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STANDARD 11: INTEGRITY
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Policies and Publications Information Technology Equal Opportunity New Haven Relations Undergrad Admissions Financial Aid |
Policies and PublicationsDescriptionYale was founded in 1701 with a mission to educate young people in a way that they “may be fitted for Publick employment both in Church and Civil State.” Although the institution has changed and grown from a small, local college with a primary focus on theological education into an international, multidisciplinary university educating more than 10,000 undergraduate, graduate, and professional students each year, Yale has maintained its focus on education for citizenship and leadership. In fulfilling this mission, Yale strives to function as a model, ethical institutional citizen in both its policies and practices on campus and its relations with its neighbors in the New Haven region and beyond.Freedom of inquiry and expression are fundamental to the spirit and practice of Yale. Yale’s policies in this regard were developed and codified by the Committee on Freedom of Expression in 1975 (also known as The Woodward Report), which began: The primary function of a university is to discover knowledge by means of research and teaching. To fulfill this function a free interchange of ideas is necessary not only within its walls but with the world beyond as well. It follows that the university must do everything possible to ensure within it the fullest degree of intellectual freedom. The history of intellectual growth and discovery clearly demonstrates the need for unfettered freedom, the right to think the unthinkable, discuss the unmentionable, and challenge the unchallengeable. To curtail free expression strikes twice at intellectual freedom, for whoever deprives another of the right to state unpopular views necessarily also deprives others of the right to listen to those views. This report was formally endorsed as official policy and it has been reaffirmed in succeeding years. It is included and highlighted prominently in official publications such as the Undergraduate Regulations that are provided to all students in Yale College and in the Yale University Faculty Handbook. The promotion of free inquiry and free expression is matched by the promotion of honesty, privacy, and fairness, with appropriate policies delineated in the official publications for students and faculty. All members of the faculty are expected to conduct their scholarly research and publish the results of that research with the highest standards of truth and accuracy. Consistent with Federal regulations, Yale has established a policy and procedure for responding to alleged academic fraud, with responsibility for oversight held by the Office of the General Counsel. Similarly, the Undergraduate Regulations detail the policies on cheating, plagiarism, and falsification of documents in which alleged violations are the responsibility of the Executive Committee of Yale College. This commitment to honesty is also evident in Yale’s prohibition against secret or classified research projects, as such sponsored research can inhibit both free discussion and open publication and thwart free discussion and criticism of its results. Yale also steadfastly prohibits any agreements for sponsored research that restrict the right of faculty to publish the results or receive approval prior to publication. Yale is chartered by the State of Connecticut, with the original colonial charter confirmed and enshrined in the state constitution. As a large and complex entity with multiple roles as an educational and research institution, employer, landlord, and investor, the University is governed by vast and evolving federal, state, and municipal laws and regulations. Yale adheres to the spirit and letter of these legal requirements and devotes significant human resources to this task through the Office of the General Counsel and the Office of Grant and Contract Administration as well as specialized units such as the Fire Marshal and the Office of Environmental Healthy and Safety. Among the legal requirements to which the University adheres are those dedicated to non-discrimination and equal opportunity. Yale annually distributes a report on Affirmative Action and Equal Opportunity Programs and University Grievance Procedures to all faculty, students, and staff that states clearly its policy: The University is committed to basing judgments concerning the admission, education, and employment of individuals upon their qualifications and abilities and affirmatively seeks to attract to its faculty, staff, and student body qualified persons of diverse backgrounds. In accordance with this policy and as delineated by federal and Connecticut law, Yale does not discriminate in admissions, educational programs, or employment against any individual on account of that individual’s race, sex, color, religion, age, disability, status as a special disabled veteran of veteran of the Vietnam era, or national or ethnic origin; nor does Yale discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation. University policy is committed to affirmative action under law in employment of women, minority group members, individuals with disabilities, special disabled veterans, and veterans of the Vietnam era. This policy is also given prominence in the Faculty Handbook, the Personnel Policies and Practice Manual for all staff, and the bulletins of Yale College and each of the graduate and professional schools. Yale has adopted and promotes affirmative action and equal opportunity programs not merely as a matter of law, however, but as a matter of fundamental principle for the institution, even as some sectors of society and political jurisdictions are relaxing or discarding their commitments to affirmative action. Thus, President Levin wrote to all members of the Yale community on December 7, 1998: Along with my fellow Officers of this University, I am dedicated to seeing that Yale, for reasons of principle, and for the sake of its own internal strength