College-bound students are often tense about being accepted to that dream college or university they applied to. While some are not accepted and are devastated by it (or not), some are accepted into the universities they send applications to.
Some of them, however, don't enroll where they are accepted.
A report from U.S. News ranks the colleges that have high yield rates. Yield rates indicate the number of students who actually enroll in comparison to the number of applications that were accepted. A college with a low yield rate might have accepted more than 6,000 applications, but only saw about 3,000 students enroll for the semester. Another with a high yield rate would expect to have almost all accepted students enroll for the semester.
Among National Universities, Stanford University topped the list as having the highest yield rate for fall 2015 at 80.4% . A National University offers a wide range of undergraduate majors as well as master's and doctoral degrees.
Among National Liberal Arts Colleges, on the other hand, the United States Naval Academy had the highest yield for fall 2015 at 86.7%. National Liberal Arts Colleges, unlike National Universities, place emphasis on undergraduate education, awarding about half of all degrees in the liberal arts.
Here's a list of colleges with high yield rates:
Top National Universities According to Yield Rates
- Stanford University (CA) - 80.4%
- Harvard University (MA) - 79.8%
- Brigham Young University-Provo (UT) - 79.8%
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology - 72.8%
- University of Alaska-Fairbanks - 70.2%
- Princeton University (NJ) - 67.7%
- Yale University (CT) - 67.2%
- University of Pennsylvania - 64.3%
- Columbia University (NY) - 63.0%
- University of Nebraska-Lincoln - 62.3%
Top National Liberal Arts Colleges According to Yield Rates
- United States Naval Academy (MD) - 86.7%
- United States Military Academy (NY) - 83.2%
- United States Air Force Academy (CO) - 79.7%
- Berea College (KY) - 72.4%
- Thomas Aquinas College (CA) - 66.4%
- Principia College (IL) - 65.8%
- Bard College at Simon's Rock (MA) - 65.7%
- Soka University of America (CA) - 61.1%
- St. John's College (NM) - 53.5%
