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Yes, your yield rate is STILL falling, version 2022

We finally got the delayed 2022 admissions data from IPEDS yesterday, and I spent the better part of the evening working on pulling this together.  Counselors, parents, students, and admissions/enrollment management officers tell me this is a helpful tool to use while thinking about the state of college admission.

There are four views here:

All institutions interactive shows admission data for all institutions who report it to IPEDS: The number of applications for the first-year class, the number of students offered admission, and the number who enrolled, shown on the bar charts at top.  Then, below, I've calculated admit rates, yield rates, and draw rates.  Admit rate is total admits/total applications; Yield rate is total enrolls/total admits.  And draw rate is yield/admit rate.

Draw rate is intended to show fake, artificially deflated admit rates.  I've written about this a lot, but essentially if you try to look more selective than you are by pumping up soft applications, you'll take a hit on yield.  I like Draw rate because it really helps sort out institutions at the top of the pecking order by looking beyond admit rates: The average industry draw is 0.37.  Meanwhile, Harvard is 25; Stanford is 22; Penn is 10; Northwestern is 7.6.  

Over time, the national draw rate has fallen, from 0.66 to 0.37.  At the Big 13 (second tab), it's gone from 3.0 to 14.  The race is over, folks.  

Use the filters at right to select single institutions or groups of colleges to see how things stacked up in 2022, and how they've changed over time.

The third view shows breakouts of male/female admit rates (IPEDS collects gender as binary, so that's their issue, not mine).  I selected institutions who had admit rates of less than 50% in 2022 and who received at least 1,500 applications.  Men are purple, women orange, and overall rates are shown in gray.

Finally, the last view shows the data in a spreadsheet format if you prefer.  Select the years you want, and groups for smaller selections.  I recommend no more than six years for the best view.

Some notes: There are always anomalies in IPEDS data, usually driven by mistakes in data submission or an inexperienced person filling out the form.  The data here is what IPEDS has.  And good luck with the Penn State data.  Up until 2019, the campuses reported separately.  Then in 2020 and 2021 they reported collectively, as The Pennsylvania State University.  And in 2022 we're back to the old method, apparently.  I'm not going to try to fix it.  Call them if you need the data in a format you can use.

Speaking of using, if you are a parent, student, or high school counselor, use this information widely and freely.  If you use it in your for-profit business, or if you use it to make points with your Board of Trustees at a college, you can support web hosting and software costs by buying me a coffee. Click here to do so.

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