When it comes to college admissions, there are tons of statistics at play. The most discussed is the dreaded acceptance rate, which (as we’ve written ad nauseum), has slowly crept downward for top-tier schools year after year. But lurking in the background of the whole process is a more mysterious calculation: the college yield rate. A yield rate is essentially the number of students that are accepted to a given school who end up attending. This is why you should care:
First, Some Background
We know. There’s really enough to worry about already without thinking about how many students choose to matriculate to a certain college. Why should you waste your valuable mental energy on it? Consider this: According to U.S. News & World Report, in 2019, Harvard’s yield rate was above 80%. That’s very strong, but it’s got nothing on the National Air Force Academy’s 99%. Schools with a strong yield rate can boast desirability. In other words, like many things with the college admissions process, yield rates matter for marketing.
Schools want to be viewed as more selective. Alumni and donors are willing to give more to the endowments of selective schools. No ranking matters more for a university’s public-facing selectivity image than U.S. News & World Report rankings.
According to a 2019 Wall Street Journal report, yield rates play a role in how U.S. News & World rates schools for selectivity and, according to the Journal, that’s just about the only factor within the admission committee’s control. A school can admit people who are likely to attend based on things like demonstrated interest (more on that later), but they can also conduct admissions based on test scores and even an applicant’s geographic location. The Journal reports that some schools might even admit students who are more likely to attend over more competitive students they’re worried they’ll lose to another university.
The Business of It All
If a school has a higher yield rate, they can also let fewer students in, which is great for their ranking. But we suspect, it’s not just about appearing more desirable or selective, but also how they plan for the year ahead, in particular, the budget. Schools must do things like create housing, establish new classes, and hire faculty each year. If a university overestimates the number of students it thinks will attend each year, they could end up with a logistical nightmare. They would also end up with less income (vis-à-vis tuition) than they projected.
Every college is a business, just like your neighborhood bodega (or more accurately, your neighborhood conglomerate). But let’s stick with the bodega analogy: your neighborhood corner store might buy a certain number of seltzer waters every month based on the number of customers they predict they will come in and buy seltzer water. These predictions are probably based on the number of customers who came in and purchased seltzer waters in prior months. Say, in January, the bodega bought 200 seltzer waters and sold out of them all. It’s reasonable to think that, in February, they might decide stock their fridges with 250 seltzer waters for customers. But if, come February, customers only buy 100 seltzer waters, then they didn’t make enough income to cover the cost of the seltzer waters they purchased in February. They’re now in the red for seltzer water.
What This Means for You
The notion that some schools might reject more-competitive applicants because they’re less likely to attend might seem to counter our long-held advice: you need to be a top applicant to get into a top school. Our advice is that you should continue to heed our earlier advice. There’s no real way to game the yield rate system, primarily, because we know very little about what the inner-calculations of most schools actually are when it comes to yield rates. So, your best strategy is always to have a strong application.
It also means you should consider something called “demonstrated interest,” or the ways in which you show a school that you’re really, genuinely interested in going there. What we know with certainty is that schools want to admit students who are going to attend. Schools like Harvard have a good shot that many in their applicant pool would attend if admitted, but it’s not a guarantee even for the likes of Harvard (as we established above, their yield rate is not 100%). We think grades, essays, and extracurriculars all matter more than demonstrated interest. (Some schools say they aren’t even considering demonstrated interest anymore). But for those that are considering it, if it’s between you and another equally-qualified candidate (which, given how competitive schools are these days, is a likely scenario) showing you will attend a school if you get in could be the tie-breaker. You can demonstrate interest by taking a tour, attending an information session, and doing your research about the school before submitting your supplement.
More importantly, it also means you should apply to places where you genuinely want to go and are a good fit. Throwing spaghetti at the wall and applying to a million places isn’t just going to spread you too thin (and make for a series of poorly-executed applications as opposed to 10-12 really strong ones…) A college may catch the vibe that you’re not that interested, thus, wasting your time by submitting an application altogether.
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