Thursday, May 9, 2013

Princeton May Accept Students from Waitlist for Class of 2017


The yield for admitted students of the University’s Class of 2017 rose 2 percent from 66.7 to 68.7 percent in the second year since the University reinstated its early admission program, Dean of Admission Janet Rapelye said Thursday.
As of May 1, 1,327 students have enrolled, 35 of whom will defer matriculation for a year to enter the Bridge Year Program.
The remaining 1,292 students will join the Class of 2017 for the 2013-14 academic year. This number is only slightly higher than the target class size of 1,290.
Harvard University reported an 82 percent yield — the highest in 44 years — while Yale University reported a yield of 65.2 percent. No other Ivy League universities have released their yields yet.
This is the first time in at least a decade that Princeton’s yield has surpassed Yale’s, whose yield has fluctuated between 65 and 68 percent in the past five years.
Since 1997, the University has switched from offering regular decision together with a binding early decision program to only offering regular decision to its current policy of single-choice early action.
Princeton’s yield had hovered between 56 and 58 percent between 2008 and 2011 following the University’s decision to get rid of its early decision program. Similar decisions were adopted by Harvard and the University of Virginia.
Yale did not remove its early application round when both Princeton and Harvard did in 2007, maintaining a single-choice early action program. During that time there was great disparity between Princeton and Yale’s yield.
In 2011, the University reinstituted its early application policy for the Class of 2016. That year, theyield jumped 10 percent compared to the 66.7 percent yield a year earlier.
Rapelye explained in an interview that the Office of Admission does not compare yields of other college institutions when evaluating the University’s admissions.
“Each school has their own pattern,” Rapelye said. “We were really pleased with the fact that our yield is up slightly from last year. Comparing yields between schools seems, to me, not the place to be making comparisons. The strength of our student body, the strength of our curriculum are the points we want to measure.”
Rapelye noted that the current yield provides the exact class size that the Office of Admission was aiming for.
She added that the number will likely decrease due to students who choose to take a gap year or to enroll elsewhere after being admitted off of another school’s waitlist. If so, the Office of Admission will begin to accept students from the University’s waitlist until June 30.
Last year, the Office of Admission faced an over-enrollment of 49 students for the Class of 2016, whichprompted the housing department to find room for the extra students. The Writing Program also had tohire extra instructors for its writing seminars targeted at freshmen.
As a result, Rapelye said they reduced the target number for the Classes of 2017 through 2020 by 18 students each.
Although the Office of Admission has officially received all applicant responses to offers of admission, Rapelye explained that the University does not issue a press release with the incoming class statistics — including the yield — until September because the enrolled class will continue to change through the summer.
“The statistics in September are the final and formal statistics for the class,” Rapelye said. “Right now, these are sort of the preliminary numbers … It may be that the [yield] is slightly different in September. It’s always slightly different.”
Of those enrolled, about 12 percent are international students, 41 percent are students of color and 22 percent are in the engineering program. The class is also split evenly along gender lines, with 50.6 percent males.
The University admitted a total of 1,931 students to the Class of 2017 for a 7.29 percent admission rate.

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/2013/05/09/33544/

9 comments:

  1. Princeton is borrowing a Yale trick here, by counting as "matriculants" for yield rate purposes 35 students who were admitted, but who have deferred a year. Properly stated, the yield rate is 66.9%, pending wait list action and "summer melt."

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  2. I don't even think that Yale will report this non-final yield anymore. Neither will Stanford.

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  3. I think not reporting an early, artificial yield rate number is appropriate, unless you are certain there will be few if any wait list admits or losses via "summer melt", and the number of deferrees is known and netted out.

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  4. Speaking of Stanford, their initial admit number of 2,210 assumed a yield number of 79% or so to fill the class, unless there are wait list admits, which would be quite a jump.

    I gather they were spooked by the situation last year, and went overboard to insure that there will not be excess enrollees.

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  5. In any event, if Harvard continues to admit so many in SCEA, it could have fewer # of applications in the RD round next year, and hence it could be further behind Stanford's # in total applications. The yield-to-admit ratio clearly measures this. Hopefully Harvard does not make a mistake like eliminating SCEA to go the other extreme to become an all SCEA. I truly don't care who is #1, as long it is between Harvard and Stanford, but, make it more reasonable to compete, rather than playing tricks. Stanford is upsetting me more this year than Harvard does.

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  6. From what I understand, in the two years since Harvard returned to an early program, the fraction of really top applicants applying early has skyrocketed. You can't not take them just because they applied early, otherwise you may lose them. A larger fraction of 800 SAT students nationally are applying early than ever, plus there are all the superstars in desirable demographics who you have encouraged to apply. To defer them may cause you to lose some of them.

    As recently as the Class of 2007, during the previous early application period, Harvard had 7,600 early apps out of a total of 21,000, and they took more early than this year. Again, you have to deal with reality. You know who your target admits are. If they apply early, you have to take them early.

    I don't know how the stats and demographics of the early applicant groups at, say, Stanford, Yale and Princeton compare. Top applicants have to choose, since they can only apply early to one school.

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  7. 800 SAT Students are probably nothing these days. We are talking about 20 2400ers in one high school near me. Some of them got in 10 ivies/top schools, and only rejected by H and S. And I don't see the reasons why those can be likely-letter (where it applies) accepted by all YPM and rejected by HS. And I truly don't know what HS want at this point.

    You keep mentioning that H knows what it wants, and I still can not accept the facts.

    The difference between now and 2007 is that at that time, H did not have to compete with S for admit rate and yield. Time has changed.

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  8. http://www.stanforddaily.com/2013/05/14/class-of-2017-produces-record-yield/

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  9. Princeton admitted 33 students from the waitlist for the Class of 2017, 25 decided to enroll.

    http://www.philly.com/philly/news/20130703_A_not-too-big__not-too-small_year_for_college_waiting_lists.html

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