回复：为什么耶鲁接受率（Yield）今年又下降？

I don't really know but a few things may contribute to it:

1. Yale is the rare college that it very honest in recruiting top students.  Yale is not as agressive as other top colleges in marketing and recruiting top students.  Yale is consistently rated as top three and do not have the pressure to maintain as first place.  Colleges constantly drop and reinstate early action/decision is a reflection of lack of security.  Many other colleges are not very honest and do a lot of things manipulating yield and admission rate;

2. Yale is unfairly treated by media and laymen as not strong in science and technologies though it's probably partially true.  They don't understand that undergraduate education depends more on school reputation rather than that of department's.

3. Somewhat related to the first reason above, Yale recruits students of variaty of backgraound.  Some other top colleges try to recruit students of a more confined background and thus protect their yield rates.  For example, some colleges heavily recruit from their traditional feeder schools, students of lagacy, etc.  My impression is that of HYP, Yale has the lowest percentage of students from family of legacy.  I guess students of lagacy have a higher yield.  Some colleges target a specific kind of students and avoid corss admission with other top colleges and thus protect their yield rates.