College Consulting Tips Post

Yield Rate vs. Acceptance Rate at America's Top 25 National Universities / Colleges

Yield Rates and Admission Rates at America's Top 25 National Universities / Colleges (all values are percents):

1) Princeton: 69/6
2) Harvard: 82/5
3) Columbia: 62/5
3) MIT: 76/7
3) UChicago: 72/9
3) Yale: 72/6
7) Stanford: 82/5
8) Duke: 53/6
9) UPenn: 65/9
10) Johns Hopkins: 40/12
10) Northwestern: 55/9
12) CalTech: 41/8
12) Dartmouth: 61/9
14) Brown: 59/8
15) Vanderbilt: 47/11
16) Cornell: 63/10
16) Rice: 42/11
18) Notre Dame: 55/19
19) UCLA: 37/16
20) Washington University: 37/16
21) Emory: 29/19
22) Georgetown: 47/16
22) UC Berkeley: 44/17
24) USC: 37/16
25) Carnegie Mellon: 37/22
25) University of Virginia: 38/27
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What is yield rate?  It's the percent of admitted students who decide to enroll.  In my opinion, it's the true measure of a college's greatness…even more telling than the admissions rate, which is the 2nd-best metric.  


Keep in mind that some of these schools, such as UChicago, have binding Early Decision (if you are admitted early, then you must agree to enroll), which serves to artificially inflate yield percentages. 

What about Top 25 rankings from US News and World Report,” you ask?  Well, those tend to move around significantly from year to year, so I would take those with a grain of salt--you will notice that when we look at yield rate and admissions rate, the truth becomes clearer.

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Here's what the top 10 would look like if we re-ordered it by Yield Rate: Harvard/Stanford (tie at 82%), MIT (76%), UChicago/Yale (tie at 72%), Columbia (62%), UPenn (65), Cornell (63%), Dartmouth (61%), Brown (59%).

Here's what the top 11 would look like if we re-ordered it by Admission Rate: Columbia/Harvard/Stanford (tie at 5%), Duke/Princeton/Yale (tie at 6%), MIT (7%), Brown (8%), Dartmouth/Northwestern/UChicago (tie at 9%).

Telling, right?

-Brian

Source 1:  US News and World Report National University Rankings 2019
Source 2:  The Best 384 Colleges, 2019 Edition
Source 3: Individual College Websites

 

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