works vigorously through its affirmative action policies to ensure a vital and diverse community. Indeed, it is our belief that Yale must not simply follow in this area. “It should not be the function of Yale to reflect American life,” wrote Yale’s famous dean, William Clyde DeVane, “but to lead it.” Just as it expects students, staff, and faculty to maintain high standards of honesty and integrity, so too does Yale adhere to high standards of honesty and integrity in its overall administrative operations. The University is now completing a major overhaul of its financial and human resources information systems. This project has provided an opportunity for more than a just an information technology upgrade per se, but also for the review and revision of major administrative operations to ensure that they meet high standards of both integrity and efficiency. Yale strives to ensure that its various policies are well articulated and also well publicized. All students receive clearly written statements of relevant policies, including information on the resolution of grievances. There are likewise policy manuals for faculty and staff and new employees receive orientation to University policies and procedures. The Yale Bulletin and Calendar, circulated widely to all campus constituencies, provides a regular vehicle for restating key existing policies and for publicizing revisions and new policies. The ubiquity of the World Wide Web has provided a new means for making policy documents easily accessible and both University-wide and school or department specific policies are increasingly available online. Yale’s commitment to integrity is not limited to the campus but is also manifest in its institutional relations with the City and citizens of New Haven. In his Inaugural Address, President Levin stated: As we seek to educate leaders and citizens for the world, as our discoveries spread enlightenment and material benefit far beyond our walls, we must remember that we have important responsibilities here at home. We contribute much to the cultural life of New Haven, to the health of its citizens and to the education of its children. But we must do more. Pragmatism alone compels this conclusion. If we are to continue to recruit students and faculty of the highest quality, New Haven must remain an attractive place in which to study, to live, and to work. But our responsibility to our city transcends pragmatism. The conditions of America’s cities threaten the health of the republic. Our democracy depends upon widespread literacy, and literacy is declining. Freedom for all requires that those without privilege have both access to opportunity and the knowledge to make use of it. We must help our society to become what we aspire to be inside our walls – a place where human potential can be fully realized. Yale has thus established a comprehensive and ongoing partnership with New Haven and its region focused on economic development and neighborhood revitalization, as detailed below. AppraisalOur review of policy statements and manuals relevant to the focus of this standard determined that Yale does have appropriate policies for individual and institutional integrity, both academic and administrative, and that these are publicized and made widely available to members of the Yale community both in print and electronically.
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Policies and Publications Information Technology Equal Opportunity New Haven Relations Undergrad Admissions Financial Aid |
Information TechnologyDescriptionThe rapid development and deployment of information technology throughout the academic community poses vast issues of integrity for both individuals and the institution itself. At Yale, primary responsibility in this area rests with the Information Technology Services (ITS) department. ITS, with the Office of the Provost, has developed an Appropriate Use Policy for the Yale community, effective as of September 29, 1998, that replaced the previous policy dating from January 11, 1994. Among the issues of integrity in use of information technology, two are particularly vital: how much integrity Yale practices with respect to members of its community and how much integrity members of the community practice themselves.The first of these concerns privacy and confidentiality and the ways in which Yale respects individual rights, as well as the ways in which it educates community members about privacy and confidentiality in the midst of a world of hackers and viruses. Yale’s own policy and practice are aimed at reasonable confidentiality within the context of the protection and promotion of free inquiry and expression. While Yale maintains high standards for confidentiality in its own internal systems, however, the University does not have control over autonomous systems on campus or external systems. The practical difficulties in protecting confidentiality on other campus systems are apparent when one considers that there are more than 150 different e-mail systems in use, many of them administered by individual departments. Innumerable risks to privacy–not always recognized or understood by on campus users--also exist from external systems. Yale’s approach has been three-fold: maintaining high standards for its own systems; educating users to their own rights and responsibilities; and alerting them to the risks that exist on all systems and the practical steps they can take to minimize these risks. The second area of concern is the appropriateness of use of computer technology by individuals themselves. This includes issues such as harassment and the potential for appropriating property of others through pirated software, as well as copyright issues for electronic information. Current ITS policy covers all of these areas specifically, often in conjunction with broader University policy concerning harassment or commercial use or intellectual property rights. The pace of change in the field, however, requires that appropriate policies be frequently reviewed so that practice and policy remain consistent with the intense development of new technology.
