"Admissions Revolution"

[originaloog]

<p>asteriskea, it is true that the college admission process can become extremely frenzied and angst riddled for SOME students and their families. But it needn't be so. Many, our son included, decided early on to opt out entirely. Though he had the abilities to be a prized commodity in the admission wars, he chose to live a more typical hs life, where merely hanging out with friends was more valuable than shoehorning in another volunteer activity, attending another afterschool club meeting or getting in a few hours of SAT prep. His class schedule was determined by courses he wanted to take vs those that the most selective colleges expect students to take.</p>

<p>The result was a wonderful hs experience, totally stress free college admissions process, very good academic preparation for college work and admission offers from colleges based on who he genuinely was and not as a highly burnished package devised by over anxious parents or admission consultants. And this is the same route the better students at our typical suburban high school usually choose also.</p>

[edad]

<p>I think you are making too much of these issues and probably also expecting too much. Currently, admission rates for all colleges average over 70%. Many community colleges have very high acceptance rates. The stress and chaos only involves a small number of elite, well known schools where there is intense competition for admission. Most of the rest of the stress and chaos involves the other side: colleges trying to recruit in order to maintain enrollments.</p>

<p>Most of the elite, selective colleges are private. They can and do establish their own policies and they do not need to solve problems, real or imagined, of social inequity. All have chosen to provide diversity and pursue admissions policies which provide preferential treatment for URM's and the SE disadvantaged. I would not expect big changes in these policies. First they are often dipping pretty far down and bypassing many very accomplished students. Second, the disadvantaged cost more money in aid and are not likely to generate proportional endowments in the future. Finally, I don't think anyone is really asking for more diversity. There is plenty of diversity from international students, and from students with different backgrounds and interests. A small number of elite colleges are not going to have much significance in equalizing educational opportunities. As a society, we need to do that when it matters most, at an early age and throughout the secondary schools. If we do that students will have the background to make choices at college age. Then what we will need is better financial assistance. That will be needed not just at a few elite colleges but for all students at all colleges. Unfortunately, the trend has been in the other direction. Politicians talk about supporting education, but instead support is cut as our nation's resources are spend in overseas wars.</p>

[marite]

<p>I agree colleges cannot remedy the inequities and unequalities of k-12 education. But top colleges can send signals about what is valued. Even if a student from a poor community does not return to that community upon graduation, that student will have provided a role model for others to be inspired by and a road map for them to follow. So I see AA and SES diversity both as providing a richer learning envrionment for all students and more of an inspiration than a direct instrument of change: an inspiration for other colleges and for other students from similar backgrounds to the ones who are admitted.</p>

<p>I also agree that the competition frenzy for admission into top colleges is unhealthy. The good news is that this has a spillover effect. There are more excellent colleges than the handful collectively and usually wrongly labeled as "Ivies" or top LACs.</p>

[asteriskea]

<p>edad, On one point, I agree with you completely: there is absolutely no doubt in my mind that education - on all levels - should be our number one priority. Am I making too much of these issues - probably not since, as Marite just pointed out, what goes on in the hallowed halls of that small number of elite institutions influences other institutions across the nation. The basic model of holistic admissions held to be the standard for others to follow was adopted by and put into practice by educators at Harvard. Is diversity an issue - you bet it is. Whether it comes down to deciding what constitutes a class in terms of a break down of GPA, test scores, gender, race, ethnicity, SE or background, or geographic provenance or simply whether a student plays the harmonica or the trombone a system comes into play that implies there will be winners and losers. That is precisely why colleges want applicant pools to be as large (diverse) as possible while the slots they can fill with warm bodies stays relatively constant. Yes, private institutions do make their own policies but they are answerable to the notion of public interest as well as to the Supreme Court rulings on race and diversity (at this point, the rulings related to the University of Michigan, 2003). These rulings may change as new cases come before the higher Court - and it behooves us to remember that in the Univ. of Michigan case O'Connor was the swing vote. It is not for nothing that the ETS and the CB, as well as the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation spend big bucks studying trends and practices that are constantly reviewed and renewed according to current circumstances. The Mellon Foundation also gives greatly in terms of real financial aid and support - often in the form of matching funds, which are both prestigious and fnancially good for any institution. Am I expecting too much, probably not, because I am not really expecting anything - I could have just as well named this thread the "Admissions non-revolution". Do the issues deserve media attention and debate - well, on that point I do expect a lot - because I think it does.</p>

