The Myth of Yield Protection Forum

[Verity]

I know of a significant amount of splitters that go into schools that others didn't because of a one or two-point higher LSAT (a 169/2.3 got into UMN and a 167/3.7 didn't....lots of others like this). Some schools also have certain specific goals, which may include very narrow ranges of LSATs.

[mst]

oh wait, your index for UVA and Penn 60/65% gpa 40/35% lsat is totally backwards what the hell, that fucks every thing up. Even 35% GPA, is beyond optimistic for gpa people btw. It should probably be somewhere in the 70-75% lsat range.

Where are your priors coming from?

Do you really not see why it's a problem to make a index ratio that's 65% GPA 35% LSAT? That's not even close to how admissions work. I'm making those numbers up because it's truly impossible to quantify. There's no question though that LSAT vastly outweighs GPA in numbers importance. So your index numbers are pretty blatantly wrong. Like you said you iterated (ie kept rerunning the data to you hit a specific desired result) the curves for each school until you got the steepest slope. That throws everything off, and gives you wacky index ratios, where penn and UVA are much more GPA-friendly than CLS and GULC, which of course isn't really the case.

I feel like I win the "first" award for calling this out a page ago. But in his defense he already acknowledged this complaint a couple posts ago. Not much more he can say on it, although that doesn't change its importance in this discussion.

[emmbar53]

UVA may waitlist more people across the board than higher-ranked schools, but that's their prerogative and doesn’t spell yield protection (and certainly not ratings cooking). Again, my definition of yield protection is that a student with a higher index is, contra expectation, less likely to be admitted.By examining the shape of the acceptance curve, I’ve purposely controlled for each school's propensity to waitlist.

Fair enough, but that's not a very good definition of yield protection and it certainly not how it's commonly thrown around on TLS. Yield protection on TLS is generally used to explain how certain school (UVA for example!) use factors in admissions decisions that result in high numbers of "objectively" better candidates (who then often go on to accept spots at better schools) being passed over for candidates that are more likely to attend. Sorry for the confusion in the first post I made, i think this is perfectly acceptable for a school to operate this way. However, it does constitute yield protection using the working definition of TLS posters. A school can do this like American does, but just accepting every 163 out there and waitlisting everyone over a specific LSAT number, or a school can use a more sophisticated method like UVA does in which they waitlist massive numbers of the applicant pool and make extensive use of early decision thereby building much of the class.

+1

I have not given the entire thread a detailed reading, so take anything I say with a grain of salt. But, Sandrew, if you're including things like "likelihood of attending" as a soft factor, then you seem to be incorporating yield protection (as it is defined/used on TLS) into your argument already. You're just not calling it that.

This seems to be what D. h20man is saying, and I concur.

[09042014]

I think I was YP'ed by UIUC. Dean Pless is on these boards and may have read me say something stupid ha. Continuing with saying something potentially stupid...

Seriously though, not just for my ego, but if there is no YP why do you think UIUC waitlisted three people on these boards who will be now attending Michigan, Chicago and Duke? I am not saying that it is not beyond the realm of possibility that we simply were not what they were looking for...it could be, I just find it strange that people who had otherwise successful cycles would get waitlisted somewhere that most people on these boards predicted would give them $$$. My gf, got in with an identical gpa, an LSAT 12 points lower, same UG, same major, very similar softs. Maybe dean pless really is stalking the boards.

UIUC doesn't YP. http://illinois.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats

Almost everyone above a certain cut off gets in.

[09042014]

LOL at OP changing the weight of his index until he got the results he desired.

[emmbar53]

LOL at OP changing the weight of his index until he got the results he desired.

+1

[FiveSermon]

Yeah 60% GPA and 40% LSAT is way off. If I had to guess it's more like 70% LSAT 30% GPA.

[Verity]

Yeah 60% GPA and 40% LSAT is way off. If I had to guess it's more like 70% LSAT 30% GPA.

It depends on the school.

[FiveSermon]

Yeah 60% GPA and 40% LSAT is way off. If I had to guess it's more like 70% LSAT 30% GPA.

It depends on the school.

But 60% GPA/40% LSAT is off unless you are looking at schools that favor high GPA's (west coast schools usually). Even then i would say it's more like 50/50. And it's without a doubt that with these few notable exceptions the LSAT is undoubtedly weighted more than GPA. His entire graph is messed up.

[thsmthcrmnl]

ITT OP demonstrates the correct use of "begging the question."

[well-hello-there]

Do tons of jackasses on here claim YP when they weren't? Yes.
Does UVA practice YP? Yes, no question about it.

It's quite possible that, in the upper end, schools are making decisions based upon soft factors that indicate how likely the student is to attend

I wouldn't be surprised if my ho-hum attitude towards the school came through in my app. I didn't do the optional essays; I used my generic PS

I was admitted to the ones in which I showed the most interest. Enthusiasm and thoughtfulness, I think, count for a lot.

I think that once adcomms get a sense of the type of high-numbers applicant who is likely to matriculate, they then base admissions decisions in future years off those assumptions. Unless one of these applicants does something to let the adcomms know they are serious, the applicant will get the waitlist.

Schools protect their yield but I think in the vast majority of cases, they use more than just a simple gpa/lsat formula to do so.

