<p>I am only posting this in the Harvard section because I think Harvard is the most obvious Ivy League school people think of. Anyway, in general, what do you think the future of Ivy League admissions will be like? For example, it seems as though the Ivies are really into how interesting a candidate is right now. Minorities, URM, legacies, etc. (That is what I think, at least.) Do you think in the future admissions will be based more off of merit (Standardized Testing, Grades, etc) than now? Or less? I am talking about other aspects, too, of admissions, like financial aid (will they be less inclined to give financial aid if you are not as qualified as others?), how many people will be let in (more than now? Less?), etc. How about in the near future (around 5 years)? Far future (like 50 years)? I am just curious what everyone thinks.</p>
<p>[The</a> Whole Applicant - NYTimes.com](<a href=“The Whole Applicant - The New York Times”>The Whole Applicant - The New York Times)</p>
<p>“Across the country, selective public colleges and universities are taking a page from their private counterparts and implementing what is commonly called a holistic or comprehensive admissions process.”</p>
<p>“A holistic evaluation, admissions officials say, allows the luxury of thoughtfully knitting together a multitalented student body as well as a diverse one.”</p>
<p>“It also counters the wave of grade inflation in American high schools that makes ranking applicants by a numerical index “more problematic,” says Philip Ballinger, director of admissions at the University of Washington, whose office “took the plunge” with the holistic approach five years ago.”</p>
<p>"For students, the evolution has meant less certainty. Colleges find themselves scrambling to explain the process to parents and high school guidance counselors who are newly anxious about a star student’s chances. “We try to be transparent, but still, the very nature of holistic review is not transparent,” says Christine N. Van Gieson, director of admissions at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “No one thing is going to get you in, and no one thing is going to get you out. The really top students don’t have a concern, but the middle group tends to worry.”</p>
<p>"The move toward holistic admissions comes as many institutions of higher education struggle with reduced budgets. The method is costly. The annual budget of the University of Washington’s admissions office grew by $250,000 to support the change. “We didn’t go to the Cadillac version, to be sure,” Mr. Ballinger says. “But we did have to do more hiring and really increase the staff during the application read season.” Five years ago, there were 15 to 20 readers during the peak period of December to March. That group has grown to about 70. “There’s training involved, and you have to assure that all these different readers are reading similarly,” Mr. Ballinger says. “It’s very time-consuming to make sure it’s being done well.”</p>
<p>“Anyway, in general, what do you think the future of Ivy League admissions will be like?” Like it is today.</p>
<p>“Do you think in the future admissions will be based more off of merit (Standardized Testing, Grades, etc) than now?” You mean less holistically? What would indicate to you that they are screwing things up? If anything, their stars have risen precisely because they aren’t solely stats driven. </p>
<p>“will they be less inclined to give financial aid if you are not as qualified as others?” Amongst the Eight Ivies are some of the most generous schools extant. All have practiced need blind admissions for domestic students for ages. Some even do this (miraculously) for internationals. Even despite the downturn in 2008 where billions evaporated. If that didn’t shake them, what will?</p>
<p>“how many people will be let in (more than now? Less?)” It depends on how many beds are available. The admit no. is fairly constant. H and Y have some plans to expand. That will get more admitted. But you seem to be mistaking admit number for admit rate, perhaps. The admit no. will be static while admit rate for most Ivies will continue to shrink.</p>
<p>I think that Ivy league admissions will blatantly get more competitive each year. More and more people want to get into top schools, and so more and more people will work harder to increase their chances of acceptance. Not only will they work hard academically, but in other areas as well. This is obviously going to raise the bar for applicants, and the quality of students will get higher and higher. Since more people want to get in, and the schools can only admit a certain number of applicants, the acceptance rate will get smaller and smaller.</p>
<p>As for how they will choose the applicants, I think it will more or less similar to how they choose them now. Testing, grades, extracurriculars, sports, volunteering, etc will all still be important. </p>
<p>Financial aid will probably be harder to get because more and more lower income students will be competing for the aid.</p>
<p>Unless the Ivies get larger so they can admit more students, the rate of acceptance will become lower.</p>
<p>I think this is honestly very far off if even possible, but I’ve heard a lot of talk recently about moving universities online. It sounds very far-fetched, and it really clashes with what I’d call one of the the fundamental concepts of that highest echelon of higher education: selectivity. Stanford pioneered an open course program a few years ago in which people from anywhere could enroll in a class for free, work through the class with the on-campus students, take tests, and receive grades. It’s not unlike MIT’s OpenCourseWare program; however, it’s slightly more extensive in terms of how involved the online students can really be. Anyhow, the idea behind that format is to reach a point where most, if not all, courses at places like MIT and Stanford are available in a similar fashion online and online students can pursue majors and even earn degrees. For free. According to people like Sal Khan of KhanAcademy and Sebastian Thrun (who started Stanford’s program), that’s a step toward abolishing admissions as we know it. A radical, somewhat frightening idea. On the other hand, though, who doesn’t like KhanAcademy?</p>
<p>jeckert: It’s been said that your education is what you’re left with after you’ve forgotten the book work. As such, just because classes are made available online, doesn’t mean you can duplicate the dynamism of a place like HYPMS. I can log onto some great lectures in seconds. But it doesn’t replace being there. We haven’t made that progress yet. And I don’t foresee it in the near future.</p>
<p>Ask employers. Do they want to see applicants with an online degree or one who actually lived and breathed and interacted with others? 95 out of 100 scenarios I can tell you it’ll be the latter.</p>
<p>thiruvin000: you said FA may get tougher. As I said, even with the bottom dropping out in 2008, FA, if anything, got more expansive. The only way FA will be tighter is if some of the other Ivies go to need blind for internationals (which only HYP, of the Ivies, do at this moment). I don’t know what the fin aid budget is for each of the 8 Ivies but even if we were to assume $200million for harvard – it’s a drop in the bucket given their endowment. Yale too.</p>
<p>Here were the financial aid budgets for undergrad students at HYPS for 2011, as best I can tell:</p>
<p>Harvard, $160 million
Stanford, $122 million
Yale, $117 million
Princeton, $112 million</p>
<p>To compare, you have to know what fraction of the class receives financial aid, and the size of the average financial aid package. For whatever reason, the fraction of each class receiving aid is smaller at Yale and Stanford than at Harvard and Princeton.</p>
<p>[Best</a> Value Colleges | Great Schools, Great Prices | Top National Universities | US News Best Colleges](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/best-value]Best”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/national-universities/best-value)</p>
<p>^^^ Yes, but each institution has a different formula for calculating financial aid. When comparing HYPS endowments, do not assume the financial aid you might receive at one will be greater, just because it has a larger endowment.</p>
<p>To be sure, no two formulae are exactly alike, and anyone needful of financial aid is well advised to compare packages before selecting one school over another.</p>
<p>But the USNews chart is useful, nonetheless, to show what average aid packages are at each school, and what fraction of the admitted students get aid.</p>
<p>It looks like some schools advertising huge aid packages don’t go out of their way to recruit needy applicants, or at least are careful not to admit too many of them!</p>