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What is Demonstrated Interest in College Admission?

Lots of hands with different colors and one is taller than others
More and more, college admissions is becoming a game. The days when kids simply submitted applications and waited for a response based on the merits of their application are long gone. As colleges and universities act more and more like businesses, they demand more than just an application from their prospects. They want demonstrated interest from the student. What is demonstrated interest in college admission?
 

What is demonstrated interest in college admission?

Quite simply, colleges want to know that you are really, really excited about attending their institution. On it’s face, this expression of excitement lets the college know that you have done your research, that you have considered all your options in higher education, and that you have chosen to apply to this college because you feel strongly that you would be a great fit for the school.  You are communicating that you would be an active, interested, and engaged member of your chosen community.
 
But that’s only one aspect of demonstrated interest. There is another, more important aspect of demonstrated interest that doesn’t really register with teenagers when they are applying to colleges. 
 

Demonstrated interest and the business of higher education

In the world of business, companies are trying to make sales.  They get expressions of interest from consumers, but sometimes it’s hard to gauge how likely that consumer is to buy the goods or services on offer from that business.  But most businesses and sales associates will rate an inquiry or prospect as to the likelihood that the prospect will convert to a paying customer. The prospect can then be rated as to this likelihood:  are they only 10% likely to buy, or are they an enthusiastic prospect that is 99% likely to buy?  Sales people do this sort of assessment of their leads or prospects all the time.
 
In today’s world of higher education, the admissions office is more accurately identified as the “sales and marketing division” of a college or university. Admissions offices do make decisions about who gets in and who doesn’t, but they are also trying to ensure that budgets are met, that there are enough students to fill the classrooms, and that they continue to attract more and more applicants (or “prospective sales leads”) to complete an application for admission.
 
The sales and marketing division is also very concerned about certain statistics that (supposedly) measure the quality of the college or university. Let’s talk about “yield rate.”
 

Yield rate in college admission 

What is the yield rate and why do colleges find it important? Quite simply, the yield rate is the percentage of students offered admission to actually choose to enroll.  Even at Harvard, not every accepted applicant will actually become an enrolled student. However, Harvard does have a relatively high yield rate:  about 80-85% of accepted applicants become Harvard undergraduates. Other schools, however, have a lower yield rate.  A few years ago, Tulane had a yield rate of 20-25%. 
 

Why do colleges care about the yield rate?

There are two reasons.  First, understanding this statistic gives colleges a way to plan.  If a college needs to fill 1000 slots to make budget and fill the classrooms and the college has a 25% yield rate, then the admissions office will need to accept 4000 applications.  (25% of 4000 accepted applicants = 1000 enrolled students).  Similarly a college with a 50% yield rate would have to accept 2000 applicants to ensure that 1000 students enrolled.  
 
From a business perspective, then, the yield rate is a tool for internal planning and budgeting. But there is another, more important (more insidious?) reason that colleges care about the yield rate:  US News & World Report.  
 
The yield rate is one of the criteria used by US News to rank colleges.  The higher the yield rate, the better the college ranks. The presumption is that a high yield rate correlates positively to the quality of the college or university.  Thus Harvard is “better” than the University of Massachusetts – Lowell (with a yield rate of about 18%).
 

Colleges can manipulate their yield rate

As businesses, colleges have learned to implement strategies to fiddle with their yield rates, all in an effort to boost their rankings with US News. The main way that they do this is to rejigger their admissions process to favor the students who express more “interest” in the college than others.  Colleges want to admit students who are more likely to enroll. As mentioned above, anyone in sales will rate a prospective sales lead based on the likelihood they will buy a company’s goods or services.  As businesses, colleges are rating you as a prospect long before you submit an application for admission.
 
The main way colleges are now manipulating their yield rate is to heavily favor early applicants over applicants who apply in the early round.  Without getting into the details of early applications, suffice it to point out that the effective “yield rate” of an early decision application is 100%:  an ED application includes a promise to attend. The admissions office can be assured that anyone accepted ED is more or less guaranteed to become a student–and pay tuition. For more on how this obsession with yield rate is changing the timeline for college admissions, see this post about Early Decision and Early Action.  
 

