Is the Common Ap changing the dynamics of college admissions? NU, Penn and U of C

Applying to College
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<p>Schools which have begun using the Common AP have experienced mega rises of their applications their first year. Princeton experienced a 17% rise for the class of 2009. This year, Northwestern experienced a 19% rise, Penn a 10%. University of Chicago which saw apps go up 8% this year, saw Northwestern's and Penn's success this year and are adopting it (to the dislike of many at U of C). It seems like schools that don't adopt the use of the Common Application will face a real disadvantage.</p>

<p>Chicago's adoption of the Common Ap next year, summary from the Brown Herald:
The University of Chicago is adopting the Common Application starting next year with the class of 2012 in an effort to increase the number of applicants and simplify its admission process.
U of C will adopt the Common Ap despite its long-standing, unique rejection of the Common Application and its marketing of an "Uncommon Application." Chicago's new president encouraged the change.
Dean of College Enrollment: "We took note of the fact that two of our major competitors, Northwestern and (the University of Pennsylvania), had decided to accept the Common Application. That led us to do a little digging, and we discovered the impressive recent growth of the use of the online Common Application."
( <a href="http://media.www.browndailyherald.com/media/storage/paper472/news/2007/02/01/CampusWatch/Uchicago.Seeking.Prestige.Drops.Uncommon.Application-2691252.shtml?sourcedomain=www.browndailyherald.com&MIIHost=media.collegepublisher.com%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://media.www.browndailyherald.com/media/storage/paper472/news/2007/02/01/CampusWatch/Uchicago.Seeking.Prestige.Drops.Uncommon.Application-2691252.shtml?sourcedomain=www.browndailyherald.com&MIIHost=media.collegepublisher.com&lt;/a> )</p>

<p>About Penn's success with the Common Ap this year, excerpt from Bloomberg:
<code>It was a banner year for us,'' said Lee Stetson, dean of admission at Philadelphia-based Penn, in a phone interview. He said Penn's use of the Common Application for the first time, combined with a resurgence in Philadelphia's national image and continued student interest in urban campuses all helped. He said international applications were</code>way, way'' up.
( <a href="http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aOmtbtexpQeM&refer=us%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=aOmtbtexpQeM&refer=us&lt;/a> )</p>

<p>Summary of today's Chicago Tribune article on increase in NU's applications (mentions Penn and Chicago as well):</p>

<p>Applications up 19% for this fall's class</p>

<p>Total of 21,839 applications for the year, a 55 percent jump from five years ago</p>

<p>As few as a quarter of all applicants may be admitted, down from 30 percent last year.</p>

<p>This year's applicants have a mean SAT score of 1454 and an average ACT score of 31.1. Eighty-six percent of them are in the top 10 percent of their classes.</p>

<p>The increase, double that of most peer institutions, is a coup for the Evanston campus. Officials say it vaults Northwestern, already an elite school, to a new level of selectivity.</p>

<p>Moreover, they say the quality of the applicants has risen by every measure.</p>

<p>"You can spend a career in higher education and not have a year like this. I feel like this is a turning point toward Northwestern becoming an even more competitive institution and sought out more highly by the nation's best students," said Michael Mills, associate provost for university enrollment.</p>

<p>"I hear every day from [application] readers that, `If I see another perfect SAT score, I'm going to scream,'" he said. "That is a nice problem to have."</p>

<p>Northwestern attributes the increase in part to switching to the Common Application.</p>

<p>At the University of Pennsylvania, which also accepted the Common Application for the first time this year, applications are up 10 percent to 23,483. Applications to the University of Chicago are up about 8 percent to a record 10,400.</p>

<p>Mills also attributed the application increase to spending more time and money traveling to recruiting events and high schools, including some as far away as Southeast Asia and China. About 2,000 international students applied to Northwestern this year, up 54 percent over last year.</p>

<p>Also a new program guaranteeing that the lowest-income students won't have loans</p>

<p>"Other schools are seeing increases, but not of the size that Northwestern seems to be. Eight to 10 percent would be huge. They are talking 18 to 20 percent," said C. Anthony Broh, director of research policy at the Consortium on Financing Higher Education, which represents 31 of the nation's most elite campuses. "They are becoming more and more of a national university, attracting students from across the country as well as internationally."</p>

