<p>A NYTimes article by Richard Pérez-Peña discusses the contrast between elite school applications and all the other colleges and universities. With Stanford accepting just 5% of applicants, and other elites in the same ballpark, the application process is more unpredictable than ever.</p>
<p>"Enrollment peaked in 2011, and it has dropped a bit each year since then, prompting speculation that entry to competitive colleges would become marginally easier. Instead, counselors and admissions officers say, the pool of high-achieving applicants continues to grow, fed partly by a rising number from overseas."</p>
<p>One interesting stat is U of Chicago, whose acceptance rate fell from 40% ten years ago to 8% this season.</p>
<p>That’s it in a nutshell. Huge numbers of foreign students applying to US schools, especially the “name” schools – status is a big draw to them. In the case of state schools supported by resident tax dollars, this is a huge problem. When an A student with great test scores can’t get in to Cal but huge numbers of foreign students are admitted, it’s really unfair.</p>
<p>“One interesting stat is U of Chicago, whose acceptance rate fell from 40% ten years ago to 8% this season.”</p>
<p>Not surprisingly, UChic is one of the universities that sends out the most mail. They essentially convince relatively unqualified people to apply, leading to a massive applicant pool. This lowers their selectivity down to about 8%. It’s a pretty clever strategy, actually, and it’s one of the reasons they climbed the US News rankings. </p>
<p>A big part of Chicago’s change was the elimination of their daunting application. Their old one was, in effect, a pre-screening process. It required multiple unique essays that usually couldn’t be repurposed, and was generally regarded as the most difficult and time-consuming application of all top tier schools. Maybe all schools. You really had to be serious about Chicago to complete that application. This hurt them in rankings (they appeared to be less selective than they were) and no doubt discouraged many strong candidates from applying.</p>
<p>It’s important that students ( and their parents) to realize, good stats , ECs and hard work in high school WILL NOT do anything other than give the student a chance that they would never have had otherwise to be CONSIDERED for acceptance at an Ivy league or top school. It is a lottery and all that work just gives you a ticket. The Ivy leagues never said they were exclusively for the “best and brightest” just as they are not longer the the bastion of rich white men. They can let in whomever they please, get over it…</p>
<p>I continually see students who say “I have better stats”, “it should have been me boo hooo”. More recently, due to a the success of a black student ( yes I did not necessarily politically correct moniker African American because the debate has even ranged about this student not being a typical AA student that the Ivys should be helping) - all I can say is OMG, try living in black skin for a while) student getting into each and every Ivy. Claims of reverse discrimination, favoritism and even racism are all over this board ( and the internet as a whole. Posts such as "they are a URM, they got to check a box I could not, its not FAIR… "</p>
<p>I would hope that the process at the Ivys and other schools in general would identify and exclude those who would make these types of comments. IN my perfect world that is exactly what happened. I myself am happy to say I feel for those who accept that, move on and proudly go to whatever their back up school was an likely do great things. These are the students who will succeed in whatever they attempt, while the others will go on feeling sorry for themselves and complaining about how life is unfair until they day they,like everyone else, passes fro this earth.</p>
<p>It all reminds me of the saying “I could have been a contender”, well you ARE jsut continue the wonderful work no matter where you go and you watch and wil see, you will get that brass ring…</p>
<p>“One interesting stat is U of Chicago, whose acceptance rate fell from 40% ten years ago to 8% this season.”
The yield for the UChicago class of 2015 was 40%. For the class of 2017 it has risen to 55%. So they must feel comfortable rejecting applicants that they think will go elsewhere.</p>
<p>I gather what works for UChicago is that they have a strong reputation in being one of the most rigorous in academic, unquestionably one of the best research universities in the world, pairing with some modification on their notoriously hard essay requirements and a good marketing campaign to get their name out to the high school students. I suspect that just by sending out mail may not work without other important elements that an elite university should have in the equation to begin with. In addition, I suppose that having 89 Nobel laureates affiliated with The University of Chicago does not hurt. In my view, their rise to the Top 5 in the ranking system is well deserved. They get there by merits, not by mail.</p>
<p>Yes, we would hardly want contrary voices at our leading academic institutions. Why, the ladies might just faint if they heard a dissenting opinion. [sarcasm off]</p>
<p>“This lowers their selectivity down to about 8%. It’s a pretty clever strategy, actually, and it’s one of the reasons they climbed the US News rankings”</p>
<p>Well, except for the fact that the admissions rate only counts for 1.5% of the USNWR ranking. But don’t let the facts get in the way!</p>
<p>Completely agree. I find it so interesting how people love to malign two of the midwest’s best universities–U of Chicago and Wash U–on the grounds that they have good marketing programs in place to get the word out. As if they wouldn’t be deserving of all the attention of high-stats kids otherwise.</p>
<p>Chicago is an excellent school and always has been. WashU is not as good as it thinks it is. Anything connected to the medical school is excellent, and it’s certainly the best school in Missouri, but it doesn’t really deserve the ranking it has. Better than UVa, USC, UCLA, Carnegie Mellon, Cal-Berkeley, Georgetown, Emory, Notre Dame, Rice, Vanderbilt, and Cornell? Really? Really? A few of them, maybe, but all of them? It’s a good school that deserves to be about 20-25, not 14. It’s the Midwest Tufts, everyone’s backup school, that’s about it…</p>
<p>Want to know the real secret to get in WashU? Move to St. Louis, they let anyone from the better high schools with a decent GPA and test scores in.</p>
<p>If you want you can do the math on SATs (since for some schools more students take that test) but I am pretty sure the results will be similar. (I know test scores do not mean everything, but they do allow an apples-to-apples comparison along one metric, at least.)</p>
<p>You don’t think relatively unqualified people have been applying to other highly-ranked schools for years? Until recently, Chicago practically encouraged unqualified students NOT to apply (not only with its daunting “Uncommon Appication”, but also with the self-parodying “where fun goes to die” schtick, affected disinterest in sports, and stringent Core requirements). The mail marketing campaign was just one part of their strategy. In the past ~20 years, they’ve also relaxed the Core requirements, built glitzy new facilities, adopted the Common Application, increased undergraduate enrollments, and improved FA to low income students.</p>
<p>@sally305 You really can’t such high level colleges using one metric, especially test scores. For example Harvard’s average incoming ACT score is 32-35: almost exactly the same as WashU. However I doubt many people would rank WashU on the same level as Harvard. Stanford’s incoming ACT score is 31-34; which is slightly lower than WashU. Obviously you can’t use that as a really accurate metric. </p>
<p>“When an A student with great test scores can’t get in to Cal but huge numbers of foreign students are admitted, it’s really unfair.” @LongRangePlan I think you’ll find that “huge” numbers of foreign students don’t get into Cal - or really any public US university. International admission is much more selective than general admission since international students compete for less seats -public schools must admit majority instate students, against VERY highly qualified applicants. Additionally international admissions are contingent on financial aid. Even so, what’s wrong with admiring international students -especially when looking at private schools that aren’t bound to benefit their state population. Many of them are highly qualified -more so than students in the US. The United States was built on immigration and opportunity. Shouldn’t we maintain this idea of opportunity, allowing international students to bring their potential to -and eventually benefit- the US?</p>