<p>I wouldn’t say Harvard is exactly discouraging applications. Quite a few moderately qualified students in my class received applications and encouraging letters in the mail.</p>
<p>The top selective universities definitely encourage all and every students to apply. The more applicants apply for, the lower the accept rate. it leads to more donate from its alumni. it is a game they have to play. </p>
<p>SAT verbal score was at least 100 points on average more than that of 20 years ago(not sure it is exactly 20). Now we have ACT and SAT compete. If SAT is harder than ACT, then more students will take ACT. This will significantly reduce college board’s profit(profit might not be the right word because it is non-profit org. but you get the idea). So SAT and ACT are racing to get their difficulty level of test as lower as possible. My kid is an average kid. He gets 690/760(cr/m) a few ago back when he just entered 7th grade. No wonder Harvard claims that more than 90% of applicants are qualified(I seriously wonder if Harvard thinks a student with SAT of 400/400/400 is qualified)</p>
<p>A cynic might suggest that Yale’s decision to admit fewer students this year and draw more from their waiting list was a strategy to keep their admit percentage from increasing at the same time almost every other elite school was decreasing theirs. Or, it may indeed be the practical measure they suggest - a means of avoiding a larger incoming class than they can handle if their yield rate is higher than expected.</p>
<p>These places are big businesses. They will do anything, say anything that suits their business model. They claim to be “private” universities yet they accept all sorts of federal money including research grants for some faculty. This makes them quasi-public, not private. They hide behind the “we’re private” shield to avoid transparency about their admissions and financial aid processes. The have large endowments that operate as non-profits, yet they don’t distribute 5% of the principle as required by the IRS. They do whatever the hell they want and we stand for it. What is needed next is higher education reform. They need to explain why tuition increase at twice the rate of inflation and why some presidents are making millions or dollars. It’s out of control. All of this said, the number of high school seniors seeking admission to a university in the US just peaked. Over the next 5 years it shouldbecome slightly easier to gain admission unless all those extra slots are filled with foreign students in an effort to keep the selectivity factor.</p>
<p>Article from a few years ago about Harvard’s recruiting: </p>
<p>[Online</a> Extra: How Harvard Gets its Best and Brightest](<a href=“Bloomberg - Are you a robot?”>Bloomberg - Are you a robot?) </p>
<p>I have every reason to suppose that most “peer” institutions have similar policies. </p>
<p>Oh, yes, and my demographics FAQ for this thread: </p>
<p>DEMOGRAPHICS</p>
<p>Population trends in the United States are not the only issue influencing the competitiveness of college admission here. The children already born show us what the expected number of high school students are in various years, but the number of high school students in the United States, which is expected to begin declining in a few years, isn’t the whole story.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/ed...nted=2&_r=1&hp[/url]”>http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/09/ed...nted=2&_r=1&hp</a></p>
<p>First of all, if more students who begin high school go on to college, there will be more applicants to college even with a declining number of high school students. And that is the trend in the United States and worldwide.</p>
<p>Second, colleges in the United States accept applications from all over the world, so it is quite possible that demographic trends in the United States will not be the main influence on how many students apply to college. The cohorts of high-school-age students are still increasing in size in some countries (NOT most of Europe).</p>
<p>Third, even if the number of applicants to colleges overall stays the same, or even declines, the number of applicants to the most competitive colleges may still increase. The trend around the world is a “flight to quality” of students trying to get into the best college they can in increasing numbers, and increasing their consensus about which colleges to put at the top of their application lists. I do not expect college admission to be any easier for my youngest child than for my oldest child, even though she is part of a smaller birth cohort in the United States.</p>
<p>And now I would add to this that at the very most selective colleges that are maintaining generous financial aid plans even after a financial crisis and a recession, next year’s (and the following year’s) crush of applicants will be larger than ever. When colleges that are already acknowledged to be great colleges start reducing their net cost down to what the majority of families in the United States can afford, those colleges will receive more applications from all parts of the United States, and very likely from all over the world.</p>
<p>rocket6louise: totally agreed. maybe not five, but like 6-7? Or make applying to local state schools mandatory, and then 5 other schools. I think that’s what Bronx High School of Science did decades ago. It was required that all students applied to a CUNY school…forgot what it’s called.</p>
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<p>I believe Harvard considers qualified applicants as those who have a 3.0 UW GPA and at least 1800 SAT, which is supposedly around 80% of applicants. I wonder what would happen if they raised the bar to a 3.5 GPA and 2100 SAT.</p>