<p>( <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0702100149feb10,1,5367180,print.story%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0702100149feb10,1,5367180,print.story&lt;/a> )</p>

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<p>In addition to Northwestern and Penn, Cal Tech was added this year to the Common Application.</p>

<p>Most COFHE members thus now have joined including:
Amherst, Barnard, Bryn Mawr, Carleton, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Mount Holyoke, Northwestern, Oberlin, Pomona, Princeton, Rice, Smith, Swarthmore, Trinity, Penn, Rochester, Washington U. , Wellesley, Wesleyan, Williams, and Yale</p>

<p>Notable non-COFHE schools that have joined include Bowdoin, Cal Tech (as mentioned), Carnegie Mellon, Davidson, Emory, Haverford, Middlebury, Pomona, and Vanderbilt</p>

<p>Of the COFHE schools, only Brown, Columbia, Georgetown, MIT, Stanford (being added next year), and University of Chicago (adding next year) have not added</p>

<p>The only other USNews top 25 school not to have joined is Notre Dame. Berkeley, Michigan and University of Virginia have not joined but then again most state schools do not use the Common AP yet.</p>

<p>It will be interesting how long these schools hold out especially if it puts them at a disadvantage.</p>

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<p>what does cofhe mean</p>

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<p>Same gaming dynamics, extending farther.
1. Large number of high achieving kids apply to a large number of schools in the hopes that they'll actually be accepted to 1/6th of them.
2. Many of them are "slumming" when they apply to NU. Have no intentions of attending if one of their top 10 schools accept them.
3. Skew and screw admissions for other kids who actually applied to the few schools they wish to attend.</p>

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<p>COFHE stands for Consortium on Financing Higher Education. </p>

<p>From the COFHE website:
COFHE is an institutionally supported organization of thirty-one private colleges and universities. COFHE was formed in 1971, initially funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation to examine how selective, private colleges and universities could discuss their commitment to providing exceptional educational opportunities for highly talented students as well as best practices in fiscal management.
The criteria for establishing the COFHE membership were that each institution: 1) be private, 2) attract a national undergraduate applicant pool, 3) be willing and able to participate actively in the various projects of the Consortium, and 4) have characteristics enough in common with the other members to permit each school's inclusion in various cooperative studies.
The excuse for keeping membership small is: COFHE's member schools readily acknowledge the many excellent non-member peer schools that have much in common with COFHE colleges and universities. The small size of COFHE has long facilitated productive in-person meetings and information-sharing. Therefore, growth in membership size has not been viewed as desirable. Membership discussions do take place every five years.</p>

<p>My take on the real reason, it has little to do with "smallness" but rather prestige. It's the company you keep that supports your prestige. These 31 schools are in general the most prestigious private schools in the US. They want to keep it as a small prestigious club. Just like belonging to the Ivy League athletic conference is a tough conference for other schools to join and inclusion in it is equated with academic excellence even though it is an athletic conference. Others have tried to join but for whatever reason were not chosen.</p>

<p>What if? If Colgate instead of Brown had been chosen to join the Ivy League in the 1950s, the path these two schools have followed since then would have been quite different (the eighth Ivy League school came down to these two fierce rivals, obviously Brown was chosen). Brown’s reputation was also enhanced when they joined Harvard, Yale and Princeton in offering Early Action in the 1970s vs the other Ivy League school’s Early Decision. The company they chose to keep was with Harvard, Yale and Princeton and this had an effect of boosting the quality of their applicants in the 1970s.</p>

<p>Another What if? If Northwestern’s president had remained at the helm of Northwestern throughout the 1980’s then Northwestern may have joined the Ivy League and it’s reputation as a back-up would not persist in some quarters. (For those who may not know, Northwestern approached the Ivy League in the 1980’s during their infamous football losing streak to see if it could join because Northwestern appeared to be hopeless to compete in the Big Ten. The Ivy League allowed Northwestern to schedule one or two games per year with the Ivy League schools to see if such a relationship would prove desirable for it’s member schools. The caveat was that Northwestern would need to pay for all travel expenses for the Ivy League schools since it was Northwestern that wanted in. When Northwestern replaced their president because he had fallen ill, their new president (an economist) wanted to get Northwestern out of it’s budgetary deficits and also wanted Northwestern to remain unique and he cancelled all the games against the Ivy League, save the one against Princeton which they couldn’t get a replacement game for.)</p>

