<p>I disagree with a lot of what has been posted on this thread.
-Admissions WERE competitive back then.
-People DID care about where they went to college, at least from my high school they did. And the college admissions stats of the times would inidicate that my high school was not alone.
-LACs were on the whole relatively MORE selective, as a group, than they are now, NOT relatively less selective.
-There WERE statistics published in college guide books, they DID have selectivity indications, though in “buckets” rather than precise rankings. One could easily develop one’s own “rankings”, from the data that was available.
-There have been very few colleges “invented” over the last 40 years, pretty much the range of choices now were the same choices then.</p>
<p>There was, however:
fewer applications per applicant, due to lack of automation & standardization;
fewer applicants;
possibly less universal financial aid (thought there was financial aid available then too)
a bit more effort involved in learning about the colleges. Specifically, you had to actually look at and read the couple guide books, not just read a single chart compiled by others. However, all motivated applicants at my high school managed to exert this modest extra level of effort and discern appropriate colleges to apply to.</p>
<p>I’ve always wondered about “re-centering” etc. I just don’t buy into the concept that kids are smarter today. My kids actually have a high school class that “teaches” you how to take ACT and SAT tests. We took it once and that was it. My kids scores are all right around where mine were which makes sense. A huge percentage of kids in my middle son’s class are on the honor roll. So what does that say about all these high GPAs. We do have a high scoring school relative to the rest of the state on the standardized tests, but it also says to me that perhaps the As come easier than 30 years ago. I’d really love to read some data that substantiates all of this with regard to highly selective admissions. I think that’s why I’m an advocate of holistic admission. The bigger picture really does tell the true story regarding these kids.</p>
<p>When you recenter my scores they are almost the same as mathson’s (he has 30 points more in math.) He beat me on all the SAT2s, though I don’t remember my exact scores. He also had twice as many APs than me. On the other hand I was 16 when I graduated and he was 19, so I think that should count for something.</p>
<p>I think applying to colleges felt competitive for some of us back then, however it was easier when you applied to fewer and places like Wellesley or (for me) U Penn were safeties.</p>
<p>I think I’m agreeing with you in my own way, Monydad. And I’ve often wondered if the common ap were eliminated how many 17 and 18 year olds would really sit down and execute ten or fifteen well constructed college applications LOL. If I were in college admissions today I’d sure as heck be weighting “desire” high on the scale of holistic evaluation to get the yield required. This alone would stop some of the random, ill thought out applications, too. If you can’t afford to visit a school how the heck are you going to be able to afford transportation to and from the school?? Logic has totally been eliminated from the process of actually applying to colleges and universities.</p>
<p>Mathmom, it’s hard to remember 30 some years ago, but I do remember college acceptances being competitive. I distinctly remember kids saying “oh you must be smart to get accepted to yada, yada, yada.” I also remember thinking that the kids that went far, far away “must be rich.” Both of those comments still apply and happen today at my kids school in the same town where I grew up…that you either must be really smart or really rich to go to the Ivy’s and well known LACs, out of state universities, etc. I’m sure there is a small number of parents in our town that are really pushing for a recognition school for their kids, but no one will ever convince me that it’s the kids and not the adults that have created the crazy applications environment. The colleges are equally to blame as much as parents with their marketing tactics and all the jammer about need-blind, no-loan, it really makes some parents think that their kid will go to any college basically for free rather than what amounts to a miniscule portion of very special kids.</p>
<p>Thanks, momtn! I feel better now. I graduated in 1980. I didn’t take any kind of review class, but I may have bought a study guide. I took it only one time.</p>
<p>“Brown used to insist that you handwrite your essay!”</p>
<p>LOL, I don’t know about you, but we all boys and girls had to take Penmanship in 6th grade and the teacher was a bear. It was an actual class sorta comparable to the keyboarding classes that the younger kids take today. You should see my chickenscratch writing now! I can barely spell anymore thanks to computers. That said, I suspect two of my three boys can’t spell at all without spell check. I’m sure the “there” and “their” and “four” and “for” drive teachers crazy these days.</p>
<p>1974: at my lower middle-class regional high school in rural New Jersey, the guidance office posted a list, by name, of who was going where. Freshmen to Seniors, we all kept an eye on that list. “Undecided” in May was social death. </p>
<p>Only one student in our math/science Honor track crowd took an AP exam. My SAT scores that took me to UT OOS would be laughed at today.</p>
<p>But given that only 25% of Americans attended college at that time, my experience may have been an anomaly.</p>
<p>Did they have APs back in the 70’s?
The only thing similar our school offered was a psychology class offered through Syracuse University, which was actually pretty interesting.
