@piesquared say it again for the people in the back
Sure, no doubt it is good if kids understand that there are great opportunities beyond ivy league schools etc.
However, admission rates are down at a number of colleges, not just ivy league ones, and the big problem this introduces is randomness. Randomness means some kids get shut out. Lower admission rates means that matches become reaches, and safeties become matches.
Think of it this way - if every student decided to apply to twice as many schools compared to what they would have in the previous, what would that do? Essentially, admission rates would fall in half, and again, the role of chance would be exacerbated. This is essentially what is happening, albeit under a slower time scale.
I think I get where you are coming from - if the competition level drives more kids to work hard, so kids come to more colleges really prepared to learn, that is a good thing. But I feel like there is a lot more what I would call vicious randomness out there than there used to be.
@prezbucky thanks for the additional thoughts, that seems like an interesting way to help induce the “sorting” that needs to happen. Maybe there would be different tiers.
@inn0v8r I don’t know if I would call it “vicious randomness” because what it absolutely clear is that, unlike in the past. a high GPA and high SAT scores will not guarantee or even promise you admission to highly selective universities. When I worked in admissions, what made the difference was factors that caused a candidate to stand out in some way, circumstances or situations that Adcoms were interested in hearing about. As you cannot predict what these cases will look like, it can seem very random.
I’m late to this thread, and my information is a little dated. My older child had two Caucasian classmates who almost “ran the table,” one of whom was clearly middle class. He was truly outstanding: valedictorian, class president, reported by the school’s faculty to be the most impressive student anyone could remember (and this is an academic magnet high school with four Nobelists among its alumni). His parents were Russian immigrants, but he was born here, and his father was an accountant. He applied to all 8 Ivies, Stanford, and MIT (no safeties; he was accepted SCEA at Harvard), and was accepted everywhere but Princeton. (There was little question he was applying everywhere solely for bragging rights. In theory, he was looking for the best financial aid package, but when the best offer he got by a meaningful margin was a non-HYP Ivy, and Harvard wouldn’t budge on its offer, he went to Harvard anyway.) The other classmate was an Albanian woman who came to the U.S. at 14; English was her fourth language. Her parents were highly educated in Albania, but worked blue-collar jobs here. She applied to all of the Ivies except Dartmouth, and to MIT, and was also accepted everywhere but Princeton (Harvard SCEA). (The best financial aid package meant a lot to her, but she got the best offers from the top colleges, with very little difference among them.)
My younger child had a well-to-do, native-born Caucasian classmate who was accepted at all ten colleges to which she applied, but she applied to nine LACs (including all of the top brands) plus Yale (where she was a legacy), and a well-to-do Asian classmate (Japanese, non-citizen) who was accepted at Harvard (SCEA) and Stanford, and applied nowhere else.
Visiting colleges with my younger child, we met a young woman from the San Diego area and her father who were white and affluent – affluent enough to turn down a full tuition merit scholarship at USC to pay full price at Stanford or Princeton – though not at all sophisticated about college admissions. She had applied to 29 colleges, most of them sight-unseen, including all of the Ivies and Stanford, and had been accepted at 27 of them; only Yale and Amherst wait-listed her. She hadn’t been interested in bragging rights at all. She knew she was a strong student at her suburban public school and would likely get in to USC and any UCs to which she applied, but neither she nor her school counselor or parents had a clear idea how her application would measure up at colleges in the East. She applied indiscriminately RD to brand-name colleges with the thought that she would visit whichever ones accepted her.
@widgetmidget I agree that just because I don’t know or understand the process doesn’t necessarily mean it is truly random. But I do think there are enough variables involved that it can appear to be effectively random to the applicants, and that is what matters, because that is what affects their behavior.
I do think certain things move the probabilities their way, for instance Siemens/Intel STS/ISEF/IMO/Olympiads for STEM kids. But short of very dramatic cases, very few applicants are a “lock” at the most competitive schools.
And I would argue to you at the most applied to colleges, the stacks of applications are so tall now that the randomness IS pretty vicious. When people here that the acceptance rate has fallen from 9% to 6%, they might think, no big deal, that is just 3% . But that means we are going from
1 kids accepted for each 10 kids not accepted
to
1 kid accepted for each 15 kids not accepted
Re: the Elite Private App. I can see it now…
" I got accepted to UC Berkeley, but I don’t think it’s prestigious enough. Should I pay an extra $20k per year to go to to MIT?"
