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Wendy (wjb)
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Posted: Wed May 21st, 2008 04:31 pm |
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Cardinal- Harvard's projected class size is 1650 and Wisconsin's, I think, is 5700.
But I do agree with you that both schools probably could have done a better job of predicting yield. Before any of the results were in, Harvard's prediction was 85%! I don't know why they believed their yield would be so high, especially after other elites followed on their heels with financial aid initiatives for the middle class. As for Wisconsin, who knows?
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CardinalFang
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Posted: Wed May 21st, 2008 04:36 pm |
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Wendy (wjb) wrote: Cardinal- Harvard's projected class size is 1650 and Wisconsin's, I think, is 5700.
I didn't realize Harvard's class was so big, but are you sure about Wisconsin? Princeton Review says that UW-Madison alone has over 28,000 undergraduates, and don't they have other campuses too?
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Wendy (wjb)
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Posted: Wed May 21st, 2008 04:48 pm |
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| I read that number on CC, but it's incorrect. I just checked the USNews College website. U of Wisc Madison has a total undergrad enrollment of almost exactly 30,000, so that's 7000+ per class. I believe it's the flagship, U of Wisconsin Madison, that is taking 800 off its waitlist. The satellites campuses' admissions are not factored into the equation. Last edited on Wed May 21st, 2008 04:49 pm by Wendy (wjb)
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Chedva
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Posted: Wed May 21st, 2008 04:55 pm |
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According to its factbook, the UW system in 2006 had a total of 40,333 freshmen, with 7768 of them in the 2-year UW college system. About 5300 of them were at UW-Madison.
http://www.uwsa.edu/cert/publicat/factbook.pdf
Now, when the articles talk about UW taking 800 from their waitlist, I wonder if it's just for Madison, or across the whole system? And does it matter?
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Descartes
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Posted: Wed May 21st, 2008 05:03 pm |
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This is for UW-Madison only. Most of the other system campuses are either open or much less competitive in their admissions policies. If you don't have room in one, most students will flow to another. With the exception of Stout (polytechnic), Milwaukee (the 2nd research school), and Superior (LAC) they are not highly differentiated from one another.
Wisconsin's (UW-Madison) classes have traditionally grown: more seniors than juniors, more juniors than sophomores, more sophs than freshmen.
Fall 2007 numbers
Fr Soph Jr Sr Total
Total Enrollment 5571 6078 7803 9547 28999
I believe they allow quite a bit of room for transfers coming in from the two-year campuses (by design as it is intended to keep costs down and allow some more marginal students to correct deficiencies before coming to the big school) and some of the other four-year schools as well as non-UW system schools. There is also a certain amount of "holding" at the top as students become seniors but are not yet ready to graduate due to shifts in majors, need to work, etc.
I can't say why they ended up short this year. They may have been reaching to try to go under the 50% admissions number for the first time.
Last edited on Wed May 21st, 2008 05:22 pm by Descartes
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mackinaw
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Posted: Wed May 21st, 2008 05:26 pm |
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I'm curious whether there might also be a revenue enhancement aspect to this, for example by selecting disproportionately from the out-of-staters when they go to the waitlist. (Not counting Minnesota, since they pay in-state rates in WI.)
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Alumother
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Posted: Wed May 21st, 2008 06:14 pm |
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I agree with you wjb. I think Harvard and Princeton ought to reinstate their early admittance programs. And I think each of them ought to be SCEA, for the reasons you state.
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Wendy (wjb)
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Posted: Wed May 21st, 2008 06:30 pm |
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| Yep, alu, but I don't think either of them will reinstate -- even as SCEA. Too much extravagant publicity surrounded the elimination of the early programs. But what a mess it creates. Son has a classmate who is parked on the waitlist at Lehigh, his long-time top choice. Who knows how long it will take for the trickle-down effect to reach him? He's concerned he won't know where he's going to college until August! The uncertainty at the end of the cycle is, IMO, much worse than the uncertainty at the beginning of the cycle.
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Wed May 21st, 2008 10:14 pm |
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Regarding, UW, I am wondering if some of their yield issue this year had to do with U Michigan adopting a "preferred application deadline." The two schools have some overlap in applications, and many consider UW a kind of fall back for Michigan. It's possible that the early deadline at Michigan encouraged many to apply there first, and perhaps decide they didn't need to apply to UW after all once they got their admissions decision. Just a thought.
UW also has had problems with housing shortages for freshmen over the last few years, so perhaps some students opted to go to schools where they were guaranteed housing. UW itself has said the housing situation is making it difficult to recruit students. (see: http://www.lacrossetribune.com/articles/2007/08/20/wi/2wis.txt)Last edited on Wed May 21st, 2008 10:20 pm by CarolynLawrence
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Wendy (wjb)
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Posted: Wed May 21st, 2008 11:05 pm |
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I don't know, Carolyn. Obviously, my evidence is purely anecdotal, but both schools are extremely popular around here, and many kids apply to both with the clear understanding that the earlier both applications are submitted, the better. Kids are urged to, and generally do, submit applications to both schools as early as the beginning of September, and always well before November 1. I haven't seen anyone strategically apply to Michigan first, then follow up later with Wisconsin if the Michigan decision is unfavorable. It's an article of faith here in Rolling Admissions Territory to submit 'em all early. Maybe in some areas of the country where rolling admissions schools are not as popular, the scenario you describe is common.