And I also remember hand-writing my applications…</p>
<p>//\ Even had them back in the 60’s: I took AP spanish, US Hist, Eur. Hist, English. At that point, however, there were no “language” AP’s, i.e., AP Spanish was understood to be Spanish Literature; likewise English was understood to be English lit.</p>
<p>My high school experience was similar to mathmom’s: a private east coast prep school in the early seventies. Pretty much every one applied to the Ivies or east coast LACs. Most applied to four or five schools at most. At that time, if you couldn’t afford it, you didn’t go to a private school (although some financial aid was beginning to be available). </p>
<p>We were expected to take SAT2s starting in tenth grade and took at least two rounds of SATs (March and June of junior year, so that you could do a third set in November if you needed to, after intensive tutoring). </p>
<p>There were heavy expectations that you would go to the best school you could get into, and go from there into a fulfilling career (unless you married very well, but even then you were expected to finish at least two years of college first) (it was an all-girls school). I recently (three weeks ago) had a conversation with two HS friends about the pressures on us to “be successful.” It was a serious school!</p>
<p>There sure was not a college craze where DH and I went to high sch. (small southern rural DH '77, me’80). We were both in the top ten in our respective classes. </p>
<p>In his class the Val, ( a URM whose mother taught senior Eng. at our sch) went to Stanford. Most had no idea it was anything special and just thought it cool that she was going to CA.
The other nine went to CC’s or instate publics.
In my class it was either CC or instate publics for all ten of us.<br>
DH and I (and many others) only applied to one school.</p>
<p>Back then “flagship” was not a term related to college. Most people who were going to college went to one of the three largest state schools. We thought it really exotic if someone chose to go to one of the state schools that that 6 hours away! </p>
<p>DH and I each took the SAT once with no prep. and did not have eye-popping scores but knew it was good enough to get us in state u. so were satisfied. There was no such thing as AP’s back then in our rural corner of the world.</p>
<p>As for EC’s nobody did anything to pad the resume. We did what we enjoyed (band, sports, yearbook, Beta club) and all of us had part-time jobs after sch. </p>
<p>To be honest, the kids at our local high school (big suburban public) mostly want to attend one of the big state schools too or either some small private in the area.<br>
In the nine years the school has been open, one student (top ten+ top female athlete) has gone to an Ivy and three have gone to Service academies. The real pressure around here seems to be who will get in the state flagship u.</p>
<p>I graduated in 1980 and took AP Calculus and AP English. Placed out of a lot of English in college, whoo hoo! Did OK on the AP Calculus test, but decided to take it again in college because it mystified me.</p>
<p>I graduated HS in '78 and there were no AP classes offered at my school. </p>
<p>Also, while I remember the standard college guide being the huge Barron’s book with little more than lists of majors, along with some relatively dry statistics about each college, I also recall, during my sophomore or junior year in high school, buying one of the first editions of the Yale Daily News’ “Insiders Guide to the Colleges”. The Insider’s Guide, with its feedback from current students of different schools seemed, at that time, so innovative to me.</p>
<p>Also, back then, college visits before you were accepted, much less before you even applied, were uncommon. Even to this day, my parents and my in-laws find it rather odd that I’ve taken my daughters to visit colleges during their junior year in HS.</p>
<p>I do agree with those who think that the hypercompetitive college admission atmosphere really took off with the coming of age of the “echo boomers”, as well as the advent of the USN&WR rankings.</p>
<p>Graduated in 1973. I took AP French, AP English, AP European History, AP Calculus BC and AP Art. I believe we also offered AP Bio and AP Spanish. </p>
<p>We were expected to be successful, or at least to improve the world. Not everyone was superrich - some like me had part of our education subsidized because our parents were serving in foreign countries without adequate schools, and there were some scholarship kids. Day students in general weren’t as wealthy as the boarders.</p>
<p>In the early-to-mid 70s, my California public high school offered several APs (and a choice of FIVE foreign languages!) I took AP english and history, and we were made to understand that we had to take the AP exam in order to take the class. Most of us also took SATs and SATIIs, which were then called achievement tests. Many students also took the ACTs, which then had the reputation of being easier than the SATs.
A cousin who went to an academically respected public outside NYC also took the same exams, with the exception of the ACTs which weren’t well known. </p>
<p>And yes, in those days we also had pressure on extra curriculars. So in my experience, today’s college craze differs only in the fact that more students are applying to private and out-of-state schools. Back then – in California, at least – vast majority of us applied to the UC system, those with lower grades/scores to the Cal State system - and the really ambitious among my classmates also added Stanford to the list.</p>
I graduated in 1980. I didn’t take any kind of review class, but I may have bought a study guide. I took it only one time.</p>