My sisters and I were the first generation to go to college in my family and we all went to UT-Austin (they graduated while I was … ahem … let’s say an “inspiration” to screw-ups everywhere). There’s no way I would be accepted these days, sitting at the 50% in class rank. I only got in back then based on the SAT.
I wonder what we’re missing these days with the high requirements in HS required to get into college. Kids have to be on a “track” from 9th grade onwards and plenty of creative kids will rebel from that tracking. I don’t think it’s a good thing. I also think this tightening of HS requirements was a response to the Japanese threat from the mid to late 1980s, which was misguided. I just don’t like this “rigor, rigor, rigor” chant I keep hearing about HS.
We see parents and students here worrying that a 6-8th grade placement decision (particularly in math) will affect the student’s university opportunities. This makes it seem like a trend toward the worse aspects of German education (where tracking in middle school heavily determines post-secondary education and career directions) without the benefits (where reasonable career opportunities exist for those not going on to universities).
@droppedit- I am a HS teacher … the “rigor” chant isn’t necessarily coming from us. In my state schools get a report card every year, and one of the most challenging bits for my highly ranked suburban HS is that our score have to be higher every single year… we have to show growth in all areas. Not just in the number of kids who pass end of course exams (which is what my state, OH, Is using right now) but also the number who are advanced, etc.
“I wonder what we’re missing these days with the high requirements in HS required to get into college.”
It is extremely easy to get admitted to 98% of the several thousand colleges in the U.S. More kids are going to college than ever before. The problem at those 98% of schools is not getting IN. The problem is with kids being able to get OUT of college with a degree.
Because so many more kids are going to college, now there’s an increased focus by increased numbers of kids on getting into one of the few top colleges. Hence, more competitive at the top.
@toowonderful – the rigor chant isn’t from the teachers at D18’s large public HS. It’s from the GCs who get it from the top colleges. That results in kids collecting AP pelts (note that I’m referring to the top kids at the school). D18 says they’re unhappy with the constant subject and testing tutors, summer AP classes, extra AP online classes during the school year, etc. All to bump up GPA and class rank to get into top colleges. Only a certain type of kid is going to put up with that lifestyle and track. That’s why I wonder what the top colleges are “missing” in their student body.
Of course, I don’t have any good answers. How could a top college go through 50,000 applications in a few months without setting objective criteria to do an initial sort?
(At least the preschool admissions coach she profiles does make a bit of an effort to bust as a myth the idea that if your child doesn’t get into the “right” preschool, their entire academic career is done for, but the fact that she has to bust such a myth means…)
@CaliDad2020 - good info, you left of Northwestern which is actually ranked higher than two ivies on USNWR, howerver if you swap Northwestern for say Brown, you’d get an extra 800 acceptances (3500 for NU vs 2700 for Brown).
I don’t think your conclusions change, in fact maybe even helps the analysis.
@theloniusmonk I wouldn’t swap it, I’d add it. For some folks definition of “elite” ou can add ND, Vandy, WashU, UCLA, CMU, CIT, USC… (or at least some programs at those schools.)
I mean, everyone’s defintion of “elite” is different, but if you add other “top 15” to the 26000 acceptances at the “Ivies + 2” and the 6k at the “top 5 LACs” there’s a pretty good number of acceptance letters. If you go as far as top 25 National Us (so you roll in some big schools like UCLA (17k) and USC (9k)) you will be at probably 125 to 150k acceptances.
If US News just put out an unranked Top 25 so everyone up through UVA ( 9k)could say they were in a “top” college, you’d probably have over 150k acceptances (again, not unique applicants, just unique acceptaces. I’d guess the further up the list you go, the great the number of multiple cross admits you get)
Anyway, I think it’s most likely that college admissions competitiveness has bascially flatlined since 09-10 or thereabouts. It for sure got more competitive from, say 1960 - 2010. I’d say statistics suggest it will inch down just a bit, but that depends on international applications and acceptance rates.
After 10 pages of posts, I guess it’s okay to go slightly off topic. While I agree with you, sort of, I think that Montessori preschool was immensely important to my two youngest, and had a lot to do with who they turned into.
DW would never allow herself to discriminate in hiring decisions based on it, but her personal anecdotal belief, based on a good number of hires, is that ex-Montessori kids “finish up the last 20% of projects better than most.”
I’m sure my kids would have done well, regardless, but I’m glad that they attended Montessori. Btw, it was competitive, but not “elite” in our town to attend.
“I mean, everyone’s defintion of “elite” is different, but if you add other “top 15” to the 26000 acceptances at the “Ivies + 2” and the 6k at the “top 5 LACs” there’s a pretty good number of acceptance letters.”
