When colleges evaluate applicants, the top students always get in; or so it commonly seems. After all, we know what admissions officers want to see from your grades, test scores, and extracurriculars; so if you do all of that, they’re sure to let you in wherever you apply.
Unfortunately, this is not the case. Colleges don’t just want to admit top students; they specifically want to admit top students who really want to attend that college in particular. This is called yield protection, and it can hurt the very best students most, in a shift from the norm in college applications. In this article, we’ll go over what this is, and how it might impact you.
What is Yield Protection?
We should begin by defining terms, since this is not a commonly discussed phenomenon. First is yield; this is the percentage of students admitted to a college who end up actually attending. This number varies a lot from school to school; Harvard has a yield of 80% or more, while Tulane is closer to 50%.
Colleges want their yield to be high for several reasons. The first is simple convenience; if you’re trying to plan for a certain number of people to do something, it’s easiest to plan if you have a very good idea just how many people will show up. Colleges can guess based on past yield rates, but a sure thing is always better.
There is also the fact that colleges prefer to admit students who view them as their first choice. This makes sense from a purely human perspective; nobody wants to be the backup option, the safety, the second choice.
Finally, and most cynically, colleges benefit directly from having a high yield rate. Colleges care a lot about their relative place in the rankings, and yield is one of the many factors used to calculate them. By increasing their yield rate, colleges have a chance to directly impact their place on the rankings.
How Does Yield Protection Work?
So now we’ve covered what yield protection is, and why colleges do it, but how does it actually work? Colleges have several ways they protect their yield. The first, and most common, is an emphasis on early decision.
More and more colleges are offering early decision, and early decision two, and for good reason. If you commit to attending a school when you apply, then their yield numbers are guaranteed. Indeed, many top schools are now admitting half their incoming class each year through early decision.
Of course, this is a big commitment on the part of students, but it serves the needs of colleges very well. By making this commitment, you prove a school is your top choice, and guarantee them a student in their incoming class. While not all schools use early decision in this way, it is a major consideration for the ones that do.
Other schools manage yield more directly in an incoming class. They directly consider how likely students are to enroll if they are admitted, and this then impacts each student’s chance of acceptance. In some ways, this is akin to demonstrated interest, but it can both help and hurt your admissions chances.
The students rejected to protect yield are ones admissions officers think are likely to enroll elsewhere. The way they make these judgments varies; some use intuition, while other schools have algorithms and consultants, paid high fees to manage enrollment and help them construct their classes.
In many cases, students rejected to protect yield are done so because their candidacy is very high, and there is no sign they actually like the college in question. Admissions officers know they are being applied to as a safety, even if the students don’t say as much, and they are confident the student will get into, and attend, a higher ranked institution.
Note that not all schools do this; Harvard is quite confident that every student they admit will want to attend. Larger state schools go the opposite route; Texas A&M knows they are the second choice for many students in Texas, and this doesn’t worry them. It is the schools in between, the colleges which are well regarded but not at the absolute peak which use yield protection the most. These are the schools who most need to worry about managing enrollment, and who can least afford to admit too many students who choose to go elsewhere.
How Enrollment Management Impacts You
While we know that many colleges engage in enrollment management, how much it actually impacts admissions decisions is difficult to say. College admissions is notoriously opaque, and each school has their own priorities and methodology. That said, we can give you some good general advice to make sure this doesn’t trip up your applications.
Apply to Your Top Choice Early if Possible
Students are rejected for yield protection if schools think they are not that student’s first choice, or that the student will not attend if admitted. The best way to avoid this is making a school think you want to attend, and the simplest way to do that is by applying early decision. Nothing says commitment like a binding agreement.
Of course, you can only apply to a single school ED, so it doesn’t work in every scenario. That said, this is a silver bullet, one you should take advantage of if possible.
Demonstrating Interest
Outside of just applying early, there are other ways to demonstrate your interest in a school. Even though not all schools track this, the ones that practice yield protection most often do (even if they deny it). You do not need to demonstrate interest in every school you apply to, but showing some interest to many of them increases your chances of acceptance. Here are the best ways to do so:
- Visiting a school, and taking their tour. Universities track which students show up, and take it as a sign of interest.
- Open the emails they send you. Thanks to cookies, colleges know if you’re reading the mail they send, and take that as a sign of interest as well.
- If your school has college fairs, and someone from the college in question is there, go talk to them. Admissions officers read applications regionally, so there’s a good chance whoever visits your school will also be the one reading your application.
You don’t have to devote lots of time and resources to this; a small investment can pay off significantly. We recommend demonstrating your interest in all of your target schools, and for reach schools if possible.
Write Genuine “Why Us” Essays
Many colleges ask “Why Us” or some variation thereof, for their supplemental essays. They want to hear from you, in your own words, why you’re a great fit for their college, and why this particular school is a great fit for you. This is your best chance to express your interest in a school.
We recommend doing research into each school you have to write these essays for. The more generic your answer, the more admissions officers will think you don’t actually care that much about their college or its programs. We recommend finding specific classes you want to take, naming professors you want to work with, and explaining how the special programs offered by their university are perfectly tailored to your needs and interests.
Overall, there’s no way to be certain how admissions officers will weigh and evaluate your application, but the techniques we mentioned here are ones which make them think you really do care about their college, and will attend if admitted. While this may not get you in, it is likely to prevent your application from getting discarded due to yield management.
Final Thoughts
Students and colleges have different needs and wants in the admissions process, and these conflicting desires are the source of all kinds of stress. Yield protection is a particularly unfortunate cause of this, as it directly results in universities denying students who they would otherwise love to admit, leaving these students confused or hurt.
We hope this article has explained the what and why of yield protection, and helped you understand both why universities do it, and how you can adjust your own applications to compensate. If you want help composing the perfect essays, or demonstrating your interest in a top choice school, schedule a free consultation today. We have a long experience helping students with every aspect of the admissions process, and are always happy to hear from you.
