<p>*** I HATE COLLEGEACCEPTANCES THIS YEAR. You know what kinda makes me kinda ticked off? That:</p>
<h1>1) Class of 08 and 09 have the highest # of graduates...which also means A LOT more competition</h1>
<h1>2) We're applying during the worst downturn of the U.S. economy in recent history. Lots of our college choices depend on vital finaid now.</h1>
<h1>3) Lowered acceptance rates for almost every ivy, which kinda stems from #1 but also because a lot of them have over-enrolled the last two years and the admissions committees have decided to lower acceptances to ensure that doesn't happen.</h1>
<p>+</p>
<h1>4) [For my area at least] '09 is one of the smartest classes where I live. And definitely smarter than '08. I'm against so much competition, it's not even funny.</h1>
<p>dcircle's numbers are off. According to Brown, last year:</p>
<p>How many students apply? 20,633 for the class of 2012 – the most ever.
How many students are offered admission? For the class of 2012, offers of admission were extended to 2,828 students. Approximately 55%of those accepted chose to matriculate. </p>
<p>If 25,000 applied, and 2828 were accepted, that's an acceptance rate of 11.3 percent.</p>
<p>ah yeah and I just went to the brown website to look on that "19 AOs and 20+ staff members to get through the almost 25,000 first-year applications sent in this year."</p>
<p>That's kinda scary though. But only 39 people to check 25k applications? Kinda scary how much power these people have...</p>
<p>My guess would be they'd admit slightly more this year...reasoning being: more kids applying everywhere => individual students apply to more schools (certainly what happened with me, never thought I'd end up with 12 apps) => students are less likely to matriculate at any particular school. Probably won't make a huge difference though.</p>
<p>crystalprophecy: look at it this way. By applying to college now, hopefully by the time you are a senior the recession will be on the mend and you'll actually be able to find a job! You will get into college somewhere, even if it's not your first choice. The job market is not quite so nice.</p>
<p>vballerk, even if we take that into consideration, we also have to keep in mind, as thecomisar already mentioned, that a lot more people matriculated than Brown expected. This ended with the largest class Brown has ever seen and it led to a lot of housing issues. I would honestly think Brown would rather be safe than sorry and try to avoid the fiasco.</p>
<p>crystalprophecy, i totally agree!! especially about #4--that seems to be the case in my area too; not so much smarter maybe, but definitely higher achieving</p>
<p><em>sigh</em> not much we can do about it though except to wait and lurk on forums like these :)</p>
<p>vballerk, that was the theory that Brown used for admissions last year - assuming that with the generous aid packages being given by Harvard and Yale, and the economic downturn, matriculation would fall. Instead, as has been pointed out, more students matriculated than expected. I'm not sure what to predict this year. I think a lot depends on how Brown's financial aid compares to the cost of public universities'. I wouldn't be surprised if the admit rate is low, but a large wait list that will be used. Last year there were a bunch of kids taken off the waitlist but given spots for Class of 2013.</p>
<p>are we remembering that about 525 of the 1400 slots are for ED acceptees) (So, ~525 of the 3337 offers for admission last year were ED) If so I got around 11% acceptance rate. (3337-525)/25000=11.2% Still shockingly low, but not 8.4% low.</p>
<p>
[quote]
crystalprophecy, i totally agree!! especially about #4--that seems to be the case in my area too; not so much smarter maybe, but definitely higher achieving</p>
<p><em>sigh</em> not much we can do about it though except to wait and lurk on forums like these
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Hahaha, exactly. I mean, okay, maybe not smarter. But we're definitely high achieving. I was just asking friend who went to my school last year (and got into Berk) and he said his calc BC class only had 22 kids. This year, there are ~40 kids in my class -- and so many of us took the AP-heavy schedule that we practically have the same periods together. (Funny extra thought: And also because we've all been in the same classes the last four years, we bunched together and nominated the majority of the homecoming king and queen nominees this year...and won. Hehe down with the popular guru :) )</p>
<p>
[quote]
crystalprophecy: look at it this way. By applying to college now, hopefully by the time you are a senior the recession will be on the mend and you'll actually be able to find a job! You will get into college somewhere, even if it's not your first choice. The job market is not quite so nice.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Never thought of it that way. That's true. For a lot of the people who have freshly graduated from college this year, the present situation isn't quite a good welcome for them.</p>
<p>Crystal-- you guys aren't any higher achieving, just more panicked about college and more likely to overcredentialize.</p>
<p>This year is going to be wacky because we won't know how the economy will affect applications and acceptance of offers and we have been extremely over-enrolled for a few years now and the problem has gotten worse with each year.</p>
<p>I expect a fair amount of waitlisting to be used.</p>
<p>Because taking BC is achieving nothing. Even doing well on it is achieving nothing. It's becoming more and more popular to take extra classes, more APs are being offered at more schools, more students are seeking out activities that were rare in the past as ways of standing out (like science research).</p>
<p>Students are becoming aware of increased "competition" and people in general are becoming "more qualified" because there is a far stronger sense that you have to do these things.</p>
<p>It's not that it's not "impressive" anymore, it's that it's becoming more common and it has nothing to do with brains and everything to do with perception. It's not a bad thing-- I hope we do more to push higher achieving students to actually reach their potential. But somethings were more impressive several years ago because people did them out of passion instead of resume building.</p>
<p>I'm not sure if I'm being clear. It's not meant to be condescending. My senior year in high school just four years ago they wanted to offer BC for the first time and we fell one student short of the 15 needed to have the class. The 14 of us who wanted to take it all wanted to pursue science and thought it'd be very useful to get a jump on more calculus and we had heard, correctly, that AB in a year is just too easy. However, we had no "critical mass" not because our students weren't qualified, but because four years ago there was no perception that you needed something like Calc BC to compete. We were far less anxious and far less worried about college admissions and our motivations were different. I've watched this stuff change just posting on these forums the last few years. It's a nationwide "epidemic"-- a trend.</p>
<p>Nowadays I imagine we fill all 60-70 students who take AB calc in three BC calc classes because no one would imagine not taking BC. But four years ago, my high school which was ahead of the curve offering 14 AP courses, couldn't get enough students to offer BC.</p>
<p>You guys aren't better-- just doing more because you feel you must to compete. Every class thinks they're the brightest and the best but we haven't gotten much smarter as a whole in just a few years time. Not at all. In fact, my own observations is that this change in motivation has actually had a negative effect.</p>
<p>Alright thanks for the clarification. Much appreciated and I understand very well what you mean. At first appearance your comment might have been perceived as condescending, but that's why I asked for the explanation. Didn't want to take it the wrong way if you never intended for it to happen.</p>
<p>But yeah, the above post was a pretty enlightening post -- I really like it a lot. Makes me wonder what we've all become in the world of college admissions and school and all that. There's more that connect to this thought, but I am a bit too tired to think now...</p>
<p>Points to modestmelody for probably being one of the most sane on here on CC.</p>
<p>
[quote]
you have to realize some ppl are like me applying with only a 31 act that are sure rejects so its okay poseur think of it as at least only 24,999 people
[/quote]
Good, I hope you do get rejected. If you knew anything about the schools you were applying to, you'd know Brown doesn't emphasize test scores.</p>