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Policies and Publications Information Technology Equal Opportunity New Haven Relations Undergrad Admissions Financial Aid |
Staff Affirmative Action and Equal OpportunityDescriptionAs noted above, Yale maintains a steadfast commitment to affirmative action and equal opportunity in admissions and employment. Responsibility for overall coordination of policies and procedures to ensure the implementation of affirmative action policy rests with the Office for Equal Opportunity Programs. This office updates the University’s affirmative action program annually, conducting a thorough utilization analysis and establishing goals for employment. This analysis, undertaken in line with requirements of the U.S. Department of Labor, uses an estimate of the availability of women and minority group members in specific employment categories.In faculty recruitment and retention of women and minority group members, the University has made progress on the whole for tenured faculty. In the five years from 1994-95 to 1998-99, the number of women with tenured positions in FAS has increased, as has the percentage (from 9.4 percent to 12.3 percent), while the number and percentage of untenured women has declined. (See Standard Five: Faculty.) The number and percentage of term and tenured African American and Asian faculty has also grown, while the number and percentage of Hispanic ladder faculty have remained static. In order to maintain and stimulate further progress, the president and the provost have established new initiatives for faculty diversity in FAS that are discussed elsewhere in this institutional self-study. (See Standard 5: Faculty.) The representation of women on the non-teaching staff is satisfactory. Of the twenty-eight staff employment categories monitored in accordance with Federal regulations, Yale meets or exceeds the number of women expected from the utilization analysis in all but one of the areas, specifically a shortfall of one skilled position in the service and maintenance category. In many categories, the University well exceeds the numbers expected from the utilization analysis. It is notable the number of women in managerial categories remains strong, with women holding 60 percent of all such positions. There has been notable growth in both numbers and percentages of women in the most senior management category. The representation of minority group members is less satisfactory in certain areas, though minority group member representation is equal to or greater than the estimates of their availability in eighteen of the twenty-eight staff employment categories. Of particular concern to our committee was the representation of minority group members in the uppermost managerial positions. From Fall 1993 to Fall 1998, the number of African Americans in upper management declined from thirteen to ten, while the total number of jobs in this category rose from 331 to 363.
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Policies and Publications Information Technology Equal Opportunity New Haven Relations Undergrad Admissions Financial Aid |
New Haven RelationsDescriptionYale and New Haven are inextricably linked and the integrity of the institution includes its emphasis on strong partnerships with its neighbors. It is a priority to encourage and sustain both individual action by members of the Yale community and institutional partnerships among Yale, the municipal government, neighborhood groups, and the private sector. The ethic of community service is cherished and nurtured within the residential community of Yale College, and the record of student participation is impressive, with half of all undergraduates volunteering in local schools, hospitals, community centers, neighborhood development corporations, and other placements. The University encourages this extracurricular service through its publications and through the prominence given to community service in addresses by the president and the dean.These exhortations are matched by support given to community service through Dwight Hall, the independent, nonprofit, on-campus center for service and social justice and through institutionally sponsored internships and fellowships for service. Since 1994, Yale has more than doubled its allocation of off-campus community service Federal work-study, allowing students on financial aid to meet their obligations while working with nonprofit and public sector agencies in New Haven. This work of individuals is matched by a significant institutional commitment of financial and human resources to a comprehensive revitalization effort with New Haven. In 1994, the Corporation endorsed a strategic framework and Yale increased its dedication of resources to New Haven-based efforts. This framework was reviewed and revised in 1999, with the University’s strategic plan for the New Haven Initiative endorsed by the Officers and the Corporation. Administratively, this commitment was made clear in 1998 through the creation of a new officer position, the Vice President and Director for New Haven and State Affairs, and the recruitment of an accomplished urban development expert to oversee this initiative. Yale’s strategic effort with New Haven is focused on four primary areas: (1) economic development, (2) neighborhood revitalization and schools, (3) downtown, and (4) image. Yale is the largest employer in New Haven and draws substantial financial resources to New Haven and Connecticut from outside the state through tuition and fees, alumni, foundation and corporate giving, and grant and contract income. These outside dollars bring a direct economic impact of more than $700 million annually to Connecticut, including