<p>Recent data (Detroit FP Article) has predicted the number of high school seniors at 3,200,000. This number is much greater than recent years. I can only ask, how low do you think acceptance rates will go this year?</p>
<p>I'm thinkin top schools might hit < 5%</p>
<p>Does anyone happen to know how many seniors there were last year? The article says that there has been a drastic increase, but what does drastic mean?</p>
<p>My daughter is in that article!</p>
<p>How did she get picked may I ask? A 4.0 is certainly impressive, but a 31 is nothing to call home about. She must have some other impressive talents?</p>
<p>For those of you wondering, here is a link to the article: <a href="http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071007/NEWS06/710070670/-1/PRINT%5B/url%5D">http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071007/NEWS06/710070670/-1/PRINT</a></p>
<p>The problem with stories like this is you don't get the whole picture. My daughter is a recruited athlete and also has many EC's and community service hours. We talked to the reporter about how fortunate we were to have a "hook" and how a hook of some sort seems to be essential these days with all the extremely bright and talented kids. The story apparently did not go in that direction. By the way, my daughter actually decided not to retake the ACT since she had already been academically cleared by admissions at the Ivy schools that were recruiting her.</p>
<p>As far as how she was picked, her friends mom works at the paper and they were looking for a strong student currently in the college application process. The mom knew Lauren was a 4.0uw, and that she was being recruited to Ivy League schools so suggested her.</p>
<p>Understandable, best wishes to your daughter. The article truly doesn't give her justice though. It misled many people.</p>
<p>Thanks 1MX, I agree.</p>
<p>"Capital" is spelled wrong.</p>
<p>It should be "capital" and they spelled it "capitol" (like the building capitol, I think in the usage they mean it should be the city capital).</p>
<p>Stephen Colbert for President '08!</p>
<p>The girl in the article (not Lauren, the other one) settled on Georgetown??? Give me a break....We have had a total of one person admitted to Georgetown in the last 5 years.....How about a more realistic example? How about a student in top 10%, with over 1400 SAT's, multiple AP's, ending up at a third tier school????? Talk about "trickle-down".......</p>
<p>"Shoo-in" was spelled wrong in the article. Apparently, it is not competitive to get a copy-editing job in a newspaper anymore. </p>
<p>Georgetown is in the nation's capital city, (somewhat) near the Capitol where Congress meets. I agree that the reporter could have done better with that sentence.</p>
<p>This is the scariest article I have ever seen.</p>
<p>Who's hot?</p>
<p>increase in applications 2001 to 2006
IPEDS</p>
<p>Baylor University 167.9%
Saint Louis University-Main Campus 117.3%
Tulane University of Louisiana 91.1%
Fordham University 70.3%
Cornell University 69.9%
Marquette University 65.0%
Case Western Reserve University 61.0%
Johns Hopkins University 61.0%
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 59.8%
University of Connecticut 54.1%
Worcester Polytechnic Institute 53.3%
Yale University 50.9%
The University of Tennessee 48.3%
American University 45.4%
Southern Methodist University 43.7%
University of California-Santa Cruz 40.8%
Boston College 39.5%
Wake Forest University 39.3%
Dartmouth College 36.8%
University of Notre Dame 36.3%
Syracuse University 36.0%
SUNY at Binghamton 35.9%
University of Pittsburgh-Main Campus 33.8%
Lehigh University 33.0%
Indiana University-Bloomington 31.7%
The University of Texas at Austin 30.4%
Rice University 30.2%
University of Miami 29.3%
University of Southern California 28.9%
Princeton University 28.6%
Clark University 27.6%
Emory University 27.2%
College of William and Mary 24.5%
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 24.1%
Miami University-Oxford 23.7%
George Washington University 21.6%
University of Iowa 21.2%
University of Missouri-Columbia 21.1%
University of Chicago 21.0%
University of Delaware 20.4%
Vanderbilt University 19.9%
University of Maryland-College Park 19.8%
Harvard University 19.6%
University of Wisconsin-Madison 19.5%
University of California-Davis 19.0%
University of Florida 18.6%
University of California-Irvine 18.3%
Stanford University 17.2%
Auburn University Main Campus 16.7%
University of California-Riverside 16.4%
New York University 16.1%
Purdue University-Main Campus 14.4%
Boston University 14.0%
Pepperdine University 13.3%
Carnegie Mellon University 13.0%
University of Georgia 12.5%
University of California-Berkeley 12.3%
University of Rochester 12.0%
Clemson University 11.8%
Tufts University 11.6%
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 11.1%
Brandeis University 10.4%
Brown University 10.3%
University of California-Santa Barbara 10.3%
Northwestern University 10.0%</p>
<p>The article was on the front page, so the errors are surprising, but the article holds a lot of truth.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm thinkin top schools might hit < 5%
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Not necessarily. Only a small percentage of the new high school seniors is likely to consider applying to HYP, especially taking into account that the recent growth in the HS student population is probably caused by an increase in the number of kids from lower income families that stay in school as opposed to dropping out. </p>
<p>In fact, I suspect the increasingly lower acceptance rates at HYP and the rising cost of college tuition may actually discourage seniors from applying and the overall number of applicants may either remain constant or even decline in the years to come.</p>
<p>
[quote]
especially taking into account that the recent growth in the HS student population is probably caused by an increase in the number of kids from lower income families that stay in school as opposed to dropping out.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>It's mostly because more children were born during the years current high school students were born than during the decade beforehand. The Baby Boom is now of the age to be parents of high school students.</p>
<p>This article in Free Press just strikes me as really light weight journalism. I've been seeing these alarmist articles all over the place for a few years now - the NY Times seems to especially love to do them. They make me feel manipulated as a parent and I've come to resent it. The misspellings and vague quotes of unidentified admissions "experts" has me giving very little credence to the piece. Also, the student profiled just seems really an odd choice to throw in, not because her accomplishments aren't really fine, but because she really doesn't seem to represent much of anything in such a so-called huge mass of kids applying. I'm going to take this with a grain of salt and not get stressed.</p>
<p>I wouldn't underestimate the competitiveness if your aim is a top-tier school. Having just gone through the whole process with an extremely bright, motivated, hard-working child (and ending up at the right school for him) I have to say I am very, very glad that he is an only child and we are done with it! The process consumed an enormous amount of time and energy, and although he scored 2300 SAT and 750-800 on four SAT subject tests, earned the IB Diploma and was top 10% at a great urban school, 10 year soccer player, accomplished cellist, AND Native American heritage; he was waitlisted at Amherst, rejected from Brown, MIT and Stanford. He did, however, get accepted at Swarthmore, Harvey Mudd and Northwestern, and is extremely happy at Harvey Mudd. So PLEASE take it seriously, and take the time to work on everything, and look for the schools that are the right match for your child.</p>
<p>If you want an idea of the state of college admission read "The Gatekeepers" or "The Overachievers," articles like this want to scare the crap out of people.</p>