Monday, May 14, 2012

Princeton over-enrolls class of 2016, none taken from waitlist

The University will not admit anyone off its admission wait list after more students than anticipated accepted offers of admission, Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye confirmed Sunday night.

“We closed the wait list last week since the yield on the admitted students exceeded our expectations and we are over our target number for the Class of 2016,” she said in an email.

University Spokesperson Martin Mbugua was not immediately able on Sunday night to provide exactly how many students accepted admission offers.

The University admitted 2,095 students, 726 of which were offered admission during the early action round this fall. This was the first two-round admission cycle the University offered since 2006.

The University aims to fill a class of 1,300 students, but it is unclear what the size of the new class will be. The latest news highlights the complicated calculus university admission offices must conduct when guessing how many students will accept offers of admission. Princeton’s yield for the Class of 2015 was 57.2 percent; because the University over-enrolled the target class of 1,300 students, Princeton’s yield must have increased by over 5 percent.

Harvard, which also returned to early admission beginning with the Class of 2016, saw a roughly 5 percent jump in its yield to nearly 81 percent.

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2012/05/14/30977/

Updated: U. overshoots Class of 2016 by more than 50 students

The University overenrolled the Class of 2016 by between 50 to 65 students and therefore will not admit anyone off its admission wait list, University Spokesperson Martin Mbugua said in an email Monday evening.

The University aimed to admit enough students to build a freshman class of 1,308 students, Mbugua said, but a higher number of students than anticipated accepted offers of admission.

“We closed the wait list last week since the yield on the admitted students exceeded our expectations and we are over our target number for the Class of 2016,” Dean of Admission Janet Rapleye said in an email Sunday night.

Of the 2,095 admitted students, 66.7 percent accepted Princeton’s offer, Mbugua said, a ten percentage point increase from last year’s 56.5 percent yield. The large increase is partly due to the reinstatement of early admission, which was offered this year for the first time since 2006. Of the 726 students admitted under single-choice early action, 86 percent of those ultimately decided to attend Princeton.

The latest news highlights the complicated calculus university admission offices must conduct when guessing how many students will accept offers of admission.

Harvard, which also returned to early admission beginning with the Class of 2016, saw a roughly 5 percent jump in its yield to nearly 81 percent.

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2012/05/14/30977/

6 comments:

  1. Actually, the yield rate at Princeton was 56.5%, rather than the 57.2% figure given in this story, so that if the Class of 2016 is oversubscribed based on 2,095 admissions, then the yield rate must be a bit higher than 62% - which means an increase of 5.5%, vs 5% at Harvard and 3% at Stanford.

    If the Yale yield rate rises in line with Stanford (both already had SCEA) rather than in line with Harvard and Princeton (which did not previously have SCEA) then we might expect to see 20-25 taken from the wait list at Yale this year.

    If. on the other hand, the Yale yield rate rises 5%, then it would exceed its target class size by 10-20.

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  2. The Princetonian updated their article; Princeton's yield is higher than Yale's last year (when Yale had SCEA).
    http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2012/05/14/30977/

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  3. This update needs checking. The estimated yield rate of 66.7% would mean that Princeton overenrolled by 90 students rather than the "50-65" mentioned in the first line of the story.

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  4. Summer melt might explain the 90 to 50-65 difference. Bridge year program might contribute, as well.

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  5. what is summer melt? rescissions?

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  6. The final enrollment after waitlist action is considered.

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