Alright, what's the deal with skyrocketing selective college applications?

Parents Forum
21

@lombok2: USNews rankings.

And colleges play this game because so many people are still suckers for USNews rankings. Both prospective students and alums.

For instance, UChicago saw a big rise in the rankings when it went from being one of the few holdouts in the USNews arms race (with the Uncommon App that deterred rather than encouraged lots of applicants) to being one of the schools that games the hardest. Expect Reed (which recently changed its philosophy of not playing the USNews game which it was punished for by being ranked far lower than other LACs who send a comparable percentage of grads on to PhD and elite grad schools) to follow the same trajectory.

Look at the example of Syracuse and NEU. 20 years ago, people would have put them in the same tier. If anything, they would have had Syracuse higher. But Syracuse disdained chasing rankings while NEU gamed the USNews inputs hard. Now you have top 2% kids considering NEU alonside much more elite schools because NEU has rocketed up the ranking. You don’t see the same with Syracuse (besides it’s long-renown communications/journalism school) because it’s mired lowly deep in the rankings.

Look at the example of USC. Several decades ago, the U of Spoiled Children was seen as a party school for rich kids who couldn’t get in to a UC. Now it is seen by some as being on the same tier as the elite privates because it has also gone up the USNews ranking by gaming the numbers.

22

The Common Data Set for Saint Olaf shows an unusually high number of applications from men for 2015-2016. The number jumped from 2177 in 2014-2015 to 4695 last year. The number of women who applied only increased from 2698 to 2876 in that time period. Even though more men than women applied last year, the data tables show that far fewer men were admitted. Is it possible the 4695 is a typo and the acceptance rate did not fall as much as it seemed to? The increase in male applicants seems odd.

http://wp.stolaf.edu/ir-e/st-olaf-college-cds-summary-most-recent-5-years/

23

@PurpleTitan A school can game the system for only so long. NEU dropped this year by 5 spots and yield is very poor at 18%, that is amazing actually. It doesn’t last for long.

24

^especially since its a LAC which tend to get more female applicants. But one would think the school itself would know if it was an error yet they report this:
http://wp.stolaf.edu/admissions/files/2015/12/Fall-2015-First-Year-Class-Profile.pdf

25

Among the factors mentioned above, two stand out: (1) colleges are doing a much aggressive marketing job, thus drumming up a lot more applicants than before; and (2) students are simply applying to more schools now. The driving forces are:(1) the ever increasing tuition forces stuents and parents to cast an ever wider net to hunt for the best merit aid; and (2), wiht more high school graduates going to college, a degree from an average college is just not as valuable as bofore; in other words, prestige is more important now.

26

Agree with the comments above about the ease of applying via the Common App and pursuit of financial aid dollars. Schools like Vandy that have replaced student loans with need based grants have driven application rates down big time in recent years.

27

@OnTheBubble, its almost impossible for a school that isn’t “naturally” top 30 to game it’s way in to the top 20, but between 20-60 (and lower), those strategies are effective. And sure, NEU may have dropped a little this year, but it’s already changed the perception of itself and thus locked in a range.

28

Wow, @comfrey, that is weird!

And great article, @OnTheBubble

29

NEU did some strategic stuff to be sure, but over the past few years also made its campus quite pretty, it became a guarantees-to-meet-full-need school, and IMO benefits from its career/co-op focus that is especially appealing in the years since the recession.

30

Fin aid is a real benefit to students and society.

A pretty campus and groundskeeping? Ehhhh. I suppose the theory must be that learning is better accomplished in country clubs.

31

Actually the NEU story is pretty fascinating. They took ugly buildings and crumbling parking lots and transformed them into inviting dorms and student facilities. They reverse engineered US News rankings and actually found a flaw in the methodology that hurt co-op schools such as Northeastern - and got it corrected. Whether it is necessary or not, there is a definite escalation in the providing of ever more fancy residential facilities. No one is building dorms with hallway bathrooms. Fitness centers now almost always include rock climbing walls. NEU took studies that showed students who live on campus are more likely to graduate to heart, and made their campus much more livable. Boston magazine has a great article about how the worked the system to their advantage:

http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/article/2014/08/26/how-northeastern-gamed-the-college-rankings/

32

“the ever increasing tuition forces stuents and parents to cast an ever wider net to hunt for the best merit aid; and (2), wiht more high school graduates going to college, a degree from an average college is just not as valuable as bofore; in other words, prestige is more important now.”

