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Roughneck16 OP t1_jaukc32 wrote

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US News and World Report

NCES

METHODOLOGY

Excel

WHAT IS YIELD?

Yield is the percentage of accepted students who choose to enroll. If a university has a high yield rate, it’s more likely to be the first choice of the students who apply there.

HOW WELL DOES ACCEPTANCE RATE PREDICT YIELD?

With a coefficient of determination of 0.51, we know that 51% of the variance in the yield can be predicted using the acceptance rate. That's a strong negative correlation. Basically, the lower the percentage of applicants admitted, the more likely those applicants will choose to enroll.

But, of course, some schools buck that trend. By using a line of best fit to project the predicted outcomes and subtracting it from the observed outcomes, we can see the residuals. Here are the top 20 universities in which students seem unusually eager to enroll:

+ University Residual
1 Brigham Young University 52.88%
2 Gallaudet University 36.28%
3 Yeshiva University 31.75%
4 Harvard University 31.25%
5 Princeton University 30.25%
6 University of Chicago 29.19%
7 Stanford University 28.25%
8 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 25.25%
9 University of Pennsylvania 24.19%
10 University of Utah 21.66%
11 Texas A&M University-College Station 20.21%
12 Yale University 19.72%
13 Dartmouth College 19.19%
14 University of Kansas 18.26%
15 Iowa State University 17.80%
16 University of Oklahoma 17.00%
17 Brown University 15.19%
18 Cornell University 14.58%
19 University of Missouri 14.27%
20 Arizona State University-Tempe 13.40%

In other words, BYU's yield is a full 52.88 points above where it should be when you consider its relatively high acceptance rate. That’s unsurprising considering how BYU is a niche school sponsored by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. LDS students only have to pay ~$3k per semester to attend. Students also have to sign a strict honor code, which scares away many non-LDS applicants. Yeshiva and Notre Dame are also religious schools, for the Jewish and Roman Catholic faiths, respectively. All three of these religions emphasize endogamy (marrying their own kind) so it should come as no surprise that many students meet their significant other while attending. Gallaudet University is also an interesting outlier, as it’s a school for the deaf.

You may be surprised to see Ivy League schools on this list, considering how they have such low acceptance rates. Keep in mind: admissions to elite colleges isn’t a strict meritocracy. Of course, you have to have sky-high grades and test scores to be considered, but beyond that, it’s a crap shoot. It’s possible for someone to have the perfect application and still get into only one if any Ivy League school. And when you consider how most of these students either have rich parents or get generous need-based assistance, most choose to enroll whichever one lets them in.

WHICH SCHOOLS HAVE LOWER-THAN-PREDICTED YIELDS?

Using that same line of best fit, here are the bottom 20 residuals:

+ University Residual
1 University of California-Santa Barbara -24.10%
2 Case Western Reserve University -23.63%
3 University of California-Irvine -19.10%
4 University of California-San Diego -18.77%
5 Clark University -18.24%
6 University of Miami -17.56%
7 Boston University -16.76%
8 California State University-Long Beach -16.71%
9 Fordham University -15.58%
10 Binghamton University -15.11%
11 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute -14.91%
12 University of Rochester -14.50%
13 Loyola Marymount University -14.17%
14 University of California-Santa Cruz -14.12%
15 Emory University -13.55%
16 Stony Brook University -13.24%
17 Villanova University -12.96%
18 Pepperdine University -12.91%
19 University of Denver -12.79%
20 University of California-Davis -12.78%

My guess is that many of the high-performing students who get into these schools decline to enroll because they don’t offer adequate financial aid, or they get better offers elsewhere.

DOES THE RANKING ALSO PREDICT THE YIELD?

It does. The coefficient of determination between rank and yield is 0.41, which is a significant predictor although somewhat less so than the acceptance rate. I’m reluctant to use the USNWR rankings as they are arbitrary and unscientific. Also, there are quite a few ties in there.

Asking which is the “top school” is like asking which animals make better pets: cats or dogs?

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soapdispensary t1_jaum9lz wrote

Yield is enrollment divided by acceptances. Higher yield means those that apply are more likely to attend. It’s just another way to express acceptance rates.

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Roughneck16 OP t1_jaumk0u wrote

Replying to Acquiredpolicy (#2,156,809)

It’s an amazingly good deal for a small segment of the population and an extremely unattractive prospect for everyone else. In other words, if you’re applying to BYU, it’s probably your first choice.

Last year, BYU was #1.

