Yield May Top 76 Percent for Class of 2014

Harvard’s yield may climb above 76 percent this year, Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid William R. Fitzsimmons ’67 announced Monday.

Of the 2,110 students admitted on April 1 to the Class of 2014, Fitzsimmons said that 1,604—seventy-six percent—have accepted the offer.

Deliberations on the waitlist began yesterday and will be completed by July 1. Fitzsimmons predicted that 65 to 75 students will be accepted from the waitlist this year, a decrease from recent years.

The percentage of waitlisted students who accept an offer of admission is generally higher than those admitted in the first round of decisions, Fitzsimmons said, sometimes topping 90 percent. These students’ decision to remain on the waitlist indicates their interest in attending Harvard if accepted. Thus, their addition to the class will likely cause the yield to top the 76 percent mark where it has remained for the past two years.

The target class size, Fitzsimmons said, is 1,667 students.

Twenty-six students have announced their intention to defer admission for a year, and Harvard counts these students as not enrolling for the purposes of calculating its yield. Fitzsimmons predicted that the number of students who choose to take a year off “will get up a good deal higher” before the fall; in an average year, 30 to 50 admitted freshmen choose to defer matriculation.

“Obviously there are all kinds of moving parts to this,” Fitzsimmons said. “There are occasionally some people who for a good reason say ‘no’ the first time and with later information feel that Harvard is now a possibility for them. Also, people who are currently committed to coming decide to defer admission.”

A few students who received admission offers from another college’s waitlist might also choose not to attend Harvard, he added.

As predicted in late March, more than 60 percent of the anticipated Class of 2014 will receive need-based financial aid from the College, as the undergraduate financial aid budget reaches a record high of $158 million next year.

—Staff writer Julie M. Zauzmer can be reached at jzauzmer@college.harvard.edu.