Students are applying more not only to find merit aid, but also in response to low admission rates. Also, in addition to the fact that a degree has become more common, at today’s prices, many people do want a brand name school.

33

@OnTheBubble Actually the year before the application increase, Swarthmore added an additional essay to their application and witnessed a drop in apps. They then removed that additional essay and also cut the Why Swarthmore essay to half it’s original length. This brought it in-line with other schools it competes for applicants with. This is why the acceptance rate jumped to 17% from 14% the previous year, and then dropped from 17% to 12.5% the next year.

34

@jademaster Well it goes to show you how the number of applications received can be influenced by the essay. The year of the reduction saw about a 50% increase in the number of applications.

35

My S just went through the college admissions process this year and he got dinged by a few safety schools probably due to yield protection. Knowing this, when D applies to college in a few years, she probably will have to apply to a few more safeties as insurance against yield protection. Another example of the games that colleges and applicants play which drive up applications.

36

@OnTheBubble and @PurpleTitan - I never got the feeling that USC was gaming the system – they have made a concerted effort to bring in high achieving kids that otherwise might be ivy league bound through generous merit aid, they have created new programs and majors and allow students the flexibility to design their own, they fund students’ research, and they’ve spent lots of money to expand their programs, build new buildings,etc. Yes, they have changed their image, but not by gaming the system. They’ve done it the old fashioned way - by improving their programming and attracting better students.

To me, the schools that really game the system do so in three ways: (1) many schools fill much of their incoming classes with early decision applicants (USC does not offer ED), so that schools can protect their yield while curtailing students’ ability to compare financial/merit aid offers, etc.; (2) schools that put lots of kids on their waitlists, rather than accepting or rejecting them outright (Wash U is a great example); and (3) schools that reject otherwise qualified applicants in order to protect their yield, the quintessential example of that being what is often referred to as “Tufts Syndrome.”

That’s stacking the deck and gaming the system, in my book.

37

@LoveTheBard, believe what you want to believe, but USC awarded over 4900 bachelor degrees in the school year ending in 2014. Yet they only have 2750 fall freshman admits each year. That’s a ton of transfers and other USC students that are taking USC classes and in the USC student body who’s stats USC isn’t counting in their “freshman entering class” numbers that they are reporting to USNews. And of course, if they deny a thousand or 2 applicants (who almost certainly have lower stats) but offer them a guaranteed transfer, that would help lower their admit rate as well.

38

An increase in apps indicates an increase in demand, even if it is “passive” demand, as in: “OMG I want to get into a top-shelf school, so I need to apply to 15 of them.” (that’s not really demand for the right reasons – I.E., liking a school based on its merits, fit, etc.)

It does not necessarily mean that the quality of the applicant pool is increasing.

At the very top schools – Ivies, Stanford, etc. – they can, and have been able to for some time, fill their entire class with 2300+ SAT (or 35+ ACT), 3.9+ GPA, top 3% of class, etc. So this increase in demand has not really led to an increase in the quality of their freshman classes.

The admit rates at Harvard and Stanford, for instance, are lower than they have likely ever been. But the classes are not necessarily any more qualified/better than they were, say, 10 years ago. The same applies to Yale, Princeton, MIT, etc.

I think the deluge in apps has helped increase the class quality at more recent “rep” elites like UChicago, Duke, Northwestern (though they seem to remain holistic), Hopkins, Vandy, Rice, WUSTL, Notre Dame, etc. Why? Because not every 2300+ can get into an Ivy or Stanford and with the increase in apps to other elite privates (vs. just the state school…), those elite privates are admitting (probably) increasingly better classes. Instead of just applying to HYPSM and the state flag like top kids were more likely to do 20 years ago, now they are applying to an increasing number of “newer” elites. They, IMO – Chicago, Duke, Northwestern and on down – are the ones most reaping the rewards.

39

@purple Titan “USC awarded over 4900 bachelor degrees in the school year ending in 2014. Yet they only have 2750 fall freshman admits each year.”

I have not heard of a school awarding nearly double the number of bachelors degrees as they have freshmen.

What is happening here? Why are they doing this? What is the benefit to them? Do other schools do this? Please tell me more!

40

@Much2learn USC offers January admission to fall applicants who do not “Meet the standards”. They also admit a lot of transfer students.

A lot of schools do this.