a payroll in excess of $550 million, with a substantial portion going directly to New Haven proper. Moreover, Yale generates significant private sector development through technology transfer and the University has increased markedly its support for the Office of Cooperative Research to facilitate this transfer. In the last decade, forty new companies have been formed, with thirty based in Connecticut, mostly in New Haven or in immediately surrounding towns. This support for the creation of new business–and thus of new jobs and tax base–has increased in recent years and the University continues to strengthen its own infrastructure to support this development. The University has also made major investments in strengthening New Haven neighborhoods. Since 1994, Yale has offered a financial incentive to employees at all levels who purchase and live in homes in New Haven. This benefit currently consists of a $5,000 grant at closing and $2,000 a year every year for up to ten years as long as the employee continues to live in the home. The Yale Homebuyer Program has been very successful and attracted broad participation among all employee categories, including faculty, management and professional, clerical and technical, and service and maintenance. As of June 1999, 344 employees have purchased New Haven homes, with a commitment by Yale in excess of $7 million, yielding purchases of homes with a total value of nearly $40 million. Along with efforts like the Homebuyer Program, which Yale has initiated and managed on its own, the University has also joined with neighborhood groups to establish partnerships to promote homeownership, economic development, and public safety. In the Dwight neighborhood west of campus, for example, Yale joined with the local citizen action group and provided planning assistance through faculty and students. Equipped with this plan, the University and the neighborhood were able to secure $2.4 million from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Joint Community Development program, which granted funds to universities working with their local communities. These funds were leveraged to secure more than $7 million in additional commitments from Yale and other local institutions. Over four years, this partnership has resulted in a funded plan to build an addition to the local elementary school, create a community development corporation, and build a retail plaza that includes the first urban supermarket in Connecticut that provides both high- quality, well-priced food and jobs for neighborhood residents. As an educational institution, Yale pays special attention to partnerships with the New Haven Public Schools and supports long-term school reform through programs such as the School Development Program in the Child Study Center and the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute. The Institute links members of the faculty of arts and sciences with local teachers in a collaborative setting where the teachers develop new curriculum units. Since its founding more than twenty years ago, the Institute has served more than one third of all New Haven public middle and high school teachers in the humanities and sciences who have created hundreds of units for use in the schools. Yale also opens its doors to the community, with more than 4,000 New Haven schoolchildren making use of the three museums on campus each year. More than thirty New Haven high school students take regular Yale College courses each semester at no charge and 500 middle and high school students participate in academic and recreation programs on campus at no charge each summer. Yale also cooperates in academic programs with specific schools, such as a partnership with a local high school focused on allied health and medicine where 100 students take part in classes taught or co-taught by Yale faculty and students using on-campus facilities. In addition to its work with neighborhoods such as Dwight noted previously, Yale has focused its resources toward New Haven’s downtown, which is the University’s primary neighborhood. To build on downtown as a place that is an attractive environment in which to study, work, live, and to visit, Yale has invested in commercial and retail properties and joined with the City government to upgrade lighting and streetscapes. The University also supports local special service districts which provide enhanced services, such as cleaning and public safety. Finally, Yale is working with its neighbors to bring New Haven’s image in line with its reality. New Haven has numerous strengths and significant potential that many cities would find enviable. It has strong urban residential neighborhoods to the west and north of campus, and good housing stock even in the more distressed districts. It has wonderful parks and open space and a magnificent green at its heart, along with attractive architecture on campus and off. It is rich in culture and history. In order to make sure that members of the Yale community, especially students, come to know New Haven’s strengths, the University has increased its efforts to publicize the community and its opportunities. This includes comprehensive written information sent to first- year students in Yale College prior to their arrival on campus and in-depth tours of the city early in the school year. Appraisal and ProjectionYale has well-articulated and broadly publicized policies as noted above. Moreover, these policies and the practices are reviewed regularly. The University also has a broad infrastructure of advisory committees and similar bodies for ongoing assessment of individual schools, departments, and programs. Various practices and policies are also subject to external review, such