[jazzymom]

<p>asteriskea: </p>

<p>I absolutely was not going to read your latest link because I really need to get going on some other internet research projects I'm supposed to be working on. But I skimmed it. Laughed out loud (I mean LOL) at the reference by Pomona's Bruce Poch to the "botoxing" of America's children in the attempt to make applicants look perfect. </p>

<p>Well, as that last link indicates, the issue of equity for poor versus rich applicants has been kicking around for a few years and seems to weigh heavily on the minds of some college officials. The article says that 74 percent of the student body at the 146 most selective colleges come from families in the top income quartile. Wonder if that's changed at all in two years. Does it matter that it change? There are, after all, 3,000 colleges in this country available to all income levels. Is there really a "public interest" issue in finding more spaces for low SES students in the most selective tier?
Maybe it's a bit of ivory tower "angst" over the inability to "do more" to mitigate educational inequities. </p>

<p>edad: I agree that the "big picture" demands major reform in the quality of K-12 public education in this country, but we are unlikely to get that in our or our children's lifetimes now that we are saddled with a gazillion dollar national debt.</p>

[asteriskea]

<p>Jazzymom, I am glad you get the bits of humor that laces all of this as well as the hints of hypocrisy. I find it worth mentioning that holistic admissions are held by some to be the best way to implement AA and diversity, while others argue that it is merely allows colleges to circumvent anti-AA legislation. At the same time, holistic admissions does put an inordinate emphasis on the number of AP and honors classes, ECs and other "subjective" tip factors which include the value of admission application essays that just about everyone agrees makes the admissions process so stressful. The holistic approach is costly for colleges to implement and that is another stress factor added to the game and that is absolutely not reserved just for private elite institutions:</p>

<p><a href="http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/265572_admissions05.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/265572_admissions05.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

[MickeyD]

<p>A big help would be if the financial aid process (or true cost to the applicant) was sped up. The LAC's use of the Profile method, not standard or comparable between schools, creates a lot of confusion. and heartache for families. Many parents have no idea that their financial situation will affect the sticker price in vastly different ways at each school.
The financial aid process makes a mockery of the application process.</p>

[asteriskea]

<p>One thing ought to be clear by now: the competitive nature of the admissions game is often at odds with colleges' attempts to level the playing field using holistic admissions methods and marketing techniques to attract a large and diverse applicant pool. In the times we live in, any attempt to achieve enrollment goals (diversity, equality or whatever) is also linked to the concept of of public interest and fair access to higher education - lest any one think that the issue of diversity or AA is a dead horse - think again.</p>

<p><a href="http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060619/19race.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.usnews.com/usnews/news/articles/060619/19race.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

[edad]

<p>You can draw your own conclusions about the meaning of the UMich case and you can also speculate about current political trends. I am sure there are plenty of newspaper articles to support any view. Personally, I think the trend has and continues to swing away from affirmative action. In the long run, this is necessary. It is impossible to attempt to achieve equality of opportunity by showing any group preferential treatment. The UMich case only postponed the inevitable. We need to provide equal educational opportunity at all levels, not just try to compensate for past deficiencies at the college level.</p>

[JHS]

<p>I offer the following from Ted O'Neill (Admissions Dean at University of Chicago) (with apologies if it has been posted a lot already -- it is 10 months old):</p>