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Freedometer t1_jauu35i wrote

Many top students must apply to most of the top schools so it seems like they coordinate acceptances or those numbers would be lower.

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adanowski95 t1_jauwhq5 wrote

This is very interesting, thank you! I work in admissions and yield rate is a big topic of discussion in our work. I'm curious, where did you get this data set? US News and World Report?

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DaddyCreepsnake t1_javdk51 wrote

Every one of those college run the biggest scam in history. I went to college, when I seen the prices and rules around the REQUIRED books, I slid them right back across the table and withdrew that week. The college of course kept my pell grant, and a few years later I'm making nearly 60 an hour without 100k in college debt. One of the best decisions I ever made.

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Jackdaw99 t1_jaw6rq9 wrote

This is a little stange to me: I may be misunderstanding something. I would assume that a large proportion of kids who apply to, say, Harvard, are also applying to Princeton, Yale, and so on. So how could they all have such high yield rates?

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Roughneck16 OP t1_jawbkw0 wrote

Replying to Jackdaw99 (#2,158,877)

Even if you have perfect grades and scores, your chances to get into one of these schools is still super low, especially if you’re white, Asian, and not a legacy student. You can apply to all the Ivies and only get into one.

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Jackdaw99 t1_jawe6yk wrote

Replying to Roughneck16 (#2,159,150)

Forgive me if this feels like boasting, but that's not my experience. I'm white, not a legacy, went to public schools, and got into 3 of the 4 that I applied to. They're mostly looking for the same things (alas).

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Jackdaw99 t1_jawztab wrote

Replying to Roughneck16 (#2,159,755)

Well, the intention was to teach -- and write -- philosophy, but I left before I got my doctorate. Still, it's actually fantastic training for just about anything, because it teaches you to think -- to reason -- as carefully (and quickly), and to write as clearly, as you possibly can. Two skills which any employer appreciates -- any white-collar employer, anyway, and probably any employer at all. Unless you have another, very clear vocation in mind, it's ideal training for almost any profession, from law to journalism to medicine to business. What I actually do is kind of...public, the sort of thing where my name matters, so I'd prefer not to say in an open forum. I like making an ass out of myself on Reddit from time to time... But I appreciate your interest.

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nine_of_swords t1_jax018y wrote

Random calculations:

States/District with the most number places on the list: 19-California, 15-New York, 10-Massachusetts, 9-Pennsylvannia, 7-New Jersey, Illinois, 6-Texas, 5-DC, North Carolina, Florida. Three states have four, eight have three, and nine have two (Unless St. Thomas is referring to Texas, in which case Texas has seven and Minnesota only has one.). Nevada, Arkansas, Mississippi, New Mexico, Idaho, West Virginia, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, South Dakota, North Dakota, Alaska and Wyoming have none.

Most per capita: 1 DC (5 with pop 671,803), 2 VT (1 with 647,064), 3 NH (2 with 1,395,231), 4 MA (10 with 6,981,974), 5 DE (1 with 1,018,396), 6 IA (3 with 3,200,517), 7 RI (1 with 1,093,734), 8 CT (3 with 3,626,205), 9 AL (4 with 5,074,296), 10 NY (15 with 19,677,151). After 11 NJ (7 with 9,261,699) and 12 PA (9 with 12,972,008) the ratio starts to drop off.

Granted, the universities aren't all of the same competitiveness. All of Alabama's (Auburn, Samford, Alabama, UAB) are in that 23-27% range. New Jersey has Princeton (82%), Rutgers (24%) and everything else sub 20%.

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Roughneck16 OP t1_jax8see wrote

Replying to Jackdaw99 (#2,160,258)

So the main advantage of elite universities isn't the quality of the instruction, it's the strength of the alumni network. A Brown alumnus can major in something irrelevant and leverage their professional connections with the scions of wealthy and well-connected families to land a good-paying jobs. And you're right, many jobs are all about OJT and that foundation in reasoning and communication skills will prove invaluable. That was the same logic the military had on commissioning me to be an officer with my BS in civil engineering (which I didn't directly use for most of my career, but helped me develop invaluable problem-solving skills.)

I went to a non-elite institution (it's still on that chart), but honestly I could've gone to any college and my career would've been the same. Prestige is mostly a non-issue in engineering.

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Jackdaw99 t1_jaxbk16 wrote

Replying to Roughneck16 (#2,160,662)

Hang on: I didn't say anything about any alumni network, or leveraging professional connections with scions of whatever, or prestige, nor did I say that I studied something irrelevant. Quite the contrary. In fact, if you'd taken a philosophy course or two, you might have learned not to set up a straw man. They get blown over pretty easily.