as outside auditing of financial results, and the NCAA and Ivy Group reviews of athletics. It can confidently be predicted that the University will continue such ongoing reviews and assessments as it works to achieve in practice what it sets forth in policy. In the areas of particular focus for the Integrity standard of Yale’s institutional self- study, there are certain pressures that will bear upon University policy and practice in the years to come. It is clear that the University’s own practices and the policies it holds for appropriate use of information technology will need to be both grounded and dynamic, maintaining certain core principles of freedom of inquiry and expression even while they respond to changing technology and a changing environment. In addition to keeping policies current and consistent, Yale will need to do an even better job in educating members of the community about policy and practice in this area, and this educational need will remain a challenge in light of the rapid evolution of technology. In an environment where affirmative action is under attack in many parts of the nation, Yale’s commitment makes it a leader. It is clear that continued priority will need to be given to equal opportunity programs if Yale is to achieve and maintain the diversity in its staff to which it aspires. The policy changes made this year by the president and provost for faculty recruitment are important steps, and the vigor of these steps must be matched by an equal commitment to ensuring equal opportunity in the recruitment of non-teaching staff. New Haven will also continue to be an area for priority attention. Yale’s efforts to date have made important contributions to the City’s revitalization, which can be seen in the City’s designation as an All America City by the National Civic League in 1998 and as a Federal Empowerment Zone in 1999. The time is providential for continued improvement, with a strong economy, a committed University, and an effective City government that has a record level of support from the state government. A further strengthened New Haven can only help further strengthen Yale, but the underlying reason for the University’s partnerships will remain an issue of integrity and not merely pragmatism. As it continues its work with its neighbors, Yale will uphold its responsibility as an institution of higher education as it helps New Haven become what Yale aspires to be on its own campus, a place where human potential can be fully realized.
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Policies and Publications Information Technology Equal Opportunity New Haven Relations Undergrad Admissions Financial Aid |
Undergraduate AdmissionsDescriptionPhilosophyIt is Yale’s policy to admit students on the basis of academic and personal promise without regard to their financial circumstances. University policy for undergraduate admissions was summarized by President Kingman Brewster in a letter to the then Director of Admissions, a letter which has been periodically reviewed and reaffirmed. The goals and principles of the “Muyskens Letter” have stood the test of time well, and it remains the guideline for the Admissions Office and is widely circulated to the more than 4,000 alumni who serve on local committees that assist in recruitment. It focuses on what Yale expects from its undergraduate admissions philosophy and procedures:
The Office of Undergraduate Admissions works hard to ensure that Yale’s admissions philosophy, as expressed in the Musyskens letter, is carried out with care and honor. Given the nature of Yale’s applicant pool, this means that the process by which students are admitted is inherently a laborious one. Generally, students applying to Yale have a level of accomplishment that indicates that they are eligible and competitive for consideration. The vast majority of applicants would be capable of doing work at Yale. Using academic indicators such as grade point average, course selection and test scores, most applicants show predictors of success in college and specifically at Yale. Therefore, in the reading process each applicant is considered individually on his or her own merits. There is a random distribution of applications to area readers and each student is read separately and evaluated individually. Many files are “outside read” initially and then sent on to area readers. The area reader may choose to refer a file on to a specific colleague in the office as well. Specific referrals from area readers might be made to respective liaisons assigned to review applicants that have been designated as recruited intercollegiate athletes, sons or daughters of alumni, students with special circumstances, or candidates identified by Yale’s minority recruitment program. Students who submit appropriate tapes of their musical ability or slides or a portfolio of their art work as supplemental information may have that work sent to Yale faculty for evaluation. The reading activity is a process of evaluation of candidates in preparation for the committee process. The admissions committees meet between mid-February and late March. At this time the area reader is responsible for presenting the candidates from his or her assigned geographic region. When the committee meets, the candidates are presented by an admissions officer by school within area. The committee members assigned to hear the cases are senior members of the admissions staff (associate directors or higher) and, when available, Yale College faculty or senior administrators assigned the task by the dean of Yale College. The area reader presents his or her slate of candidates to the committee and makes recommendations of action. All candidates are