<p>Desire to stay affiliated even though no longer in the athletic conference. Some also may not know that when the University of Chicago dropped out of the Big Ten it remained an academic partner as a member of the Consortium of Institutional Cooperation. Another academic non-athletic partnership includes the prestigious 62 member Association of American Universities an association of “leading research universities in the United States and Canada” (Interesting that Brown is a member, Dartmouth is not a member as it is more of a LAC). The University Athletic Association is the division III version of the Ivy League and includes Brandeis, Carnegie Mellon, Case Western, Emory, NYU, University of Chicago, University of Rochester, Wash U.</p>

<p>So Prestige in a way is a function of the company you keep. A potential future influencer of prestige? CC and inclusion on their list of CC Top Universities and CC Top Liberal Arts Colleges, at least for those that migrate to this website.</p>

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<p>As for 1. agree with you here, average number of applicants per student has been steadilly increasing. Can't totally blame them though. With the percentage of acceptances at top schools around 10%, getting into any school even with top statistics is becoming more and more random. At this level, any two admissions readers can at two different schools appreciate different things in an applicant and come to different conclusions about an application. This randomness would behove the student to apply to more schools to guarantee entry into a school he/she is qualified for.</p>

<p>As for 2. I wouldn't say "many" are "slumming" for any school. First of all, no school does well in comparison to HYPMS, even the "lesser ivys". And many schools have a regional quality to their applicant pools which indicates that students in general desire not to stray too far from home. Stanford has a west coast bias, Northwestern and University of Chicago a midwest bias (around 40% each). Harvard is exceptional (as are a few other east coast schools) having a very national student body with only 16% from New England (11% from the midwest). Northwestern has only 6% from New England so it is highly likely that only a minority of applicants are "slumming" Northwestern and applying to mostly the top east coast schools (and certainly not with 10 schools they rather attend) since many Northwestern applicants are probably from the midwest and interested in attending a midwest school, where Northwestern has to be certainly considered among the best. Northwestern splits dual applicants between the University of Chicago and Northwestern about 50-50 as it does with Cornell who it also shares many applicants.</p>

<p>As for 3. (and this is also related to 2.) Schools in general don't like "slummers" and can tell. Just as recent research shows that we prefer mates who want us in particular and not just anyone ("The more you tend to experience romantic desire for all the potential romantic partners you meet, the study shows, the less likely it is that they will desire you in return (Think too desperate, too indiscriminate" see <a href="http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2007/02/romantic.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2007/02/romantic.html&lt;/a> ) colleges also want someone who wants them.</p>

<p>At Penn, Dean of Admissions, Lee Stetson stated, "if they are extra serious about Penn, Penn will make an extra effort for them. We've been very direct about it. Everybody likes to be loved, and we're no exception. Everybody likes to see a sign of commitment, and it helps in the selection process."</p>

<p>For Northwestern, assistant director of admission Tom Menchhofer has said, “Clearly we like students who like us, and that comes across in the essays, the letters of recommendation, the student’s knowledge of and interest in the University, their activities — the passionate side of the application.” Northwestern stresses their "Why NU?" essay. They clearly reject many of the "slummers" in favor of less qualified applicants who desire Northwestern. Here are Northwestern admission figures from a few years back, Percent admitted:
ACT 35-36 (equivalent to 1560-1600 SAT): 66.5%
SAT 750-800 Verbal: 51.7%
SAT 750-800 Math: 46.7%
Valedictorian: 53.8%</p>

<p>If Northwestern just went by stats they would be admitting more than the 50% of applicants with these statististics and not paying attention if an applicant actually desired to go there.</p>

<p>So if the kids who actually applied to the few schools they wish to attend really indicated they wanted to attend Northwestern, the few "slummers" may not actually "skew and screw admissions" as much as you think.</p>

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<p>
[quote]
Same gaming dynamics, extending farther.
1. Large number of high achieving kids apply to a large number of schools in the hopes that they'll actually be accepted to 1/6th of them.
2. Many of them are "slumming" when they apply to NU. Have no intentions of attending if one of their top 10 schools accept them.
3. Skew and screw admissions for other kids who actually applied to the few schools they wish to attend.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I guess that means that many applicants are also "slumming" when they apply to Duke (and certain other comparable schools) - for 2005, NU had a yield rate of 41%, Duke 43%.</p>