@albert69 I would not go to MIT because you think it more “prestigious”. UC Berkeley is an outstanding university, easily the match of MIT. But MIT is a very special university. Is there something at MIT that you cannot find at Berkeley? If there isn’t something very specific, I wouldn’t spend $20K a year. Indeed, $80K over four years is a lot of money.
@inn0v8r Put that way, yes it is random. It is definitely not possible to predict to any degree of certainty that you will be admitted to the Ivies or a few other highly selective universities, though you can determine whether you would be more competitive than others. My point is that in determining your competitiveness, you need to consider your “demographics” along with your statistics.
I guess it should be added that we are only talking about 30 or so universities. For others, including universities like Georgetown, Duke, Notre Dame etc., the process is less “random”. I’m not certain, however, that this is a good thing as I don’t personally put much store in SAT scores etc.
^ Duke is more selective than Dartmouth and Cornell (and has been more selective than Penn quite often)
It is definitely as “random” as the Ivies.
With the admission rates at HYPSM and the like reaching record low again this year, the vicious cycle continues. But now that many kids are already applying to so many schools, we have probably reached a point that it can’t get any worse. We are awefully close to all top students applying to every single one of the top 25 schools.
Tippy top seniors seem to differentiate themselves; they’re outgoing, savvy about their brand, and practice subtle self-promo from 9th to 12th. I’ve been in AP classes with all the best seniors in school the last 2 years and haven’t been surprised about acceptances this year or last. I think the admissions sorting is actually really efficient.
Note: Not every Ivy (or Ivy peer) admit goes to those schools. A lot are going to the state flagship for 1/2 the price and become Dean’s List pre-meds, engineering, and business students.
“But now that many kids are already applying to so many schools, we have probably reached a point that it can’t get any worse.”
I highly doubt that…
It WILL only get worse until something fundamental changes- the costs of going to college gets too high for too many kids, Financial aid is reduced at the top colleges, a limit is put on how many colleges can be put on the Common App, colleges stop allowing International students from applying to UG programs … something along those lines.
Until then- it will only continue to get worse.
I’ve pointed this out in the past, but the same people that seem to overplay how URMs are treated during college admissions tend to also be the same ones that underplay how minorities are treated in everyday life (normal racial biases, biases in hiring, racial profiling, student discipline, criminal justice, etc.)
When I applied to schools I never wanted to be that black kid that ran the Ivy table (or even just got into a couple ivies) and was written about in the news. This was for a couple reasons. First, I didn’t want to get back on college confidential or other websites and have people comment about how my acceptance was probably due to my race. Minority kids get enough of that inside their own classes when talking to some disgruntled white classmates (even when the URMs stats are insanely better). Second, I just didn’t see myself thriving at more than a few ivies. I would have only applied to Brown and Cornell, but my list was capped at 7 schools and I chose to be more realistic. I got merit everywhere I applied that offers it, and to me it validated my decision.
I think that there is some kind of vanity and search for attention that comes when people apply to a ton of elite schools and intend on broadcasting it to everyone. This means kids that bring it up in every conversation, as well as kids that go to the press.
I also think there’s a weird type of envy when certain people go out of their way to diminish the accomplishments of others and try to rationalize them by attributing their accomplishments to factors outside of their control.
Hell, I’m going to Vandy on a scholarship that many probably don’t think I deserve. My stats were probably impressive for a minority applicant but nothing special for their standard applicant, and I’m find admiring that. But I have a personal story and background that I told to admissions that was unheard of for about 95% of their campus, and I tried to convey that.
College Confidential is a website that emphasizes fit as the most important factor. That fit, means the ability to be free from excessive financial burden, free from social isolation, and free to explore and educate yourself to the highest level possible.
I think a lot of people still place “prestige” or impressing friends/the community over the ideal of finding the ideal place where you are able to thrive. As a result, we’ve created this tense atmosphere around college admissions where we’re overly tense and defensive about everything. There’s this belief that everyone is concerned with where you go to school, and people feel determined to impress those around them or pretend to be unimpressed by those around them. If people just felt more content with their own choices and own futures, I think we’d be much better off. College admissions season is a source of short term gossip that keeps everyone temporarily entertained. It’s not long term. Because once I hit Vandy’s campus I’m no longer thinking about whether our Val is able to keep up at Duke, or if my friend settled for Georgia State, or if someone else deserved to get into Yale over a classmate. I’m focused on my future.
