% 9.09
Brown 7.1% 60.8% 8.61
Dartmouth 7.9% 63.5% 8.01
Pomona 7.4% 54.0% 7.30
Duke 7.6% 54.3% 7.11
Caltech 6.4% 43.8% 6.82
Bowdoin 9.11% 59.1% 6.52
Northwestern 9.1% 54.6% 6.03
Cornell 10.9% 59.8% 5.511
Vanderbilt 9.1% 47.1% 5.17
Rice 8.7% 40.8% 4.68
Swarthmore 8.9% 40.8% 4.57
JHU 11.2% 42.4% 3.80
Notre Dame 15.8% 58.3% 3.69
WashU 13.9% 49.1% 3.55
Williams 12.6% 44.6% 3.54
Amherst 11.3% 39.3% 3.48
Georgetown 14.4% 48.4% 3.37

This is really interesting. By looking at the historical trends, you can clearly see which universities have been good at gaming the rankings....

This blog post by an admissions official at Oregon State has some interesting data on admit, yield, and draw rates over the past 20 years, by college.

https://www.highereddatastories.com/2022/01/yes-your-yield-rate-is-still-falling-v.html

Overall, the number of applications submitted has more than doubled while enrollment has only grown by 29%.