brought before the committee and voted on. In the committee environment, schools and school groups may be introduced by presenting some information about the school profile. Admissions officers are interested in knowing what type of school, how many students may be college-bound, type of grading system utilized, whether there is rank in class, types and rigor of courses available to students. Further, they are interested in extracurricular opportunity and any other information that allows us to understand the school environment. There is, however, no fixed number or limit on the admission of candidates from a particular secondary school. Each applicant is judged on his or her own merits in the context of the entire applicant pool. The committee is also interested in the larger context of the respective applicant’s learning experience. Do parents have college/graduate degrees or is the applicant first generation college-bound? What is the nature of the student’s living environment? For example, who is guardian (one parent, two parents, grandparent, etc.); are there financial hardships, does the student work part time, and so forth. Is the school in the local neighborhood or is it across town--is it residential, public or private? In other words, the reader and committee seek to develop a complete view of the student and all aspects of his or her secondary experience. They are also interested in the student’s relative success in his or her class. Since we do not rely exclusively on quantitative measures in evaluating a student, students are admitted, denied or wait-listed from within a reasonably broad quantitative range involving grades and test scores. Their evaluation includes consideration of all information in the file including the following: extracurricular activity, teacher and counselor recommendations, quality and presentation of essays, possible or intended major, alumni or office interviews, and/or additional information submitted by the candidate such as music tapes, slides of artwork or samples of award winning writing or science and technology projects entered in national competitions. Applicants from each school, within region, are voted on by the committee. We move through the entire applicant pool once and then invite staff again to evaluate students who might have been incomplete in initial review or deserve reconsideration after additional information is received. This additional information could include first term senior grades, interview reports, new test scores, additional school recommendations, results of faculty review of music tape, designation as a recruited athlete or candidate in the minority recruitment program. This review can result in a new decision or a change of the original action. After the second review, the dean of Admissions evaluates the number of provisional admits in comparison to the desired enrollment target and may request that staff recommend students to add or subtract from the class. This activity takes into account the distribution of students across fourteen (14) geographic designations. Students moved from admit to wait list might have additional information making them even slightly less competitive (e.g., declining grades in first term senior year, disciplinary actions at school or lower scores on interviews or recommendations) or a dissension in the original committee. Students are always considered in the context of their learning environment and decisions are made individually. In assessing Yale admissions statistics over the past ten years, the committee was immediately struck by how little has seemed to change. While 1998-1999 generated the largest number of applications in Yale's history, it was thirteen years ago, in the class of 1991,that there was an applicant pool equally large, and most of the applicant pools since then have fluctuated between 12,000-13,000. While these numbers are not as high as the numbers in the applicant pools of a few of our closest peers, they are numbers with which Yale has always felt comfortable. Yale as a matter of policy has elected not to accept the common application. The institution has shown special interest in having a class that is academically distinguished, geographically diverse, and representative in terms of the backgrounds, abilities and interests of its members. But it has never been overly concerned with expanding its general pool, despite there being little doubt that if this were an objective, it could be easily accomplished. With 36 credits required for graduation, significant distributional requirements, a language requirement that may demand two years of college study for some matriculants, Yale has a reputation as a rigorous undergraduate institution. It is a reputation the institution has not wished to disassociate itself from. Yale's yield in 1998-1999 was 65 percent. The yield on aid recipients was a near- record 60.8 percent, with the non-aid yield an impressively high 76 percent. Comparative data show that the male/female ratio of classes has slowly equalized from the point ten years ago when women were 46 percent of the class. The ratio achieved parity in the class of 1999 and has never varied more than one point either way since then. The percentage of minority students has risen from the low-to-mid-20's percent of a class (22.6 percent, 24.3 percent, 25.2 percent) in the classes of the early to mid- 1990's to percentages close to 30 percent in recent years. While Asian-Americans account for the lion's share of the increase, Yale has made headway in the Hispanic/Mexican- American/Puerto Rican and Native American total as well, while holding steady with African-American numbers despite fierce competition from our peer institutions