<p>Kid comes into an admissions office, says I’ve got an act for you – admissions guy says, “What kind of act?” and the kid says, “A family act.” “Okay, how does it go?” Kid says, “High school junior spends $4,000 on a Princeton Review class and SAT scores go up 120 points, now he figures he doesn’t have to go to #10-15 on the U.S. News list but can get into 1-10, so the mother takes a second job to pay off the Princeton Review and buys the Platinum Package from an independent college counselor for $30,000 so Junior can be advised about when to help his fellow man and how best to package the experience, and when to take power naps… father, meanwhile, talks to the accountant, finds out that even a home equity loan won’t bring enough cash to get the kid into the right summer program to help repair castles in Carcassonne as a community service project, without which Junior won’t get into college 1-10, to say nothing of having the money to send the boy to Tibet to practice spinning prayer wheels as proof of his spirituality and concern for diversity and international harmony, and besides there is the tuition for sophomore daughter’s harp camp in Maine, so he decides to sell the car, which means mom and dad have to use the Metra to get the younger brother to his 2:00 a.m. hockey practice, which he’ll need if he wants to use the athletic hook to get into an Ivy or at least a “Little Three,” a trip which takes one parent away from Junior’s homework – the family has a pact that at least one parent will write at least one draft of each required paper due in the senior year – first draft of the college essays - and Junior has carefully chosen the “most challenging” senior coursework – AP Stats as his math, AP Psych as his science, “The History of the Vietnam War” as the social science, “The Literature of the Vietnam War” as the English elective, and “Reading a Balance Sheet” as preparation for his college internship, which he means to be the culmination of his liberal arts education. Parents are working so many extra hours and otherwise spending so much time on the Metra train on the way to hockey practice that sister is ignored and stops practicing the harp, thereby settling for a future without a prestigious college education, hence, perdition, has herself heavily tattooed, drops out of the Key Club, joins a heavy metal harp band, and spits venomously whenever Junior pulls out his SAT word-list and adds another entry to his on-line collection of homonyms. Metra goes on strike, little brother can’t get to hockey practice, is kicked off the team, begins to think of a future at the community college or emigration to Germany where he can join an apprentice program for tool and die makers, and mom and dad begin to feel strains in the marriage, but vow to stay together to see Junior through the second administration of the SAT IIs, because they know that with support, and coaching, he will be able to get an 800 on the writing exam unless he is tempted to be either original or imaginative, which would result in a lower score, and his having to settle for, heaven forbid, a state university which means no job at Goldman, Sachs, so why bother to go to college at all? Father finds that he begins to day-dream of the time when he carried Junior’s egg on his toes beneath a flap of his own skin during the long Antarctic winter, and vows that the boy will never go to college in a windy and frigid Midwestern city where, if the egg drops, cracks will reveal the icicles which had been his not-yet fledgling son, and in his identification with the precarious, fragile frosty egg decides that we will only apply to Duke, Emory, UVA, and, of course, Dartmouth if we can get in, damn the cold, they are rated 7th in U.S. News. All the while, mother swims under the ice eating enough chum to regurgitate meals for her newly hatched chick to make him strong enough for cross country practice, which should look pretty god on the application despite the fact that his little webbed feet limit his speed, and he finds that flopping on his belly to slide along the ice doesn’t really improve his time, not at all in Raleigh, Atlanta or Charlottsville. Family meets and decides to prune away younger brother and sister to help foster the blossom that they wish Junior actually had turned out to be, they sell the home and move to Kazahkstan, hoping that geographical diversity might work the trick at any, please, just any, top 10 college or university, and they are last seen deciding to which school they will apply Early Decision.”</p>

<p>The admissions guy looks at him and says, “Wow! that’s quite an act – what do you call it?” </p>

<p>The Meritocrats.</p>

[digmedia]

<p>^___ Anyone recognize themselves? Good joke.</p>

[JHS]

<p>And to make some substantive points of my own:</p>

<ol>
<li> I think a lot of what people here feel as panic and insanity stems from the intersection of a few big, macro factors that are NOT going away:</li>
</ol>

<p>-- There has been almost no expansion of elitist institutions since co-education became nearly universal in the early 70s.<br>
-- Elite institutions have the money and the values to pursue real affirmative action, and real international admissions. The result of which is that the number of "normal" slots at elite institutions has actually shrunk.
-- Thanks to immigration and the baby-boom echo, the number of 17-year-olds is significantly larger now than it was 30 years ago.
-- Almost every segment of society now perceives significant benefits from college education in general, and is aware of elite institutions like HYPS etc., and their supposed benefits. That was NOT true 30 years ago. Thank you, Gilmore Girls (among many, many other things).
-- Suburban high school districts have grown exponentially in population and in quality.</p>