<p>The opinion that this is somehow the students’ faults is absolutely ridiculous. I would hate to go to a British University. Applications should not be limited in any way; these schools will eventually stabilize their admission practices. It’s not fair that most of these kids don’t receive the respect they deserve. Without students, a university would not function.</p>
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<p>I have no reason to think that Harvard sets the bar that low, but I’m happy to be corrected by an authoritative source.</p>
<p>Baloney that Harvard doesn’t send things out to encourage applications! They were the only school that had the audacity to send an application unsolicited in the mail. Other schools pestered us with marketing materials, but never spent the money or the paper on an application packet without any expression of interest from us. Harvard probably figured that anyone who gets an application is going to be flattered and send it in! We didn’t take their bait!</p>
<p>Yes, Harvard sends lots of applications. In fact, the majority of students whom Harvard admits got an application in the mail.</p>
<p>The reason that Harvard does this is to cast a wide need so as to be able to create the best possible student body. Harvard doesn’t want to miss potentially good applicants because the have never heard of Harvard (possible, for instance, for a first generation college student who is doing a stellar job in a low performing school) or who think that Harvard is only for rich people or for people with perfect test scores. </p>
<p>Does getting an application mean that one is an excellent shot at Harvard? Of course not. Harvard sends the application and makes calls to prospective students based on info Harvard receives related to students’ PSAT, SAT and ACT scores.</p>
<p>Consequently, my high scoring, low gpa (sub 3.0 unweighted) son got a personal call from Harvard inviting him to apply. Both S and I knew that he had absolutely no chance of admission, so he didn’t take the call seriously.</p>
<p>However, if he had had low grades due to something like being homeless, even with lower scores, he might have had a chance at Harvard because one would have to have a lot of smarts and a very strong work ethic to have done so well academically despite such challenges.</p>
<p>I have seen absolutely no evidence that Harvard wants unqualified students to apply so Harvard can reduce its acceptance rate. Instead, Harvard wants more of the thousands of qualified students to apply so Harvard can create increasingly stellar student bodies.</p>
<p>It is true that Harvard would consider students with an unweighted 3.0 and an 1800 SAT to academically qualify for Harvard. Of course, it would be very rare if such a student were accepted to Harvard, but if the student were an Olympic athlete, a renowned actor, homeless or had multimillionaire donor parents, the student would have a shot at Harvard.</p>
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<p>Shure they do, especially for athletes!</p>
<p>If what you say is true, Northstarmom, then I would think that Harvard would do some presorting of the data to increase the likelihood that it is hitting students who may not have “heard” of Harvard or think they don’t have a chance of getting in. It clearly just goes to kids with high test scores.</p>
<p>Agreed, the students at my child’s boarding school even figured out what the cutoff score was. Let’s just say that about half of the students received application packets. And trust me, all of them had heard of Harvard before. I find it ridiculous that a school that only accepts 6.9% of its applicants is mass mailing in order to generate more applications. It’s going straight into tomorrow night’s “Incendium”- burning of all unwanted college materials, unopened!</p>
<p>This may be true in some sports, but my daughter just met with a Harvard coach last week and was told they were looking for a SAT above 2200 and ACT above 32. Racoon, I believe you are an international student, so your experience may be different.</p>
<p>no, i’ve heard from mom of an American athlete that 600 is indeed all that a recruited athlete needs. Perhaps it does vary by sport, though.</p>
<p>There is alot of money to be made in apps…sending test scores etc.</p>
<p>When an AdCom can read an app --and skim the SAT scores/ACT and other stats first to see if the kid is even in the pool–one sees how 25,000 apps make the school alot of money.</p>
<p>On the flip side–heard an interesting comment from an Admission Officer at UPenn who told the audience to check “fee waver” if they had a financial hardship to pay the application fee…
Upion refecting on this–It is brilliant really–
More kids will apply to UPenn because its fee waived–and so the lower acceptance rate will boost the schools status. Short term “loss” - longer term gain.</p>
<p>Harvard also sent my daughter an application with a big expensive brochure. We didn’t submit.</p>
<p>I am indeed an International student, but I have athlete peers in the US.</p>
<p>I know that 600 per section is often enough, however, Princeton and Harvard are exceptions. And of course it varies for sports. Basketball and Football are also general exceptions. I don’t know about womens sports tough!</p>
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<p>Incorrect. All college admission offices are “cost centers” for the colleges that operate them. No college makes up in application fees what it spends on recruiting students. According to the NACAC 2008 State of College Admissions report (you can find that as a free download on the Web), the typical cost to recruit each applicant is $300. </p>
<p>Colleges have to spend the money on recruiting students, because otherwise they shrivel up and die. See </p>
<p>[Maguire</a> Associates - Services - EMPOWR: Optimizing Student Recruitment](<a href=“http://www.maguireassoc.com/services/empowr.html]Maguire”>http://www.maguireassoc.com/services/empowr.html) </p>
<p>for more perspective.</p>