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Solid, but you missed the enormous influence of yield optimization, especially among the Ivy League colleges that use sophisticated models to predict yield. Co

Solid, but you missed the enormous influence of yield optimization, especially among the Ivy League colleges that use sophisticated models to predict yield. Colleges care intensely about yield, for two reasons. The first is that it reduces uncertainty in the composition of the incoming class. The second is that it's how, internally, undergraduate admissions offices measure their colleges' relative prestige. Harvard doesn't especially care if it shows up as #4 vs. #1 in US News's capricious rankings one year, but if Harvard loses to Yale in cross-admissions, there'll be hell to pay for the Harvard admissions office. Yield numbers are the "bottom line" regarding how good a job the admissions office has done. Yield optimization plays a huge role in the process. Harvard, for example, aims for an 80% yield rate and generally rejects any applicant for whom it estimates a lower-than-70% chance of attending, regardless of qualifications (my boss at a prior job knew a former Harvard admissions officer). The "yield probability" is based on a number of factors, but mostly number of campus visits and interviews, in addition to the other schools to which the student applied. Anyone who really wants to attend a selective school has to clear the yield bar by showing a higher-than-baseline likelihood of attending. Harvard doesn't have a 75% yield rate only because of its prestige and the quality of its program-- although those are obviously very important factors-- but also because it's extremely good at selecting people who will attend.

brandnewlow 18y ago
Sorry man, but you've gotta back this stuff up. If you worked there, then, by all means, let us know. It all sounds good, but is it true? To your points: I didn't talk about the influence of yield rates because at no point during my two years in admissions was a decision ever made on a kid based on whether or not we thought they'd matriculate to our school. This simply did not happen in my presence, so I didn't speak to it. Note This is one of the problems I have with college admissions consultants. They charge kids an arm and leg to help them get into elite schools, but few if any of them actually ever admitted kids to elite schools. All they can do is look at the black box, see what goes in, what goes out, and then make educated guesses about why. That's not good enough for the prices they charge. Unfortunately, most of the folks I know who have worked in admissions are so humbled by the process that they wouldn't think to sell kids on the idea that they could get them into an elite school. I tried it for about 3 weeks during grad school and just couldn't do it. It was too ridiculous. The kids that are going to get in are going to get in. The kids that won't, won't. I could take a big payday to inform kids that they will or won't be admitted, but no one wants that service. They want you to polish them into a winner, even if it's not the case. So the bad information and the snake-oil salesmen dominate the conversation, folks like these people http://ivywise.com http://ivywise.com
- neilk 18y ago
  The kids that are going to get in are going to get in. The kids that won't, won't. At any given school, yes... but what if you were to give people advice about which colleges to apply to? There has to be some way to optimize the effort here, and that's got to be worth something. Especially when helping to rank the second-tier choices -- so you didn't get into Harvard, but maybe you happen to know that such-and-such College favors applicants like your client for such-and-such reasons.
  - brandnewlow 18y ago
    Well, how do you know that college such-and-such favors those kinds of applicants? Do you work there to be able to know for sure? How many schools can you work at to know for sure? You are right to suggest that parents could use help knowing where to apply. That's the service that people wanted more than anything during my brief adventure in consulting. It was also the one that I felt the worst offering. Every school is different. Every school is a little weird. I don't think anyone can tell a kid where he'd be best off going to college. Sure, you can read up on what the different guide books say and offer an opinion, but it's still a shot in the dark. My advice to kids is always to go visit and see if they could see themselves hanging out on campus there. When I was in high school I visited about 20 colleges with my family. They all looked nice, but none of them inspired my imagination. When I visited Princeton, after I was admitted, I got the sense of a place full of people much, much smarter than myself. I felt like I'd somehow been invited to Hogwarts or the Jedi Academy. That sense of disbelief was what cemented my decision. I figure that's as good as method of picking a school as any.
    - deleted 18y ago
      [deleted]
    - tokenadult 18y ago
      My advice to kids is always to go visit and see if they could see themselves hanging out on campus there. How practical is that advice for the low-income families mentioned in your other helpful reply? I guess you come from the upper Midwest, as I do. Were your family visits to places like Princeton, Stanford, and MIT, or to colleges in your state and nearby states?
tokenadult 18y ago
Here's a very detailed article about Harvard's recruiting strategy. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_34/b3998441.htm http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_34/b3998441.... Harvard starts by sending 70,000 letters to high school students in their junior year (second-to-last year) of high school. Telephone calls are also part of the recruiting effort. These days that provides almost 30,000 applicants for just more than 1,600 spaces in each year's entering class.