and from colleges which award merit aid. At the same time, applications from foreign nationals (excluding Canadians) have risen from 6-7 percent of the applicant pool ten years ago to over 9-10 percent in recent years. Matriculants from this group have gone from 3 percent of a class to approximately 6 percent, and Yale’s future goal in this area is higher still. An increase in foreign nationals in the class has resulted from an institutional commitment to recruit internationally, and a corresponding one to provide further resources in international student financial aid. (See the discussion on international students in Standard Six for further discussion on this point.) The most significant change in this time period has been Yale's decision to move from Early Action to Early Decision (ED), which has had a clear effect on yield. In the class of 1993 the yield was 59 percent. It then dropped to 54-55 percent until the University moved to ED in the class of 2000, when yield jumped to 60.4 percent. It has climbed steadily since then to 65 percent this year. ED clarifies the college-going- status of a percentage of high school seniors. It also gives Yale an opportunity to respond positively to the students it is certain it wishes to admit, with the advantage of knowing these students will matriculate. This process has particularly changed the amount of time the Office of Undergraduate Admissions spends considering recruited athletes, many of the strongest of whom now apply during the ED process. ED, therefore, has helped streamline and focus the process of recruitment and admission of this particular cohort. In addition to ED another big change in recent years has been in the area of technology. The implementation of the Banner Admissions system of the SCT Corporation four years ago was a sea change for Undergraduate Admissions and has given the office much more flexibility in data access and computer support than it had before. The office has an online information request form as well as an on-line freshman application, both implemented in 1998. We expect that its use will rise dramatically in future years. This success in administrative support has been achieved at a time when the "quality" of information Admissions receives about candidates has declined. Fear of liability at the high school level has tipped the kind of information that is presented in school recommendations. The office is less likely to receive balanced commentary on students than was the case years ago. Score Choice means that the committee on admissions does not receive some low test scores in the SAT 2 we would once have been able to consider. SAT 1 recentering has essentially removed score distinctions at the top of the scale where most of our applicant pool is found. There is also a marked increase in the 'packaging' of students (often using private consultants) due to the increased pressure students and parents feel in the increasingly competitive college admissions process. Appraisal and ProjectionIn a time of increased competitiveness in undergraduate admissions, Yale has worked to maintain the integrity of its process. The office believes it has done this while keeping its classes exceptionally strong. Application numbers have held and even increased. The rate of admission is at an all-time low. The academic profile of the entering class is as strong as ever (median SATs in Class of '03 are 740V, 730M; in Class of '98 they were 730/720 (converted) and in other years over a long period of time haven't varied up or down by more than 10 points). In the current financial aid climate, Yale will wish to monitor closely the percentage of public school applicants and the yield of the non-aid applicants. Parents of students who do not qualify for aid under federal or institutional guidelines may feel they are unable to make the sacrifices required to fund an Ivy League education, and may be getting more aid elsewhere. Administratively, the Office of Admissions has come a long way. The next big challenge will be to devise a system to track receipt of applications documents electronically, thus vastly simplifying the 'Incomplete' notification process and allowing students to check on the status of their application via the Web. This is within the realm of possibility, but will be a considerable task given the volume of paper involved. Overall, the biggest challenge Admissions has is to find the time to take stock of its own performance. The annual class profile serves as a kind of annual barometer, especially in relation to where Yale has been in other years. The profile numbers suggest the Office of Admissions is doing well in admitting and matriculating diverse classes of talented students. Response to the work of the Office is also provided by the dean of Yale College, the president, the deans of the residential colleges, and in some cases, by faculty. But with all the time constraints it is difficult to systematically evaluate activity in many areas. Staff members are so busy traveling, recruiting, admitting and yielding the class that there is not enough time to reflect on the outcomes. Annual staff retreats provide an environment in which many good ideas are suggested, but it will be important in the future to identify specific ways to implement them. Nevertheless, while acknowledging the perennial need for continued attention to admissions activities, there is reason to celebrate not only the yield, but the quantitative and personal characteristics of our incoming classes. Admissions staff work effectively, and with personal fervor, to hold fast to the “Muysken” principles and to identify and matriculate students who are among the best and brightest of their generation.
