U.S. News & World Report's recently announced decision to no longer consider schools' "yield rates" when ranking colleges and universities has left industry professionals unexcited.
Higher yield rates mean more accepted applicants actually chose to matriculate at a given school. Though the figure made up only around two percent of a school's overall rank in the magazine's list, many speculated that college admissions officers might put less pressure on applicants to apply under binding early decision programs -- which naturally increase a school's yield -- if the figure no longer impacted their institution's rank.
"If U.S. News thinks that them making this change is going to change the way schools behave..., they really are full of themselves," said Michael London, President of the college admissions consulting firm College Coach.
Heading up the largest college counseling and admissions consulting group in the country, London said the magazine's decision would effect neither applicants nor the schools to which they apply.
"To me it's pretty insignificant," he said, noting that "families don't really know what yield means -- they only care whether they're going to get in or not."
Before he worked in admissions, London said he "didn't even know what yield was."
Penn, which enrolled almost half of the matriculated class of 2006 under early admission, with 1,182 future Quakers accepted in December out of a class of 2,451, will continue doing business as usual.
"The change in methodology will have no impact on our admissions process," Penn regional director of admissions Bruce Chamberlin said, adding that "Penn's policies will continue as they are. Both early decision and regular decision plans attract tremendously talented students."
Mark Nickel, director of Brown University's news service, said that the new ranking procedure would likely have little impact on schools' positions in the pecking order.
"I don't think this will cause a wholesale reordering of the schools," Nickel said, adding that he doesn't expect Brown's own rank to "change significantly."
As long as consumers in the higher education market continue to fight to get into the best program that will admit them, colleges and universities will continue to compete for the best applicants -- a natural process this change is unlikely to disturb.
London said that the exclusion of yield figures "doesn't make the schools any less or more competitive."
"They're not going to change their behavior," he said. "And if I were in their place, I wouldn't either."
Speculating on U.S. News' motive for so publicly excluding yield rates from its rankings, London suggested that the magazine might simply be trying to get on the right side of the controversial early decision debate.
"Early decision really is a mixed bag, and you do have a lot of people who are frowning on it now," London said. "It reminds me a little bit of when Harvard was changing its policies on early decision."
London added that the publicity the announcement has generated can't hurt U.S. News' magazine sales either.
"Any hype around it prior to the release of the magazine... is good for U.S. News," London said.
Chamberlin, meanwhile, offered a positive take on yield rates' exclusion.
"On its face, yield does measure some aspect of "popularity" within a market place," he said. "With the removal of yield, perhaps students will be encouraged to question for themselves their particular fit at any given institution without the influences of aggregate numbers."
