<p>Dartmouth is down 14% and Harvard down 2%. So what? Even with these drops, Dartmouth will only accept 11% and Harvard less than 6%.</p>
<p>The elite schools have been in an arms race to get their acceptance rate to the single digits for all the obvious reasons. Therefore, they aggressively recruit students who they know have no chance of acceptance. They sell the lottery story (you have to be in it, to win it) but the reality is that they want your application so they can reject it.</p>
<p>There needs to be more honesty and transparency in the college recruitment process. I hope the application drops we are seeing at Dartmouth and Harvard are the beginning of trend driven by very bright students who not going to be rejection fodder for these elite schools.</p>
<p>MIT and Yale and some other prominent schools announced that they were not going to use mailers as much as they have in the past. Your assertion that these schools were driving towards single digit accept rates is an opinion, however.</p>
<p>As the parent of two college kids, I have all the data I need. Glad MIT and Yale get it. Why Harvard and Duke participate in college fairs is a mystery. I have a stacks of material from Stanford, Columbia, UPenn, Duke, etc. which was not necessary to receive. That we got to place where kids send out 8 lottery applications and 4 real ones is unfortunate. I know the common app made this all possible but the elite colleges need to be more open as to the real odds. I know of so many kids with say 92 averages who apply because they are told the schools look at the whole picture such as the essays and ec. That’s what I believe contributes the excess applications and resultant low acceptance rates which they desire. </p>
<p>Holycow: I think elite schools MUST still recruit and appear at college fairs. Underserved populations such as rural or urban student pools often have the worst info about these schools that can be real possibilities. I would oppose any of them shrinking back from looking for the “diamonds in the rough”. I think to be responsible however, they must also not shy away from the real fact of their low admit rates. I recruit at my inner city alma mater school district. I’m dedicated to that however I also don’t gloss over the real numbers. It’s a balance and schools ought not toss the baby and bath water out together. I also don’t believe that the truly elite schools DESIRE a low accept rate for bragging rights. </p>
<p>T26E4 - I respect you for going back to your inner city school to recruit. I also believe that all of the elite schools should have active programs to identify the best and the brightest from those who come from challenging economic environments. I am sure they all do a fine job in this area. What I object to is the marketing to upper and middle class students with false hopes. For example, why is the average ACT score at Dartmouth 31. Other than athletes and economically disadvantaged students, why is anyone applying to Dartmouth without an ACT of say 34 to 36. As to the desire for low acceptance rate - it is driven by two factors in the US News rankings - peer assessment of 66.7% and acceptance rate of 10%. The more a college is perceived as ultra selective, the higher the peer assessment will be. Speak to any college administrator and they will tell how important the US News rankings are - for any college including the elites. As a parent, the drop at Dartmouth is due to the bad press and the poor PR response from the college. I would be uncomfortable about the culture from what I have read. </p>
<p>Penn has the biggest increase this year because it is “perceived” to be the easiest Ivy to get into with an acceptance rate of 13%. That will go lower this year and their applications will level off. The word is getting out on Harvard - not worth the effort of applying.</p>
<p>“As the parent of two college kids, I have all the data I need.” Obviously not what I was asking. As I said, interesting observation qua opinion. Not fact. </p>
<p>It’s more than personal experience, what I summarized is known to every parent and student. My point is there need to change in the application process. It’s broken and needs reform. Here’s a suggestion. - offer a pre screen where you complete everything except essays and charge a lower fee. School then notifies student if they make it to stage two which requires the essay. Small change that would improve transparency and reduce student stress. </p>
<p>I thought H’s drop was in international apps. Not going back to check.<br>
I don’t know how easy you want all this to be. Kids can read a great deal about what elite colleges want and like-- or just pick schools on rep or dreams. Or assume it’s all about stats. Or that, at their one high school they are top dawg, so of course they should apply to HYPCMabc. Schools should pre-screen? Personally, I think kids and parents should be doing that, already. </p>
<p>H has already cut back on their travel budget. This has been going on for some time. And I have never heard an adcom speak of US News without rolling their eyes. A drive for single digit?? You have any idea of the burden of, let’s say, H’s 35000 apps for 2000 seats?</p>
<p>Btw, if you don;t want the mailings, complain to College Board.</p>
<p>“Schools should pre-screen? Personally, I think kids and parents should be doing that, already.”</p>
<p>Absolutely. </p>
<p>@Holy: You’re suggesting it’s incumbent on the uni to tell students/families to not waste $80 if darling princess or junior isn’t a viable candidate? </p>
<p>It’s not some 3.3GPA kid from the inner city applying who can barely afford the fee. It’s the 3.7 GPA kid from the suburban school applying just on a lark. Ego. Dream chasing. It’s not any university’s responsibility to curb that kind of foolish behavior.</p>
<p>A multi tier (2 or 3) screening process is badly needed. This can be in the form of invitational (candidate applies if there is a promise at the end of junior year based on whatever parameters), provided the elites are willing to become more transparent and willing to part with false prestige associated with low acceptance rate.</p>