<p>So, in sum, there are a LOT more qualified kids chasing fewer slots. Hence craziness.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I agree that this is a phenomenon that affects comparatively few people and kids. At my kids' large public academic magnet school, maybe 10% of the class is engaged in this process. The remainder are deciding which state school to attend, or whether to go into the military, and there is not a whole lot of application/admissions stress. (At my kids' former private school, it affects 95% of the kids.) Furthermore, I don't see a whole lot of non-self-inflicted tragedies out there. Andison's story -- which of course isn't a tragedy, but felt like one at some points -- is a real anomaly. In 10 years of watching admissions in a fairly broad group of people, I know of two comparable cases -- one where the kid and her parents were completely unrealistic, and one where the kid presented (accurately) as seriously disturbed. In other words, this whole thing is crazy and stressful for us and our kids, but is not a big social problem.</p></li>
<li><p>"Ending AA" is not a solution, because it's not going to happen at elite institutions in our lifetime. AA IS an education-based decision. Obviously, it's possible for thoughtful people to disagree with it, but as a practical matter that battle was resolved long ago at elite institutions and won't be re-opened.</p></li>
<li><p>Limiting SAT testing is also not a solution. Also - who actually thinks that AdComs don't distinguish between a kid who takes the SATs once and gets 700s, and a kid who takes them 6 times and gets a 700 one time on each test? The "take the highest score" policy is COMPLETELY a function of USNWR -- it's what the schools report to them. In any event, limiting SAT testing would BOOST the importance of tutors, and PSATs, and all sorts of stuff. In Japan they only get to take these tests once, and the pressure on kids is legendary.</p></li>
<li><p>Some solutions that I think are meaningful:</p></li>
</ol>

<p>-- Limit the number of applications kids can submit. If kids were limited to, say, 6 applications apiece to private colleges, every elite college would see its applications drop by half, the quality of decisionmaking would be better, kids would anticipate and get fewer rejections, and kids would have to make real decisions before applying. </p>

<p>-- Limit the % of slots filled ED. Schools that admit 50% of their classes ED put a lot of pressure on kids. I wouldn't end ED -- I think overall it reduces the number of applications and spaces them out, and that's good -- but I think some schools (<em>cough</em>Princeton<em>cough</em>) haven't gotten the memo that what they are doing is not cool.</p>

<p>-- Common application yes/no? On the one hand, the common ap certainly reduces the amount of work a kid has to do to apply to schools, and that's good, but it makes applying to additional schools way too easy. So if you adopt my proposed limit on applications, I say force everyone onto a common ap. If you don't, I say make every kid spend at least 30 hours per school on a completely unique application. That'll limit the number of aps just fine.</p>

<p>-- Make people understand that, thanks to the even-more-insane employment system for PhDs, there are excellent faculties and educational resources at many, many schools beyond the top-10 (or -30) prestige level, and that all the demographic factors that are making people crazy are putting good students into those schools, too. So chill. Lots of people are trying this, and maybe it's even sort of working.</p>

<p>-- Build more dorms at Harvard. They could, you know. They could even build them out of certified aged brick. (Also not going to happen anytime soon, but more likely than ending AA.)</p>

[edad]

<p>You have some interesting suggestions.</p>

<p>Limit the number of apps. Should we have the federal government do this or should colleges get together and conspire to limit free trade? I don't understand what this will acccomplish except create real panic for students trying to gain admission into specialized programs or schools where admission rates are low.</p>

<p>Limit ED slots. Again, who should do the limiting? The federal government? Why would you want to restrict the ability of schools to operate in the marketplace and set their own strategies?</p>

<p>Restrict the common app so that more time is required. That should favor the wealthy. Make it difficult and time consuming and the wealthy will pay for this service and the rest of us will lose.</p>

<p>Make people understand... Sorry, I could not make any sense out of this paragraph.</p>