brandnewlow 18y ago

Sorry man, but you've gotta back this stuff up. If you worked there, then, by all means, let us know. It all sounds good, but is it true? To your points: I didn't talk about the influence of yield rates because at no point during my two years in admissions was a decision ever made on a kid based on whether or not we thought they'd matriculate to our school. This simply did not happen in my presence, so I didn't speak to it. Note This is one of the problems I have with college admissions consultants. They charge kids an arm and leg to help them get into elite schools, but few if any of them actually ever admitted kids to elite schools. All they can do is look at the black box, see what goes in, what goes out, and then make educated guesses about why. That's not good enough for the prices they charge. Unfortunately, most of the folks I know who have worked in admissions are so humbled by the process that they wouldn't think to sell kids on the idea that they could get them into an elite school. I tried it for about 3 weeks during grad school and just couldn't do it. It was too ridiculous. The kids that are going to get in are going to get in. The kids that won't, won't. I could take a big payday to inform kids that they will or won't be admitted, but no one wants that service. They want you to polish them into a winner, even if it's not the case. So the bad information and the snake-oil salesmen dominate the conversation, folks like these people http://ivywise.com http://ivywise.com

neilk 18y ago
The kids that are going to get in are going to get in. The kids that won't, won't. At any given school, yes... but what if you were to give people advice about which colleges to apply to? There has to be some way to optimize the effort here, and that's got to be worth something. Especially when helping to rank the second-tier choices -- so you didn't get into Harvard, but maybe you happen to know that such-and-such College favors applicants like your client for such-and-such reasons.
- brandnewlow 18y ago
  Well, how do you know that college such-and-such favors those kinds of applicants? Do you work there to be able to know for sure? How many schools can you work at to know for sure? You are right to suggest that parents could use help knowing where to apply. That's the service that people wanted more than anything during my brief adventure in consulting. It was also the one that I felt the worst offering. Every school is different. Every school is a little weird. I don't think anyone can tell a kid where he'd be best off going to college. Sure, you can read up on what the different guide books say and offer an opinion, but it's still a shot in the dark. My advice to kids is always to go visit and see if they could see themselves hanging out on campus there. When I was in high school I visited about 20 colleges with my family. They all looked nice, but none of them inspired my imagination. When I visited Princeton, after I was admitted, I got the sense of a place full of people much, much smarter than myself. I felt like I'd somehow been invited to Hogwarts or the Jedi Academy. That sense of disbelief was what cemented my decision. I figure that's as good as method of picking a school as any.
  - deleted 18y ago
    [deleted]
  - tokenadult 18y ago
    My advice to kids is always to go visit and see if they could see themselves hanging out on campus there. How practical is that advice for the low-income families mentioned in your other helpful reply? I guess you come from the upper Midwest, as I do. Were your family visits to places like Princeton, Stanford, and MIT, or to colleges in your state and nearby states?

tokenadult 18y ago

Here's a very detailed article about Harvard's recruiting strategy. http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_34/b3998441.htm http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_34/b3998441.... Harvard starts by sending 70,000 letters to high school students in their junior year (second-to-last year) of high school. Telephone calls are also part of the recruiting effort. These days that provides almost 30,000 applicants for just more than 1,600 spaces in each year's entering class.