What is Yield Protection?

It’s the beginning of the new year, which means many seniors have just recently turned in their last few applications and are now eagerly awaiting results. But in the back of their minds they might recall hearing odd results from previous years, such as students getting waitlisted or rejected by their safeties. Is that a sign for bad news to come? Or is there something deeper going on?

Understanding Yield

Let’s define yield first. Yield refers to the number of students that actually decide to go to a school after all the acceptance letters are sent out. Let’s consider a university that decides to accept 10,000 students for the fall, and 6,000 decided to attend the school in the fall; this would result in a yield of 60% for the university. One can think of yield as an indicator of how sought after a particular university is, as if the yield is closer to 100%, the vast majority of students want to attend the school if they get in, while a lower value can seem less selective. Note that in 2019 the top two schools in the USA  were Harvard and Stanford, both with yields of 82%. What this means is that 18% of admitted students – almost ⅕ – chose not to attend for one reason or another. 

Why does it matter?

There are various reasons why yield matters to colleges, from monetary to practical ones to ones based on prestige.

• Monetary: If a school has a higher yield, it will get more tuition revenue, because more of the students that it accepts will enroll and start paying tuition.

• Logistical: A school has limited dorm rooms, seats in courses, research opportunities, etc. There isn’t much wiggle room for the size of the incoming class that can be admitted.

• Prestige: If a school has a higher yield, it can admit fewer students to reach its target class size, and will thus be more selective. Colleges with higher yield rates and high selectivity are generally seen as “better” ones.

Yield protection

So what is “yield protection”? Also known as “Tufts Syndrome”, it’s colleges’ tendency to reject overqualified applicants in fear that they will turn down the college in favor of a higher-rated school to which they’ve also been accepted, thereby decreasing the college’s yield.

It all boils down to one thing: the college wants to get most of the students that it accepts, so there’s less variability. (This is why colleges tend to accept more students out of the ED pool than they do out of the regular cycle, because it’s a guaranteed “yes” that the accepted students will matriculate.)

Therefore, out of the interest of keeping their yield rates high, colleges may end up rejecting high-achieving students, despite being more than qualified for their school. These colleges are fully aware that high-achieving students apply to many colleges at once, including those that may be more desirable for each student’s individual academic needs, and if a college can easily picture a scenario where the student would rather go to another school than their own, the college may send that student a rejection in order to protect its yield rate.

Every major university denies that it does this. However, no school wants to be seen as a “safety” school, and if your application is read by the wrong person on their off day, they may just assume that you have no actual desire to go there, and reject or waitlist you to avoid damaging the college’s yield statistics. The admission office understands that by rejecting students that are unlikely to attend the school, the yield for the university could be higher. 

What can I (as a student) do about this?

The best method for students to “fight back” against yield-driven rejections is to make sure that they’re applying to schools that are best fit for their individual needs, and they’ve demonstrated adequate interest in actually attending. If schools read over a student’s application and find that the student’s interests actually align well with what the school has to offer, or that the student very clearly desires to go to their specific school for its specific merits, then the school has stronger reason to believe that, given an acceptance, the student would actually attend their school. If the school sees this, then they won’t have a reason to reject a student solely to preserve the school’s yield rate.

Below are some tips on how students can, essentially, protect themselves against yield protection:

Demonstrate interest

We have a whole article on demonstrated interest. But, essentially, “demonstrated interest” means that you’ve shown the schools that you’re actually interested in going there. This can mean that you’ve gone to a virtual info session – or an in-person one, and you’ve registered with your name or phone number or email. Going to the school (physically) and wandering around the campus, or even talking with current students you meet in the quads, won’t necessarily help you. (Though it’s still good to get this perspective if you can.) There needs to be a paper or digital trail to show that you’ve been there.

However, not all schools track demonstrated interest. In that case, what do you do?

Personalize your supplemental essays

Even though the majority of schools use the Common App, many schools require supplements. Each supplement is school-specific. And here’s where you absolutely should NOT just copy and paste a rote response. If it’s a top-choice school, make sure that they know that you want them.

So personalize your supplemental essays. Use the name of the school, if you can. If you’ve visited the campus, here’s the place to talk about it – because some schools may not officially track “demonstrated interest”, but if your essay contains a line such as “I loved talking with the editors of the Stanford Daily, because I’ve read that publication since my brother started attending two years ago,” or “The highlight of my visit to Occidental was stepping into Clapp Library and smelling the books all around, and thinking of the picture I’ve seen of Barack Obama in the same aisles”.

Let the schools about which you’re serious know that you’re serious about them. Let the schools that you’ve physically visited know that you’ve physically visited them. It’s not guaranteed to get you admission, but if the school was thinking about rejecting you or waitlisting you, they might reconsider.

Be well researched in your school list

Being well researched in the college experiences that you’re applying for will help you better understand the opportunities that are out there and can help you write stronger supplemental essays that show your understanding of the campus. At the same time, being well researched can also help you avoid schools that are popular or highly ranked, but might not be a good fit for you.

Also be sure to understand the context of your school beyond academics. Many students may narrowly focus on academics and prestige of a university, while not being wary of the social context of the school. Consider the popular clubs, student organizations, or fraternities on campus, as well as what the university values and celebrates. 

Apply to many colleges (12 - 15 schools) 

Applying to many colleges will decrease the impact of one or two schools’ rejections on the potential basis of yield protection. It seems counterintuitive, as one of the issues from yield protection is the increased number of applications despite students not understanding the fit of the college they’re applying to, but as an individual applicant, you want to make sure that rejections you receive are not going to hurt your options when considering where to go. One rejection on a college list of four has much more impact than one rejection on a college list of twelve, and not getting into one safety school isn’t an issue if you have a couple on your list.