<p>Build more dorms at Harvard. I assume this is a metaphor for expanding the size of Harvard. Should the other Ivies also expand? What about non-Ivy elites? What is the goal, to turn elite schools into the equivalent of huge State U's?</p>

[asteriskea]

<p>edad, I wouldn't want to see any type of federal or other regulation involved that would in any way hamstring ability to operate in the market place or to devise their own strategies either. I think the elite and selective schools in question are on the cutting edge of what goes on in the admissions world and do take the public interest extremely seriously. I would love to be a fly on the wall at Harvard's 46th summer institute on admissions which adjoins tomorrow.</p>

<p>The uncertainty and element of frenzied panic at the heart of the admissions mess obviously does not touch every one (as Originaloog pointed out) but it does touch enough students and parents to become a big deal issue. On the level of pure anecdote, I recently met a young man who only submitted two apps - one EASC and one other to his flagship U. He got into his top reach EA and left it at that. A few years back, someone else we know applied to only four schools. Way back in the dark ages when I applied the general rule of thumb was to make up a list of 3-4 reach, match and safety schools. The GC at my kid's school still gives the same advice. There is a new trend going on that bucks the conventional wisdom but not in a good way. Now, don't get me wrong - I am not in favor of any regulated limitation in the number apps that should be made - what I would like to see is a return to common sense and a concerted effort on all sides to restore confidence in the system. There is no justification for applying to 15 top schools just for the sake of collecting trophy acceptances - there is no sense in feeding into student's basic insecurities and egos by answering "what are my chances" and "how prestigious are X, Y, and Z college" threads.</p>

<p>Actually, I liked the reference to "Gilmore Girls" - I was thinking about that as well. Also, the elite and selective schools do limit their available slots and why not? The quality of education is often predicated on student-teacher ratio and if an institution is to remain elite it is not going to turn to more open enrollment as a remedy. That is why GS and extension school programs were invented.</p>

<p>Any attempt to work all this out has to depend on a collaborative effort by parents, students, highschools and colleges. As I mull over possible remedies, I would love to hear more suggestions.</p>

<p>Btw, it looks like the Education Conservancy got grants from both the Spencer and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundations.</p>

[JHS]

<p>edad:</p>

<p>Sorry you don't like my suggestions. As I said, I don't think this is the biggest problem in the world, although it sometimes seems like it to my kids and their friends. Anyway . . . </p>

<p>Limiting applications could be accomplished voluntarily and unilaterally by any school. Even if a group of schools (say, the Ivy League) did it by agreement, if the restriction were reasonable (I proposed six private colleges from a restricted list of "top" schools, no restriction on other apps) I see no reason why it would violate antitrust laws. From the schools' standpoint, it makes all kinds of sense: Each additional application imposes costs -- both cash expense and reduced quality of decisionmaking -- that are in excess of anything the school can responsibly recover through application fees. It's fair to say "We won't pay attention to your app if we are one of 20 comparable schools you've applied to." And I don't know what you mean by specialized programs with low admittance rates -- that's not what we're talking about here, or at least I don't think it is. From my vantage point, most of the frenzy seems to emanate from people looking at the "top" 30-40 private (small) colleges, and there are not a lot of "specialized programs" on the table there other than perhaps engineering.</p>

<p>(I may be wrong about this, but as a rough guess I would say that if Harvard, Yale, and Stanford did this, it would: (1) Cut their applications by 30-40% (i.e., people who would not want to limit their applications at all, and people who would not apply to all three thus betting 50% of their qualifying applications on getting into at least one of them). (2) Cut every other elite-type school's applications by 15-25% (i.e., people who wanted to apply to one or more of HYS and thus couldn't apply to 10-15 of the others). I also think this wouldn't change the world much. I don't know kids who are actually attending a school they would not have applied to if my rule were in effect.)</p>

<p>Unique applications -- just a self-help version of limiting the number of applications you receive if you don't have Harvard's market power. Works for Chicago. It's a pain to apply there, so fewer kids do, the ones that do tend to be ones to whom the school really appeals, and it's "easier" and less pressured to get into (because there are fewer applications). But, as I made clear, I don't actually favor making kids work harder. It's just a way of limiting applications to reduce the frenzy. Also -- how, exactly, do rich kids pay other people to write their applications for them?</p>