This was such an odd year: We know several kids who were accepted to Michigan and, you guessed it, waitlisted at Wisconsin. People were scratching their heads, but now I understand what happened. 800 off the waitlist. Wow.
Last edited on Wed May 21st, 2008 11:06 pm by Wendy (wjb)
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CardinalFang
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Posted: Wed May 21st, 2008 11:20 pm |
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Wendy (wjb) wrote:
As for the argument that less "sophisticated" students don't understand their early options, that, too, is junk IMO. Any student who is sophisticated enough to apply to HYP should also be sophisticated enough to understand his or her early acceptance options.
But presumably Harvard, Yale and Princeton know who was applying early, and who was applying for the regular deadline. So they know whether promising students from more disadvantaged backgrounds weren't savvy enough to apply early (perhaps because those students don't have obsessed parents like me, who knows enough to troll CC and here). So, if HYP say that their ED/EA applicants were whiter and richer than their other applicants, why would I disbelieve them?
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Alumother
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Posted: Wed May 21st, 2008 11:42 pm |
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| I think it could be true that they did see the disdavantaged applicants coming later. But, I don't think eliminating SCEA would be the way to get around that.
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Thu May 22nd, 2008 05:29 am |
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I said it at the time, and I'll say it again now, but the decision of Harvard and Princeton to end their early programs came suspiciously close after US Dept of Ed Secretary Spelling started making noise about college accessibility. I believe it is no coincidence, nor do I see their (and other) school's decision to change their FA policies in quite the philantrophic light that they would like people to see. A good part of these decisions were tied to politics. There's nothing like the threat of greater government regulation to get organizations to change.
Wendy, thanks for the feedback on UW and UMich from your more local perspective. Here in California, I mostly get kids who see UW as a fall back for UMichigan, and U Michigan as a fall back for UC Berkeley. 
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DesperateDad
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Posted: Thu May 22nd, 2008 05:49 am |
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Here in California, I mostly get kids who see...U Michigan as a fall back for UC Berkeley.
Be careful, Carolyn. Someone posted that same idea on the other board, and the Mich alums went balistic -- true school spirit.
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CardinalFang
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Posted: Thu May 22nd, 2008 02:50 pm |
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CarolynLawrence wrote: I said it at the time, and I'll say it again now, but the decision of Harvard and Princeton to end their early programs came suspiciously close after US Dept of Ed Secretary Spelling started making noise about college accessibility.
Sure, but that doesn't tell us whether the decisions did in fact improve accessibility. A lot of rich suburban kids have parents or paid college counselors who help them strategize about when and where to apply; less advantaged kids with equal academic ability lack adult strategists telling them where and when to apply for best results (unless they have Carolyn, of course).
After all, the Ivies also (as Carolyn pointed out in a part I snipped) improved their financial aid packages in response to government pressure. The motive may not have been pure, but the financial aid packages really are better now for a lot of families.
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CarolynLawrence
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Posted: Thu May 22nd, 2008 06:44 pm |
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Agreed. There's an interesting website, Projectonstudentdebt.org, which compares how the new FA policies of various schools actually pan out for students coming from different family income levels. It is very interesting to see the differences. I also will be very interested to see whether the number of very low income kids (Pell Grant recipients) rises at the top schools this year given the admissions changes and the new financial aid policies.
I recently read a very interesting study done by the Chicago Board of Ed regarding college access for low income students. The best part of the study was a series of case studies where they followed low income kids through junior and senior years, recording how their college planning and application process went. Many of these students had the potential to be admitted to high level colleges, but because they lacked any sort of guidance (even when it was available at their high schools, they often didn't take advantage of it, or know it was available), many ended up confused by the application and financial aid process, and didn't follow through in the end.
That is something I see with my kids from low income families --- there is a serious gap in their exposure to and understanding of things students from middle and upper level families get as a matter of course. For instance, some of my students' parents don't even have a credit card, so they have difficulty applying online or even signing up to take the SAT online. They don't have computers at home, so they have to rely on getting their applications and essays done sometime during the school day on school computers. Some parents don't file taxes, so the kids are stumped about how to complete the FAFSA. I also have had kids who were homeless or in the Foster Care system, and didn't know where they'd be living next month or next week -- they needed help figuring out what address or phone number they should put down so the colleges they were applying to could contact them.
These are very real barriers that don't change just because colleges do away with ED or change their financial aid policies. If colleges are serious about attracting more low income students, they need to step in and simplify the process on every level, and understand the barriers that may not be so easy to change.
Last edited on Thu May 22nd, 2008 06:58 pm by CarolynLawrence
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