Harvard Regains the Top Position in Black Student Yield

So-called yield, the percentage of applicants who decide to go to a college that issues an invitation to them, has become the standard measure of an institution’s strength and drawing power.

For most of the past 20 years Harvard University has been the nation’s gold standard in student yield percentage for both black and white students. But in both 2002 and 2003 the top performance in black student yield moved to Stanford University. In 2003 the black student yield at Stanford was 67.9 percent, the highest in the country. Yet, in 2005 and 2006 Harvard University once again posted the highest black student yield. A year ago, in 2007, MIT ranked first in black student yield.

Among the nation’s highest-ranked universities in the United States, this year Harvard posted the highest black student yield at 64.1 percent. MIT came in a close second with a black student yield of 63.9 percent.

Stanford University ranked third this year with a black student yield of 60.4 percent. This improved from 54 percent a year ago. The University of Pennsylvania and UCLA also posted black student yields above 50 percent in 2008.

Copyright © 2008. The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. All rights reserved.