Analyzing the 2023-2024 College Application Cycle
Ivy Day 2024, Yield Protection, and How to Prepare for 2024-2025
The 2023-2024 application cycle was one full of surprises. As more students are applying to colleges than ever before, acceptance rates continue to drop. While this trend was expected for top schools, the real surprise came from schools that many students typically consider “target” or “safety” schools.
Students who received early rejections from safety schools began to feel the panic set in. Some of these students went on to be accepted to top schools later—why? In many cases, colleges that identify an applicant only applied because they considered the school a safety are protecting their yield rates. A college’s yield rate is determined by the percentage of accepted applicants that ultimately enroll in the college. If a college believes a student will not attend their program, they may reject them to protect their yield rate; this is typically referred to as “yield protection.”
It’s important to note that yield protection is not the reason a top college will reject a student. T20s do not turn down students who they believe are “too strong” of an applicant. They may, however, turn down excellent students because they simply have too many applicants and not enough seats available for them.
So, what can students who plan to apply to colleges in the 2024-2025 cycle take from this most recent year of college admissions? We advise that students become more intentional when crafting their college lists.
Be Selective With Selective Schools
We understand that the prestige of a T20 may be enticing to students. However, students should avoid applying to schools only for the reputation of the school. This has always been our stance. I will often hear STEM students I work with tell me their dream school is MIT, and when I ask them to explain why, they are bewildered. “Because it’s MIT,” they often reply. They don’t know about the MIT Sandbox Innovation Fund Program, the Martin Trust Center, MIT.nano, the PKG Center, the Edgerton Center, or any of the other resources the school has to offer. The same goes for students who say their dream school is one of the Ivys. We encourage students to really dig into what every school has to offer in order to know which one is right for them—schools can tell from looking at a student’s application if their university would be a strong fit. If the school doesn’t see a clear path the student can take to succeed while adding value to the campus, it has an endless number of applications to choose from instead.
Rather than applying to as many top schools as the student can afford, or as many as they can fit on their resume, students should choose schools that offer environments and resources that will help them thrive. This takes a lot of research, but it helps students choose colleges that align with their values and goals while also offering them insight into how to tailor each application.
Widening the Target List
Most students will apply to roughly two or three safety schools, three match schools, and several reach schools to increase their likelihood of acceptance at a top university. The issue with this tactic, though, is that defining a target school for students is increasingly difficult. Winter Park High School college and career specialist Weezee Cullen told Jeffrey Selingo of New York Magazine, “I find it very challenging to come up with target and safety schools for students anymore,” following a 28% increase in Florida State University early applications. For students, it’s now more important than ever before to broaden their school list. Target schools for top students can no longer be calculated using median GPAs and SAT or ACT scores accepted by the college in previous years.
Because fit and yield protection is so important to colleges, we recommend that students begin budgeting more time for researching colleges throughout high school. This might mean signing up for emails, signing up for campus tours to note unique details about the college, and contacting their prospective majors’ departments to learn more about the school’s course offerings. Schools that track demonstrated interest will feel more comfortable admitting the student without worrying that their program is only a backup option. Even if a school does not track demonstrated interest, students can identify what might make them a good fit and demonstrate their potential to succeed on campus through their application essays.
Building a Strong Safety List
Students will often apply to safety schools that are close to home, which makes financial sense. However, for this reason, top students might find themselves then competing with their classmates or peers from the same school district. The solution is to apply to safety schools that the student would be genuinely happy to attend. Similar to the above, students should know exactly why they are selecting the college to which they are applying. Though the names of these schools might not hold the same weight as an Ivy, many of these schools offer valuable support to students through campus resources and research opportunities. Even if a student would only want to attend one of these schools for a short amount of time before reapplying as a transfer in the future, it’s still a good idea to have a game plan for how their transfer application will stand out in a year or so. Furthermore, if the student knows very little about the school, it will be clear to the university that the student is only considering them as a safety—they won’t admit students they know won’t attend their school.
Final Thoughts
Though the increase in rejections faced by students might be alarming, it’s important to note that on Ivy Day, many students who worried about their chances of admission to any college ultimately were accepted into at least one reach school. Though not the outcome they’d hoped for, it proves that their prior rejections were not a reflection of them as a student but a reflection of a complex, opaque admissions process.