And yes I know this post is long and disorganized.
“savvy about their brand, and practice subtle self-promo from 9th to 12th.” Why can’t we see this as empowered and activated, able to climb past their own little hs box? Or maybe I mean the best of them.
^ I wasn’t saying that in a negative way. Either way you spin it they’re savvy.
@TheAtlantic – such an amazing post. I think every point is spot-on. If your college essays were half as insightful and engaging, no one should be surprised that many universities were eager to have you on their campus. You are what the holistic process is all about – who cares if your stats were in the middle of the class – a couple of points on ACT don’t say anything about potential and what a person will add to the community. It’s so clear (in my opinion) that most of the kids (or their parents) moaning about “unfairness” wrote superficial, contrived, or arrogant essays that sent them straight to the “no” pile regardless of their ethnicity or race. You’re obviously plenty qualified to be where you are and I’m sorry that you have to listen to jealous garbage from pompous entitled brats who somehow think that people are “lucky” to be disadvantaged without even considering what that means.
Unfortunately, there are too many people in the world who validate themselves by diminishing the accomplishments of others. Thank you for your insights. The adults in your life must be very proud – not just for your scholarship to a great school – but who you are as a person.
@inn0v8r said “Think of it this way - if every student decided to apply to twice as many schools compared to what they would have in the previous, what would that do? Essentially, admission rates would fall in half, and again, the role of chance would be exacerbated. This is essentially what is happening, albeit under a slower time scale.”
I think you overlook the point that under this scenario, each college would have to double the number of acceptance letters they send out in order to fill the class. So admission rates would stay the same. THink of it this way: there are still the same number of applicants and same number of freshman slots to be filled. Chances on the whole stay about the same. Moreover, those ‘elite’ colleges will still end up filling their classes with the same group of exceptional kids.
I do take your point on randomness. I believe with all the attention given to subjective criteria ( quality of an essay, quality of ECs, hardship overcome…) that it is a bit of a crap shoot. Today a ‘good-but-not-perfect’ applicant must cast a wider net in hopes that at least one of their overworked Adcom essay readers is in a good mood, picks up on their humor or intelligence, found some element in an EC that resonates, etc.
@pickpocket I am not sure why you are assuming that colleges have to increase the number of acceptances - i.e. that they will presume they will have lower yield.
Take a step back. The number of US high school students entering college has peaked. There are more foreign applicants that before, but not wildly more. The number of top 20 or top 50 or whatever college seats has increased a bit, if anything. And yet acceptance rates have fallen sharply. Why? Because students are applying to more colleges, in part due to the common app lowering the barrier to do so (both for the student and for their recommenders).
Yields have not fallen appreciably on (say) top 20 schools relative to how dramatically acceptance rates have fallen (literally 1/2 or lower than they were).
This is not all of the story of course. Students may have increasingly flocked to top-20 schools for perceived prestige or better financial aid. But I am certain it is part of the story.
Here’s my thinking @inn0v8r : Imagine an excellent applicant used to apply to 4 “top” schools and was admitted to 2 of them. The two schools have a 50% yield on that applicant. Now take your example of doubling the number of applications: that applicant now applies to 8 “top” schools and still is admitted to half of them, 4 acceptance letters. But those 4 schools know they are only going to yield 25% on this applicant and all similar ones. So instead of admitting such a student at a rate of 2x the number of spots, they must now admit 4x the number of spots to fill the class.
I think my example works no matter whether you expect the applicant to get into all their schools or just 20% of them…more applications (from the same number of kids) necessarily means that schools will have a lower yield on those acceptance letters and therefore must send more of them to fill the class. The schools actually have more uncertainty and more work with the increased applications, but the net average acceptance rate should stay more or less the same, I think.
Why are acceptance rates dropping? I believe it is because more kids apply to top schools, not that the kids are applying to more schools. It’s a subtle but important distinction.
And I absolutely believe these colleges have their algorithms very finely tuned to admit the right number of applicants to fill the class, plus a waitlist to top things off if their first pass yield is a little low.