<p>Accepting that there are other good schools in the world -- if you haven't heard this drum-beat message from AdComms and GCs over the past five years, you've been living under a rock.</p>

<p>ED -- No government regulation necessary at all. Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Stanford explicitly changed their ED policies and quietly reduced the number of slots they were filling ED shortly after Fallows published his (pretty accurate) analysis, because they decided it was the right thing to do. If more schools followed suit, the world would be a (slightly) nicer place.</p>

<p>New Dorms At Harvard -- yes, a metaphor for expanding the Ivy League and comparables. It has happened before. In 1975, practically every elite school was educating twice (or more) as many kids as they had in 1945, and with better quality to boot. This was a response to social and demographic pressures -- GI Bill, baby boom, breakdown of class system, the end to racial and gender segregation. In 2005, hardly any were educating a single student more than in 1975, notwithstanding a significant expansion of the pool of realistic potential students. At the top, they are all monopolists of their brands, and they are all limiting output the way monopolists do. I'm not suggesting that they go to classes of 10-20,000, but if they actually cared about the frenzy (they don't) they might think about 2,000.</p>

[map]

<p>What do people think of the British model, in which students apply through UCAS to a maximum of six schools (see <a href="http://www.ucas.com/index.html)?%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ucas.com/index.html)?&lt;/a> While the number might be low, the straightforwardness and uniformity of the process has a certain appeal.</p>

<p>As I have only skimmed this thread, I apologize in advance if this has been discussed.</p>

[asteriskea]

<p>map, please no apologies necessary. I don't know anything about the UCAS application system and will look into it further - one quick question - is this a for profit private service aimed to simplify the application process or is it a centralized service to facilitate access to higher education backed by the University system or by the UK government? I have to admit that something in me bristles at the thought of a system that would limit the number of apps. and I would much prefer solutions that would allow the freedom to choose both the "where and the "how many".</p>

<p>One thing, struck me - "Tip: making the right choice matters: they
should apply only to places they want to go to". Well, of course, why didn't we think of that?</p>

<p><a href="http://www.ucas.com/parents/process/index.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.ucas.com/parents/process/index.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

[jazzymom]

<p>JHS:</p>

<p>Isn't there something vaguely unAmerican about limiting choices? </p>

<p>I don't know enough about the British system to know whether that model would work in the U.S. among private universities with their long-standing rivalries and their own separate institutional goals for the type of students they want to attract. I suppose if the super selective universities and LACs really wanted to limit the number of applications they receive (do they?) they would take the other route you suggested --- make their applications more individualized and more of a challenge than the common app. Why don't they? I don't know the history of the common app, but I'll assume it was adopted by Harvard and others, not because they weren't getting enough applications, but because they wanted to make application accessible to students from all walks of life, whether they had private school GCs or private consultants to help them or not. </p>

<p>Still, making the application more thought-provoking by requiring an additional college-specific essay, as UChicago does, would probably reduce the mass-application strategy we've read about recently and perhaps make students think much harder about what they want from a college and why they want to apply to that particular one.</p>

[superwizard]

<p>I have had some experience with the UCAS (my friend applied to britain) and I personally think it is pretty good. You apply once and you can't choose more than 6 universities and my friend liked it a lot. It was simple and easy too. But I don't think it could work in the US...</p>

[marite]

<p>I don't think it would work in the US, either. The pool of students and the number of universities as well as their diversity is totally different. There aren't thousand universities to choose from in the UK, and the UK universities are not that dissimilar in terms of geographical location, mission, size, student body, etc...
As well, such a system introduces a layer of bureaucracy and centralization that is inimical to the US with its dual system of public and private universities. I believe there is only one private university in the UK and I don't think it's part of the system. At any rate, the UC already has something like this in place. But there would be insuperable barriers to combining it with, say, HYPSM AWS and all the other private colleges or even other state universities.</p>