As for elitism: I dunno. Some of my friends and colleagues have fancy educations and some don't. Talent will out, wherever it comes from, and brilliance needs no pedigree. That said, I'm grateful for the education I received. I have no idea if I could have received the same or better somewhere else. I'm long past the point of caring.

At no point since the day I graduated college has anyone in any work context ever -- ever -- asked me where I went to school, or what I studied.

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AdLess636 t1_jaxif1t wrote

University of Chicago. I’m not aware of how this college ranks so high. The rest in order I get. What is the specialty at this college?

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spikebrennan t1_jaxtbhi wrote

Replying to AdLess636 (#2,161,110)

University of Chicago has dramatically climbed this particular leaderboard over the past 10 years or so. They used to be high prestige but very low yield - essentially, they had a difficult time making themselves anyone’s first choice.

That seems to have changed.

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Human_Comfort_4144 t1_jay8o3g wrote

Does a low yield rate at a private school mean that the student could be in a better place in negotiating financial aid? I’m referring to the single digit of the private schools near the bottom of the chart. Or perhaps those schools don’t care about yield rates? Isn’t it the higher the yield rate the more points on a ranking system?

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Jackdaw99 t1_jaysd0c wrote

Replying to lonelydriver187 (#2,162,881)

No, of course it's not. But -- of course -- I knew the backgrounds and paths of those classmates who were my friends, as well as friends from high school who had much the same sort of choices. Nevertheless, I'm not claiming this is dispositive: all I said was that the OP's contention it wasn't my experience. If anything, his evidence, with an apparent sample size of 0, is even thinner than mine.

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ladybug10101 t1_jazlld0 wrote

TAMU is a goal for lots of students because of School spirit and traditions

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PigletDisastrous715 t1_jb0mui5 wrote

Are many schools significantly under full capacity? I would be interested to see that stat too.

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restore_democracy t1_jb36dsv wrote

How “top” can you be when only 10% of the students you accept want to actually attend?

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Roughneck16 OP t1_jb36ynu wrote

Replying to restore_democracy (#2,169,362)

Good question!

These magazine rankings are super subjective and unscientific. Also, I think many students who get admitted to these schools also get admitted to other good schools and can find better financial aid there.

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NotYourAdviser t1_jbl6s6c wrote

A couple of years ago, ISU changed to the common application. This made it easier for students to click a box and their app would be turned into ISU along with other schools. Previous to that, students needed to specifically find and fill out ISU's application. I wonder what span of time this data was taken from, and at what point we were in the common app process. Generally, numbers with the common app are higher but yield could be less stable.

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Deatrxx t1_jbur035 wrote

It makes sense honestly, UCSB is a higher end school but it definitely doesn't stand against the top top top schools. For the smartest students this is more of a safety school than anything, however I am interested to know where they got this data from.

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YetYetAnotherPerson t1_jbvuhc3 wrote

Not so high. Notre Dame and Brigham Young (analogous Catholic and Mormon schools) have higher yield. I presume it's [as it is in the two schools above] a mix of students who went to feeder high schools and students who want an insular environment.

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turnbullac t1_jcpbymi wrote

Look how far down the safety schools Loyola and DePaul are lol

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Sandz_ t1_jcvmh0g wrote

This data is complete dogshit if you didn’t exclude early and waitlist students

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welmoe t1_jcw1gny wrote

Replying to spikebrennan (#2,161,582)

> they had a difficult time making themselves anyone’s first choice.

Had a friend who went there for undergrad and even before he started he knew about the infamous saying of "the place where fun goes to die".

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Jarkside t1_jdmgfl1 wrote

Some schools court applications just to reject students… it makes them look artificially selective

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Jarkside t1_jdmj6ms wrote

Replying to Roughneck16 (#2,352,991)

“Admissions stats also played a big role in the rankings formula. In 2003, ranked at 127, Northeastern began accepting the online Common Application, making it easier for students to apply. The more applications NU could drum up, the more students they could turn away, thus making the school appear more selective. A year later, NU ranked 120.” - https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2014/08/26/how-northeastern-gamed-the-college-rankings/

It also makes them money. Reject a $100 application and have $30 of labor and cots in it = $70 profit

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Jackdaw99 t1_jdvv2j7 wrote

Replying to Roughneck16 (#2,353,077)

Perfect grades and scores aren't really the determining factors: recommendations, extracurriculars, and above all the application essay count for more, provided your test scroes are good enough.

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