<p>Hey guys, I was wondering since there is a political campaigned guide by democrats, liberals, conservatives, and republicans right now, do you think there are some other adjustments that need to be made in our society? Rather than just economic recession, population is playing a role in acollege admissions right now. Everything has become essentially more complicated for those who want to fulfill their dreams of getting the best education they are seeking out. Years ago, it was easier to get into top colleges like Harvard than it was now. Now, it's distinct. Everyone has to work harder to produce results in this world and I think there's something that someone should politically do to make it less severe and strenuous for us and for the better. </p>
<p>Do you think Obama and other senators should help out to not only commit to the economic recession and fiscal policy, but also make college admissions easier for people who want to get into top colleges? </p>
<p>It's okay to have competition to get into colleges, but I think being off the chart wouldn't exactly be the way to make everyone contented about getting or going to college. If society bounds to be vulnerable to education, then that means ones who are able to strive through into top colleges and graduate from them will receive a higher prestige of degree than others without one. </p>
<p>What do you guys think? I think many of us out there would like to attend top colleges, but it's just so competitive right now. Wouldn't you wish we were able to return to the old days when accepting students were more benevolent?</p>
<p>" Everyone has to work harder to produce results in this world and I think there’s something that someone should politically do to make it less severe and strenuous for us and for the better."</p>
<p>Like reversing evolution? If we have the government nuke all the top Universities (presumably smart professors, and smart students), maybe we can indeed reverse evolution. Perfect! Hey, if we keep this thinking up, we can end humanity! Awesome, that’s exactly what we need to do!</p>
<p>Hmmm… On second thought… Na, let’s not try to reverse evolution. Too many problems with it.</p>
<p>Didn’t do well enough on the essay portion I take it.</p>
<p>Or maybe we can get the government involved by having the Department of Education bestow on those schools deemed worthy the stamp of “Top College”. Its ridiculous that we let market forces (more precisely marketing) determine what is a top college.</p>
<p>"also make college admissions easier for people who want to get into top colleges? "</p>
<p>they don’t become top colleges by admitting every idiot who hands over a $40 application fee check</p>
<p>also the majority of people in the US either don’t have a degree or go to colleges that are not at the tippy-top… and they do fine. Yeah, a lot of them probably don’t make six figures, but most people don’t <em>need</em> to. If you want to make six figures then you’re gonna have to either marry rich or work hard… hard enough to either get into a top college or to make a name for yourself a la a successful small business owner or Steve Jobs / Bill Gates.</p>
<p>When you start telling colleges what to do and who to admit then depreciates the college. Plus, wouldnt you hate feeling like you might be one of the people that got in because the school had to let you in rather than feeling like you deserved it?</p>
<p>But I will say though is that they should do something about financial aid. IMO, thats a deterrant for good intelligent/talent students to apply to the top schools since they cant pay for it if/once they get in.</p>
<p>I totally disagree. So much I want to say but don’t feel like going off on a tangent. </p>
<p>I don’t think it should be THAT easy to get into a top college. If you work your butt off enough and care about it then getting into a top college shouldn’t be too hard.</p>
<p>It depends on what schools they are? Private schools? They have the right to do whatever the heck they want. Public schools? The goal of the public school system should be to educate as many students IN-STATE as they can. Now notice I said “system”, that means UC-Berkeley can keep doing what they’re doing since there are many CSU’s and community colleges.</p>
<p>What about making rooms available for transfer students? What about having the institutions receive federal cash from the government? If schools had the enough, then they would be able to make more facilities to increase seats available for kids who want to attend top colleges, this idea should apply to LACs especially since they have limited number of transfers. If colleges are low on fundings after creating new facilities, then that means students can take out loans to use for their college career (only once the economy restores and everyone can have an easier time finding a job). This also might be useful since population of the candidates who are applying to reputated schools has gone up. </p>
<p>There should be a billed signed saying “Standardized tests optional for transfer students on junior-level if college work proves the capability to excel.”</p>
<p>Perhaps some of the top/most selective colleges can add branch campuses. I know it would be weird for there to be a branch campus for schools like Harvard or Yale, but it’s a thought.</p>
<p>I LIKE that my school only has 6000 undergrads.
I wanted to go to a school this size.</p>
<p>How 'bout we keep it that way? If you want to go to a school with 25,000 undergrads, be my guest. But there’s a reason most schools that large aren’t considered “top” schools (and obviously there are exceptions).</p>
<p>There is absolutely no need for the government to intervene like you want them to. </p>
<p>…If I posted what I wanted to on this thread I’d probably be reported, so I’ll end it here.</p>
<p>As far as I can tell, there would only be two ways to reduce the selectivity of top universities; either restrict the ability for the college to choose who to accept, or increase the number of seats available.
The first proposition is horrifying. The same number of students would apply to HYPSM, perhaps even more; the difference is, students who had worked hard to excel wouldn’t have a greater chance of getting in, as they well deserve. Essentially, to reduce the stratification entirely you’d have to have randomized acceptance of students. Who wants that?</p>
<p>The second may seem superficially beneficial, but consider this. Harvard had approximately 30.000 students apply for admission in 2009. assume everyone does it in 4 years (hah!) and that’s 120.000 acceptances out for a 4 year period. Now assume that the yield remains the same, ~75%. Harvard will have approximately 90.000 students on campus at any one time. Now comes the logistics problem; dorms, food service etc aside, how will you teach all those students? To retain small classes, the school would need to hire 13x as many instructors, and operate in 13x as many classrooms. That’s out. Large classes? Impossible for some (e.g. labs,) and frustrating for most of the students who probably chose an elite college in hopes of getting a top notch education.</p>
<p>EDIT
Also, I honestly have to ask, do you have any idea how the economy works? People with degrees from top colleges get the top jobs because their degree represents something; they’re the “cream of the crop” so to speak. That degree represents that they could go to a school in the 99th percentile (or whatever you choose as the cutoff of “elite”,) and tough it out to emerge victorious. If everyone has an Ivy League degree, it’s not special anymore. Making more HYPSM grads doesn’t mean you’re putting more people in that top 1%.</p>
<p>^ You’re an exampe of a ■■■■■. If I was ■■■■■■■■, then I would be typing anything pointless on here to try to coerce someone for a feedback. The original post was intended for a discussion, debate, thoughts, and reasons why someone would agree or disagree with an idea. If you don’t like what I’m saying, you could’ve just left it alone.</p>
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<p>Hey, I’m not trying to broaden a support with further bias ideas that the society can utilize, but maybe if there’s an extra funding within the universities, there can be a bit more amount of seats to hire a bit more amount of professors too. I’m not going to say create an extravagant amount over the minimum of which each school serves now, but at least a little more can help better than nothing. Would you agree?</p>
<p>No, I wouldn’t agree. Most of these top colleges sit on huge endowments. If they thought it would be beneficial to them to expand student population, they have the resources at hand. They also would not welcome government largess as that always comes with strings attached (think forced diversity). Top colleges are where they want to be in order to balance revenue maximization with exclusivity.</p>