<p>This would help careful/attentive screening of 5X applications, rather than the current 20X. This should allow a quality interview process - if “getting to know the candidate” is the focus, admissions officer who read the application material should speak with candidate to better understand. The current approach (of write essays and throw it over the wall and hope it is rightly understood) is justified by the volume of work. In a tiered approach, 2X will be called for interview by admissions officer - this travel budget is more useful and better spent than current information sessions.</p>
<p>5X get invited to apply
2X get interviewed by admissions officers (not by alumni)
X get offered.</p>
<p>Such tiered approach will alleviate the stress.</p>
<p>^^ or just move it to an earlier stage. Sounds like an “application” version of the national testing systems used in various other countries for university admission – and those aren’t stressful at all, oh no. </p>
<p>@tinnova: you’re making suggestions to solve a problem which I contend, does not exist and, would engender more problems. </p>
<p>The stress is suffered by whom? The colleges somewhat (but they just hire more staff to do the work). But really, it’s the unrealistic students who don’t practice caveat emptor or listen to their GCs who are trying to dissuade them from unrealistic schools. A lot of stress can be eliminated if they clearly read and understand the admissions process. This was not an issue 8 years ago. People got the Common App and common sense walked out the door.</p>
<p>@tinnova
I think that a multi-tiered system is not the best idea because like T26E4 mentioned, there are not real reasons to make that change. So what that some schools heavily recruit everywhere (UChicago this year for sure)? It is their right to do so. I understand that many people are “fooled” into thinking they will have a great chance just because they get mail and stuff from a school but in the end, it is the students’ and parents’ responsibility to choose colleges to apply to and that decision needs to be taken carefully. A multi-tiered system would work if we were dealing with a school or program with like a 1 or 2% overall acceptance rate because it is hard to distinguish among a large crowd several thousand “gems.” </p>
<p>Common App is a valuable asset to the college admissions world because it makes things easier (although one could argue the opposite this year with the technical issues) for the students and somewhat for the colleges. I understand that it leads to people applying to an outrageous number of schools because its “easier” if they can afford it. I won’t lie; I myself applied to 14 schools. But I did my research on each and everyone of them, many many hours. I visited a good number of them and talked to people that have gone there. I went through each of their CC forums for threads that wold give me valuable info about the school. I understand that most of them are reaches for me but I think that because admission into these top 20 schools are so selective, I should have a wide net if I can support that net. Many people call me crazy and others call me a prestige hoarder or something but I choose my schools because of a vareity of reasons everything from rank/prestige to academics to special programs.</p>
<p>From several admissions officers, I heard a recurring theme “getting to know the candidate better” so they an put a team together - makes sense as students learn from faculty as well as co-students. But mistakenly essays are seen as the only way to understand candidates personality, interests, passions. We know essays are good for initial one way conversation. Interview by admissions officers would help the two way conversation, but it can happen effectively with 2X rather than 20X applicants. So we need to filter 20x to 2X - here multi tier approach helps. A flat dealing of 20X candidates leads to assumptions implicit in one way communication and “holistic” horror will reduce the process to unpredictable randomness - prompts the college lottery. Yes, there is a large crowd of well qualified applicants - I recall hearing from Harvard admissions officer that 85% applicants are qualified for the expected academic rigor. All single digit acceptance rate schools would benefit from the tiered approach - it’s a win-win for both schools and students.</p>
<p>For reasons of my own, I suspect nearly 50% of kids applying to a most selective don’t make it past first cut. Some of that is incomplete apps, monstrously subpar qualifications. But the rest would those kids friends and family think are special, based on just their own knowledge of the kid. But, simply not competitive (in thought, word or deed, so to say.) Ucb called them 3.7s. I’d say the CA allows more down to 3.0, who just don’t vet themselves against what the colleges state in their own info. Frankly (and, sorry,) if you can’t discover what the colleges look for, if you can’t process that, if you think it is merely about stats or one good stat or VP of some club or “founder,” passion or eccentricity, etc, etc, you really don’t have the mindset for the elites.</p>
<p>The essays reveal a great deal about a kid’s thinking.</p>
<p>@tinnova: again, you presume that the “college lottery” is BAD for the colleges. They simply don’t see it as such. They know each and every season, they’ll reject some they shouldn’t and accept some they shouldn’t. But the colleges are 100% OK with that. They know it’s an imprecise art and not a scientific pursuit. What you propose would require an enormous outlay in resources that are better spent elsewhere. </p>
<p>Has the “college lottery” harmed the quality of the student populations at the very selective schools? I tiered approach could yield benefits – but the trade off in resources seems unjustifiable.</p>
<p>I’m sure there are people in Cambridge who say “Ahh, the apps number is leveling out, even dimishing. This is a good equilibrium!”</p>
<p>Just not practical. Think about it: of the 2k that Harvard wants to interview, most of them will also be highly competitive for Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Amherst Pomona…how are adcoms gonna interview all of those same kids? Why should they? How are the kids gonna take time off to interview? Travel? Disruption?</p>
<p>Many decades ago, selective schools would send out post cards to people informing them that they had cut in the initial round. This might alleviate some of the needless hand-wringing?</p>