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Policies and Publications Information Technology Equal Opportunity New Haven Relations Undergrad Admissions Financial Aid |
Undergraduate Financial AidDescriptionThe University’s need-blind, full-need financial aid policy has been in effect in Yale College since 1964. Under this policy, all U.S. and Canadian citizens and permanent residents are considered for admission without regard to their financial circumstances. If accepted, these students are assured of having their demonstrated needs met in full throughout their four undergraduate years, including study abroad programs for degree credit.Only non-Canadian international students are excluded from this policy. The number of such students who can be admitted with financial aid is limited by the international scholarship budget. The allocation of such funds was increased by 50 percent in 1998-99 to approximately $450,000 per Class per year. International students who are admitted with financial aid become subject to the full-need policy for four years but those who matriculate without financial aid are generally not eligible to apply for aid in subsequent years. The Corporation has been unwavering in its support of the need-blind, full-need policy and has provided funds necessary to sustain it, even in years of unanticipated growth. For example, after fifteen years of very stable need (35-38 percent aid recipients), the proportion jumped to 41.3 percent in the Class of 1995 and to 43.4 percent in the Class of 1996. In those two years, the University allocated supplemental funds of $2 million (1991-92) and $1.5 million (1992-93). On the other hand, the demand for aid has stabilized during the past four years due to 1) the adoption of an Early Decision admission program (ED candidates present a higher socioeconomic profile than do ‘regular’ applicants) and 2) the strong national economy. Nonetheless, the University will be challenged financially to sustain its need-blind, full-need policy in future years. Because of some concerns about making Yale attractive to non-aided students, Yale has looked for ways to ease the financial burden for middle- and upper-middle-income families. This effort includes the following:
Mention should also be made of the implementation in 1998 of a Summer Waiver Award Program (SWAP). This program encourages all financial aid recipients, on a one-time basis, to forgo normal summer employment and engage in a program of community service, foreign study or authorized internship. Upon successful completion, the student’s normal summer earnings will be replaced with additional University scholarship instead of additional self-help. This program was strongly recommended by the student Financial Aid Advisory Committee and, together with the increased support for international students (adopted in the same year) yielded rare editorial approval in the student press. Appraisal and ProjectionIn the past ten years, the climate in which need-based financial awards are made has changed. In 1991, the Department of Justice ruled against "Overlap," a process through which the Ivy League schools and MIT (and, in their own meetings, fifteen other small private independent need-based New England and Middle Atlantic colleges) exchanged information, in order to agree on aid packages that would allow students to select their schools without regard to a differential in financial packaging. Yale, along with the other Ivy League schools, then entered into a consent decree with the department, precluding the exchange of financial information about applicants either before or after their admission. The Ivy League schools, including Yale, are still acting within the general confines of a need analysis system. Nevertheless, they have different strategies for awarding the self-help element of their financial aid packages and are sometimes in receipt of different information at different times when assessing applicant aid. This has resulted in a more competitive atmosphere, where, despite the same information and numerous reviews, financial aid packages, for various reasons, do end up differing. In addition to differing packages within the Ivy League, rising tuition, and the expanded use of merit scholarships by prominent private universities around the country and by flagship public institutions, has meant that many of the students for whom we compete receive more attractive offers of merit aid from other schools. This makes recruitment of a certain cadre of students—most especially those whose families are in the middle class—exceptionally challenging. In order to meet this challenge, Yale has continued to make a concerted effort to hold down fee increases (3.7 percent in 1997-98; 3.6 percent in 1998-99; and 2.9 percent in 1999-2000), and has taken the other measures detailed above. It should be emphasized that none of these initiatives is a deviation from Yale’s firm commitment to need-based aid. Rather, the changes have worked within need- based parameters to continue to make a high cost education realistic and attractive to those who can least afford it, and to ensure that certain opportunities easily available to some students can be shared by their peers. The Corporation, the president, and the officers of Yale are firmly committed to need blind admissions and need based financial aid. Whenever reviewed, the policy has been endorsed by the Corporation (the last time in 1998), and publicly reaffirmed on numerous occasions by the president. Nonetheless, continuing to hold fast to need based aid, as Yale fully intends to do, will present a challenge. The temptation for straying can be best understood by specific example. Looking at an award letter from another need- based institution, which gives an applicant considerably more scholarship, can be frustrating; our colleagues from other institutions must on occasion experience similar frustration when they are looking at Yale awards they cannot understand. The great temptation, since one cannot discuss such an award with another institution, is to match it, whether or not the need-based reasons for it are clear. An additional temptation, if it were allowed (and Yale’s policy specifically disallows it) is to use institutional private money, rather than aid that must meet federal criteria, to match a package whose need- based reasons one cannot understand. As institutions develop individual strategies to address the particular composition of financial aid packages, awards are likely to differ more. For this reason, holding fast to need- based aid is likely to continue to test institutional principles and commitment. Yale believes that need- based financial aid offers the best and fairest opportunity to matriculate students from all socioeconomic classes to attend a University which deeply prides itself on the heterogeneity of its student body. The last ten years have shown that despite radical changes in climate, Yale has been able to hold the course. The next ten years will demonstrate whether it can continue to do so.
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Policies and Publications Information Technology Equal Opportunity New Haven Relations Undergrad Admissions Financial Aid |
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