Harvard Gazette: College's new financial aid initiative keeps yield near 80%: "Harvard's new financial aid initiative aimed at students from low and moderate economic backgrounds helped support close to an 80 percent yield on students admitted to the College Class of 2008 entering in September. Announced in February by President Lawrence H. Summers in an address to the American Council on Education, the new financial aid initiative requires no contribution from parents with incomes below $40,000 and reduces expectations from families with incomes between $40,000 and $60,000. The yield on students from families with incomes below $60,000 is just under 84 percent.
Yield, the percentage of admitted students who decide to accept an offer of admission, is considered a measure of a college's competitiveness. Harvard's yield remains, by a substantial margin, the highest of the nation's selective colleges - particularly striking because students admitted under Harvard's Early Action program are free to enroll at other colleges. "