Since October of last year, the amount of snail mail and emails received by my daughter (now a hs senior) from most of the colleges ranked in the top 25 is truly staggering. She received 18 separate items in the mail yesterday alone… albeit not all were from top-25 or even top-50 schools. But they are all apparently urging her to apply… and over and over. It is likely the same for thousands upon thousands of top candidates across the country. If you are in the 98th percentile in any conceivable way… ACT, SAT, etc… you are bound to be recruited. And the reality is… despite all of these campaigning efforts from these schools… that they also plan to reject the vast majority of those who do apply.
So why do they want 10K+ applications… or 20K+… or 30K+…?
All of these colleges want their application #s up and up. They all are trying to maximize their stats, yield rates, etc. They all want to better their rank… it’s only natural. Rice’s homepage today proudly announces that they have moved up to #15. Before, it bragged about being #5 on Niche’s ranking.
I do not really consider any of it “gaming” the system per se. They all do it. USC is no exception. They have simply done their best, especially in the past decade to better every aspect of their college… including how they are perceived externally.