Yale Application Figures

Yale Application Figures February 10 Brian Taylor, Director of Ivy Coach, is quoted today in The Yale Daily News on this years drop in applications to Yale. Brian Taylor, Director of Ivy Coach, is featured today on the pages of The Yale Daily News in a piece by Tyler Foggatt entitled Yale employs targeted outreach strategies that we figured wed share with our reader base. The piece focuses on how applications went up at each Ivy League school this year with one exception Yale. The Yale application figures were down this year. And while Yale did receive 30,227 applications, marking the second highest tally in the universitys long history, many have been speculating about why Yales application tally didnt reach an all-time high  like at every other Ivy League school this admissions cycle. If youll recall, Brian was quoted recently  on the pages of The Yale Daily News as stating that the reason so many highly selective schools see year-to-year increases in application numbers isnt because theyre receiving more competitive applications. Rather, theyre simply getting better in their marketing strategies to appeal to students who are wholly unqualified for admission. In fact, Brian is quoted in todays piece as saying: Every year colleges get better and better at marketing to students, and they market to students who are unqualified for admission, said Brian Taylor, director of Ivy Coach, a New York-based college consulting firm. It sounds like Yale tried something experimental this year, and it does look like it hurt their application numbers, and will invariably hurt their admission rate.†Ã‚  As Yales dean of undergraduate admissions asserts in todays article in The Yale Daily News, Dean of Undergraduate Admissions Jeremiah Quinlan said last week that it is commo n for peer institutions to drum up application numbers by marketing to students who are unlikely to be competitive applicants. In contrast, he said, Yale only targets high-achieving students who are likely to gain admission to the University. There you have it. So this year, Yale in a cost-cutting move chose to only market to students who showed interest in Yale this admissions cycle, saving money on mailings (especially on sending out viewbooks, the most expensive Yale mailing). Ivy Coach applauds Jeremiah Quinlan and the Yale admissions  office for, in some sense, daring to defy what every other college is doing by somewhat restraining their marketing efforts and by targeting high-achieving low-income students in particular this year. That is exceptional and while Yale did see a slight drop in applications this year, we suspect that this will by no means have a long-term impact on the university. Yale is Yale. Yale will always be Yale. We applaud Yale for marching to the beat of their own drummer. While their US News World Report ranking will likely drop slightly this year, this is a good move for the longterm health of one of Americas finest institutions.