Daniel Zhao
After the class of 2022 posted the highest yield rate in recent memory, with 72.4 percent of admitted students matriculating to Yale, the rate for the class of 2023 dipped by 2.3 percent this year.
Yield rates, which are defined as the percentage of applicants who enroll in a school after being accepted, are generally used to measure a school’s selectivity — a higher rate suggests that an institution is considered more prestigious than its peers. This year, Yale admitted 2,269 students — 1,554 became members of the class of 2023, and 53 students postponed matriculation, denoting a yield rate of 70.1 percent.
“Neither an admissions rate nor a yield rate alone tell you much about a university, and small changes in either over the course of only a few years tell you very little more,” said Dean of Undergraduate Admissions and Financial Aid Jeremiah Quinlan. “We are very pleased with the long-term trend towards higher yield rates overall, and higher yield rates for some of our fastest growing subgroups.”
Quinlan also noted that this was the fifth time in the past 12 years that the yield rate rose above 70 percent.
Quinlan added that former Dean of Admissions Jeffery Brenzel, was “fond of pointing out” that, unlike Yale, many universities like to “manipulate statistics such as yield rate and admissions rate through practices such as denying students deemed unlikely to yield or encouraging large numbers of unqualified students to apply.”
“We have … been able to exercise ethical restraint in conducting outreach to students of all backgrounds who are very unlikely to be offered admission here, while at the same time being very aggressive in our targeted outreach efforts,” Brenzel told the News in 2011.
Quinlan echoed Brenzel’s call for restraint in trying to bolster such statistics to aim for a reputation of selectivity.
“The Yale Admissions Committee will not, for example, vote to deny an exceptional applicant only because they believe she is unlikely to choose Yale over other options,” he said.
The class of 2023 is the most diverse Yale class ever, with a record 51 percent of the class identifying as a racial or ethnic minority. It boasts the largest-ever number of students in a Yale class who identify as African American, Asian American, Mexican American/Chicano or Native American.
It is also the second class in a row to have more than 20 percent of its students qualify for Pell Grants — subsidies the federal government provides to students with high financial need.
“We are very pleased with the long-term trend towards higher yield rates overall, and higher yield rates for some of our fastest growing subgroups,” Quinlan said. “Most importantly, we are extremely pleased with the remarkably strong group of first year students and the amazing collection of experiences they have brought with them to campus.”
Members of the class of 2023 moved into their dorms on Aug. 23.
Skakel McCooey | skakel.mccooey@yale.edu