[09042014]

Also not all schools YP. In the t14 only MVP do it.

[The Real Jack McCoy]

Better index numbers:

http://www.uiowa.edu/~030116/prelaw/lawschools09.htm

Edit: wrong year

[mst]

The problem with the study is at its root: you can't create an index. It just doesn't work. It assumes there is some formula to it. There is no straight formula to it though. If there was machines could do it. And I don't mean that in the sense that applications are review holistically... I mean it in the sense that humans are a lot more calculating and strategic with yield protection, median/quartile planning, yield protect, etc. than any simple formula or index could hope to achieve. If you can't create an index that matches what is actually happening with data (and you can't), then comparing an index with acceptance rates is entirely useless. It's better just to look at the data and use basic human intuition and reasoning.

It doesn't take a genius to look at some of the schools who have a bunch of yellow left of 165 and a bunch of yellow right of 168 and figure out that is yield protect. There are clear, obvious, distinct lines on LSN with many, many schools that represent what is most likely yield protect. That's all there is to it.

[mst]

Better index numbers:

http://www.uiowa.edu/~030116/prelaw/lawschools09.htm

Edit: wrong year

Not to mention that the list excludes many of the schools we are discussing. Even if it was recent and all-inclusive, it would still do a marginal job at best. See my last post.

[The Real Jack McCoy]

Better index numbers:

http://www.uiowa.edu/~030116/prelaw/lawschools09.htm

Edit: wrong year

Not to mention that the list excludes many of the schools we are discussing. Even if it was recent and all-inclusive, it would still do a marginal job at best. See my last post.

Yes, but the point is that it does show the relative importance of LSAT in admissions. It is much higher than supposed by the OP. Though I agree admissions isn't a mechanical process determined by index.

[YCrevolution]

..

[2014]

LOL at OP changing the weight of his index until he got the results he desired.

Exactly what I thought

[Sandrew]

I concede. Both UVA and Penn yield protect. I still defend the practice, and maintain my skepticism toward the theory of rankings-based YP, each for the reasons stated in my original post. Many thanks to users mst and D. H20man for their peer review.

What happened? User mst summed it up more succinctly than I could (or would):

The problem with the study is at its root: you can't create an index.
...
There are clear, obvious, distinct lines on LSN with many, many schools that represent what is most likely yield protect. That's all there is to it.

Mst is right, of course. The only proper way to consider the interplay between LSAT, GPA, and acceptance rates is in three dimensions. My attempt to collapse LSAT and GPA into a single index, and my bone-headed attempt to calibrate weightings, resulted in a sort of statistical legerdemain. Oops.

To make it up to you all, here's another graphic. It's basically a re-engineering of what you see on LSN and elsewhere, with the slight improvements of using deciles and providing numbers for each bucket. As before, URM/Pending/NullData are all ignored. [Edit: green=accepted; blue=WL'd; red=rejected.]



Oh, and one more thing: Yes, I'm bracing for the poetic justice of being WL'd at UVA!

Thanks again for all the comments.

[czelede]

I guess GULC just really detected my apathy when they waitlisted me

(Btw, I used the same personal statements and LORs for Berkeley and Columbia, both of which auto-admitted me)

I think we should also consider the effect of late applications (I see you applied in mid-January), since different schools operate on different schedules regarding this as well. Columbia, for instance, doesn't even start looking at RD applicants until November (following their ED) decisions; GULC starts early on a rolling basis and has an extended ED deadline. I suspect that had you applied in September/October you would have been admitted without much delay.

[The Stig]

i literally just finished reading all the newer posts (great conversation for TLS standards), then went to check my UVa status and saw they waitlisted me today...

[Bildungsroman]

This thread has been going on a while. Anyone down to picwhore yet?

[helloperson]

Here is what needs to be answered to better answer the YP question:

Which applicants were accepted at higher ranked schools in the T14 and rejected at lower ranked schools, and which lower ranked schools are doing the rejection? Numbers don't tell the whole story, but the overall tendency of schools to accept a certain candidate do, by the very definition of application strength.

For instance, if a candidate with low numbers gets into CCN but rejected from berkeley or UCLA, I would consider that yield protect, especially if you control for GPA.

[well-hello-there]

Hey man, at least you led a decent discussion, where people talk about actual facts and stuff.

[mst]

Here is what needs to be answered to better answer the YP question:

Which applicants were accepted at higher ranked schools in the T14 and rejected at lower ranked schools, and which lower ranked schools are doing the rejection? Numbers don't tell the whole story, but the overall tendency of schools to accept a certain candidate do, by the very definition of application strength.

For instance, if a candidate with low numbers gets into CCN but rejected from berkeley or UCLA, I would consider that yield protect, especially if you control for GPA.

Berkeley doesn't YP really. They just like other factors. UCLA doesn't really yield protect that much either... they have relatively high numbers (gpa wise) for a non t14, and I have a feeling at UCLA a lot of the applicants are dinged for no GPA, which is considered more important there because Cali can't do affirmative action and going after gpa rankings is their way of getting around it.

Me, personally. I got into CCN. I never found out about Berkeley or UCLA but my bet is that I was below 25 percent for the former and below 60 for the latter, with the latter being due slightly to YP... but questionably so... or at least more questionably than the clear-cut cases of UVA.