Yale College Has Record "Yield" in Freshmen Class

A record-high 66.3 percent of the students admitted to Yale College have chosen to matriculate in this year's freshmen class.

A record-high 66.3 percent of the students admitted to Yale College have chosen to matriculate in this year’s freshmen class.

The 1,352 members of the Class of 2004, selected from among 12,887 applicants, will arrive on campus Friday, September 1.

Yale admitted 16 percent of the applicants, reflecting a continuing trend of exceedingly competitive selection cycles for the College, and 66.3 percent of the admitted students chose to attend. It is the sixth straight year that Yale’s “yield” – the percentage of admitted students who matriculate – has increased.

“This class represents an extraordinary array of academic and extracurricular accomplishments,” said Richard H. Shaw, Jr., dean of undergraduate admissions and financial aid. “I am simply in awe of their abilities and potential. Every admitted student to the Class of 2004 had many choices for college and we are excited and honored that they have chosen to be at Yale.”

The 678 women and 674 men in the freshman class come from 48 states and 44 foreign countries. There are 228 freshmen from New York, 164 from California and 98 from Connecticut.

The mot popular majors indicated by the incoming students are biology and other life sciences, economics, engineering, English, political science and history. The students’ median SAT scores were 730 in verbal and 720 in math.

Yale admits students from the United States and Canada without regard to their ability to pay for their education (a policy called “need-blind” admissions) and fully meets the demonstrated financial need of each student. For the 2000-01 academic year, Yale expects to devote $30 million to financial aid grants for undergraduates. About 40 percent of the students qualify for direct grants from Yale. The average student grant for the Class of 2004 is $16,147 per year, and some students of limited means qualify for grants in excess of $24,000.

The freshmen will engage in various orientation activities until classes begin September 6. Yale President Richard C. Levin and Yale College Dean Richard H. Brodhead will deliver their annual Freshman Addresses at 10 a.m. on September 2 in Woolsey Hall.

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Media Contact

Tom Conroy: tom.conroy@yale.edu, 203-432-1345