How to show demonstrated interest in the college admissions process

 
The general rule for demonstrating interest is to do anything and everything that will indicate to the admissions office that you are a serious applicant and that you have a strong desire to attend.  You are trying to get the sales people (a.k.a. the admissions officers) to believe that if you are accepted you are likely to attend. With that general guideline in mind, here are the ways to demonstrate interest.
 

Apply early

 An early application indicates your demonstrated interest. Of course, early decision is a stronger demonstration of interest, but even an early action application indicates that you have put that school toward the top of your priority list. 
 

Sign up for the admissions mailing list

Right on the admissions page of the college’s website is an invitation to receive more information about the college. This is absolutely the first thing you must to do express interest. By sharing your name, address, email, and phone number with the college, you are telling the sales and marketing folks (i.e., admissions) that you are truly interested in learning more about the college.  And this act of giving them your contact information puts you into their big data tracking system in the Cloud.  
 

Visit the college’s website

Now that you’re in their admissions system, colleges have tools to be able to see what pages on their website you visit and how long you spend on those pages. It’s kind of a spooky proposition, but it’s true:  they have ways of observing your behavior on their website. 
 
So spend time on the site.  Visit lots of pages.  Take your time to read them.  Demonstrate that you truly are interested in the college by exploring the website–often and in-depth.  The side benefit is that you really will begin to learn whether this college is for you by spending the time to really read about it in detail.
 

Attend an admissions event

Colleges are expanding their reach to try to attract more and more applicants. These are marketing events (remember what I said is the true function of the admissions office?).  But they also provide you an opportunity to learn more about the college–and to earn some demonstrated interest brownie points. 

Whether the event is online (a “virtual information session”) or in person at a college fair, take the time to attend.  Your registration is a signal of your interest.  And at a fair, the effort you take to stop by the college’s table or booth–and fill out their contact card and leave it with the sales representative (a.k.a. “admissions officer”)–will be recognized in your electronic file that you established with you signed up for that mailing list!
 

Visit the college to show demonstrated interest

You have two opportunities to visit a college.  First, you can do so in person (for more information about how to get the most from your college visits, read this post)
 
Or you can do so virtually by signing up for a virtual tour.  These online experiences can either be automated or they can be scheduled, live events whereby you visit the school on video with a student and have the opportunity to ask questions live. You can do one or the other. But if you really want to go the extra mile to demonstrate interest, do both!
 

Communicate with an admissions officer

There are ways for you to communicate with admissions offices via email, primarily. The best way is to ask pointed questions about programs that interest you. You can also ask to be put in touch with students who share your interests. For example, if you want to learn more about the debate team, ask the admissions officer to put you in touch with the team captain. For more on how to communicate with admissions, read this post.
 

Follow colleges on social media

Instagram. Facebook. X (formerly Twitter). YouTube. Every college has multiple channels through which to communicate its marketing messages. Open yourself up to those marketing messages and follow colleges on social media. This is just one more way to demonstrate interest, and more than likely, they will hook up your social media presence with your email and other information from when you signed for that mailing list, way back when.  
 

Demonstrated interest is a key to college admission

Certainly, there are many other factors that play a more important role in admissions, including your grades, the rigor of your high school courses, your test scores, and your extracurricular accomplishments.  But all these achievements could be for naught if you fail to demonstrate interest a those colleges you will apply to. 
 
For colleges to take you seriously, you need to take seriously this business about demonstrated interest.  No matter how you might want to attend, no matter how admissible you might seem to be based on the admissions statistics, your advantages in the process could melt away if you don’t take the time to show the admissions people that you really, really, really want to attend if admitted.
 
So show the love.  Demonstrate interest.  Do it now.  Do it often. And increase your chances of admission.

 

Need help with admissions in general and demonstrated interest, in particular?

The team at Great College Advice has years of experience working with thousands of students as they navigate the entire college admissions process.  We can help you prepare, select, and apply to colleges to give you the best chance of optimizing your outcome.  Of course we can help with demonstrating interest, but we will also help you with every other aspect of this process.  Want to learn more?  Just contact us on this form and we’ll set up a no-cost, no-obligation meeting to learn more about you and to tell you more about how we can help make this process more successful and less stressful.


Mark Montgomery
Expert Educational Consultant

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