Harvard and Yale by the Numbers
It's fascinating to see how Ivy League universities spin their application numbers in their favor..and how the campus press plays along.
Today's Crimson boasts, "Harvard's Early Apps Rise as Yale's Plunge." And indeed they have—the number of early applicants to Harvard increased by 3.5 from last year, while Yale's number dropped by 13 percent.
The question is why.
If you listen to Harvard's Bill Fitzsimmons, Harvard's numbers are up because of Harvard's recruiting, its generous financial aid policies, and, regarding foreign applicants, "an improved perception of American hospitality to foreign students."
(Fitzsimmons is really a master at this stuff, isn't he? Whatever Harvard pays him, it's not enough.)
Why are Yale's numbers down?
According to the dean of Yale college, Peter Salovey, it's a reflection of the fact that Yale is so hard to get into, people are just giving up. (A thought one will not find in the Crimson article.)
Admissions dean David Brenzel adds that it's a mistake to put much emphasis on any individual yearly fluctuation.
I agree...and I'll venture my guess as to what's going on.
Harvard and Princeton both got a huge amount of attention for their decisions to drop early applications. Yale largely stayed below the radar; its response was a very muted "we'll think about it."
Harvard and Princeton get publicity; their applications go up.
Yale doesn't; its applications go down.
We'd all like to think that there's more to it than this, that the best students are immune to such things. Of course, they aren't. (However smart and accomplished they are, they are still products of their time.)
It's all PR, baby. And no one does that better than Harvard.
And as you'll see in the forthcoming issue of 02138, the early application announcement was carefully stage-managed to ensure the maximum PR value.....
