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Web Update: University admits 86 waitlisted high school seniors
Published: Monday, May 12th, 2008
Updated May 12, 2008 2:45 p.m.
When Brian Contratto, a high school senior from San Diego, Calif., found out that he had been waitlisted at Princeton, his first choice for college, he elected to stay on the waitlist, but he wasn’t ...(back to the article)
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<<Going to the WL en masse for 100% yield admits is no different from making extensive use of an ED (not EA) policy in terms of how it affects the yield.>> Admitting 100 from the waitlist (as Princeton may) is not quite the same as taking 50+ from the waitlist AND filling 885 seats in a class of 1,320 from the early admissions pool (as Yale apparently has done.)
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@ Second. I think you're right in that it's no different. But it does allow the admissions office to better control "who" gets in because they can go fishing in a larger pool. They obviously prefer that.
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Yes, but Harvard's yield for the initial group of admits was about 74% (currently about 1450 students matriculating out of 1948 admits). Princeton's is about 59%. Going to the WL en masse for 100% yield admits is no different from making extensive use of an ED (not EA) policy in terms of how it affects the yield.
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If Harvard admits 200 off the waitlist (for a total of 2,148) to reach the target class size of 1,660, the yield rate will be 77.3%. If Harvard admits 250 off the waitlist, for a total of 2,198, the yield rate will be 75.5%. Neither Harvard nor Princeton, of course, are relying on early admissions to boost yield. Yale admitted a record 885 early applicants for a class size target of 1,320. If Yale takes as few as 60 from the waitlist (a conservative estimate) this will mean 1,952 admits, and a yield rate of 67.6%. If Princeton takes 100 from the waitlist, that will mean 2,076 admits for a class size tentatively set at 1,240, for a yield rate of 59.7%. That yield should be slightly higher than Yale's yield on "open market" (ie, non early) admits.
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Oops! I just heard from another friend that Harvard gave him a week to think about it. So I have no idea...
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I know of a few people who have gotten off of Harvard's wait list, and they were told that their acceptance was contingent on their decision to attend Harvard. I'm not sure if this is just a way to increase their yield rate or not but it seems shady. Princeton, on the other hand, gives those it calls one week to DECIDE if they want to attend.
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Harvard's yield was actually more like 74% for the first batch. The 76% that the Crimson touts is the expected yield, if and only if the 200+ WL admits choose to enroll, which unfortunately might not end up being the case. Bottom line dropping EA hurt, dropping ED hurt even more. I applied Harvard EA before and thought it was a good policy, but I can see why ED is bad for students.
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To #2: Princeton's yield rate droppe for one simple reason - it gave up the yield-boosting early decision device. In 1996, when Princeton, Yale and Stanford adopted binding early decision, they each enjoyed an overnight increase of 6-7% in yield rate.
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thank god there's real analysis in the comments as opposed to the prince article
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Seriously Marvin; Seriously? ;) I'm SO;clever;;;
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It seems like Princeton's yield must have dropped. My calculations suggest around 58%. I must say I'm pretty surprised at the significant drop, assuming I'm right, especially since somehow Yale's stayed the same. Why would people choose Yale over Princeton, anyway?
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I think Yale's yield rate will be down from 69.1% to around 67% when all is said and done, even though they hung onto their yield-enhancing early admissions program.
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Both Yale and Harvard have released their initial yield numbers, and they're essentially unchanged versus last years': http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/24776 http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=523532 Gee, is there some reason why we aren't trumpeting our yield this year? I wonder what happened...
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I'm sure a good portion of the 90% of applicants who were rejected would love to be as embarrassed as Brian.
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Though I am not familiar with the Prince's policies on corrections or with the relevant journalistic conventions, I notice that the Editor's Note formerly appended to this article has disappeared. The current article is 'updated' but also corrected in a way that contradicts the article in the print edition. Though the initial error was minor and understandable, it might be worth noting it.
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Congrats Brian! There's obviously nothing embarrassing about it. Pton always says that the applicant pool is so well-qualified that they could admit two completely different but equally qualified and interesting classes each year. You were waitlisted as opposed to immediately admitted for some arbitrary reason or no reason at all. So congrats!
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I didn't mind that they used my name; I am not quite sure why it would be "embarrassing." ΒΆ http://www.stenhouse.com/pdfs/Anderson0412%20pp143-160.pdf
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I didn't mind that they used my name...Not sure why it would be "embarrassing".
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Isn't it a little embarrassing (for them) to reveal the names of students who were wait-listed?
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Congrats wait-listers. Sorry you're getting gamed. Did the anonymous poster on earlier admissions threads get admitted off the wait-list? I hope so!
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Does Kiernan have the facts right? The New York Times reported that Princeton expects to take 90- that Harvard plans to offer admisson to 150.... They did not report that 90 have already been taken off the waitlist. The Daily Princetonian's first report on admission stats for the class of 2012 was completley wrong and they had to issue a correction. Did you get the story right or wrong this time?
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Harvard's always had a higher yield than Princeton, so the fear was that if there wasn't a sizable portion of the class committing early, the yield would suffer because kids admitted to P are rather liekly to have been admitted to H also.
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I don't get it. Why would dropping early admissions hurt Princeton's yield but not hurt Harvard's yield?
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You and I agree, but I've spoken to several people who seemed appalled by the very idea that Harvard would be so petty.
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Duh.
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This no early admissions thing was just a trick by Harvard to increase its yield and decrease the yield of its competitors. They just threw in the idea about "helping minorities" to trick places like Princeton into going along with their scheme.
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Congrats waitlisters!
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