Agree, the thread on parents forum on what is elite would show that. That’s why imo, and I’m not a big fan of USNWR, but for this discussion it would be cleaner just to take the top-15, or whatever number and just use that without editing the list or putting an opinion on it. Same for top-5 lacs and top-2 publics. It’s just that there are a lot of ties, so you could go top-14 ending at Brown, or 15 and take the four schools tied at 14.
You cannot, imho, just arbitrarily include Cornell because it’s an ivy so it’s better or more elite than Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, and Rice. Especially for this discussion since we know that a lot of students will start at 1 on the list and work their way down to figure out where to apply. And they’ll get to Northwestern before Brown and Cornell.
I don’t think this is supported by objective data. Even at the HYPS level applications have continued to increase over that period, and entering class stats have continued to edge upward. Stanford got a shade over 30,000 applications in 2009. In 2016 they got 44,000. If the increase was all non-contenders, you’d expect entering class stats to remain constant. But they’re higher—from 660-760 SAT CR to 680-780, and from 680-780 SAT M to 700-800. These may seem like small differences, but for class-wide medians they’re not, especially at the 25th percentile level. The difference between a 760 and a 780 SAT CR is inconsequential; both are 99th percentile. But the difference between a 660 and a 680 is the difference between 86th percentile and 91st percentile nationally. So the top of the class is more or less the same, but the bottom of the class is measurably stronger—and that’s where the competitive crunch comes.
The pattern is the same or even stronger at most schools just a shade below the HYPS level. At Northwestern applications increased from about 25,000 in 2009 to 35,000 in 2016—and the bottom of the class got stronger. At Brown applications increased from 25,000 to 32,000—and the 25th percentile CR median jumped from 650 (84th percentile) to 690 (92nd percentile).
The same pattern holds at many of the better state flagships.
I am a parent now in a different state than where I grew up, but in an otherwise similar socioeconomic location. My impression is the change is driven by families and kids and really society in general being more sure that where one goes to college is a big determinant in how well they do later in life. I don’t know how much of this is a real change in outcomes and how much is data analysis of stuff that was already happening becoming more public (e.g. analysis of payscale data based on undergrad institution). I’m guessing even though most people aren’t specifically aware of any given study, the general ideas have permeated. In my day, some people went to a university with lesser stats because it was closer to home, more familiar, etc, Now they seem more likely to choose the higher stats school (state flagship, higher level private if relevant) if they can get in. Beyond my anecdata, the “flight to quality” is clear in the numbers, as noted above.
The interesting thing a lot of the selective schools say is that the average SATs for the people the reject is higher than the students they accept, indicating that it’s definitely gotten more competitive at the top schools.
However it may not be as competitive in the schools below 50 say.
I think the data probably does support it, but I’m no expert.
There are a few caveats I think contribute to the rise in applications not corresponding to exactly the same rise in competitiveness.
Increaded applications do not indicate increased competitiveness, per se. If there are 35000+/- HS in the US. Then the Ivies+2, the top 5 LACs and the top 2 Publics, with their 50k or whatever admits are pretty much full up with those student. The US isn’t making more “top 10% of class students” That pool was already the elite pool. Nothing is adding to it. Same with SAT/ACT. The elites were already lloking at certain range: Even if that range has tightened, it’s still the top 10% or 7% or whatever their metric is. If you mean that you need a higher raw # score to get in, perhaps. But if you simply look at percentages, I doubt that increases substantially at this point. The common app allowed some super-scored kids to “acceptance collect” but I bet the steepest part of that curve has been climbed. I also think the schools hve gotten wise to that act and are doing a better job of yield protecting- which may be one reson it “seems” more competitive to get into some schools. A kid who is a slam dunk at Harvard might not get into Penn because they’ve become better at sniffing out the “saftey school” application and want to keep their yield numbers rising.
The only real “increase” in raw number of quality students is international.
So the questin is - how much has added international applications increased competitiveness.
It has somwhat, of course, but shile international admist have increased by a decent percentage, international admissions have not kept pace. in other words, in general (varies by school obviously) there are more international applicants but a smaller % of those new applicants are accepted. Some schools, luke UCB and UCLA are capping international/out of state acceptances too.
But again, I’m just a guy on the internet. I’m sure there are actual stats people who would know bettter.
There’s no need to look at total acceptances when undergraduate body size divided by 4 can give you the number of freshmen slots. I have 16 research U’s and 14 LACs as Ivies/equivalents.
Between them, they have about 25K slots. Maybe a little more than that. I think the percentage who attend who are hooked is more than a third. Probably more like half. Granted, many of them would still have stats that look in line. So say that 1/3rd are lesser-stats and hooked. So there would be roughly twice as many unhooked in the top 1 percentile as there are seats for unhooked in the Ivies/equivalents.
Is there a change? Certainly from 20 years ago, where if you were top percentile by stats, landing at an Ivy/equivalent was likely due fewer with your stats aiming for Ivies/equivalents and much fewer Internationals. These days, I daresay that almost all who are top percentile apply to at least a few Ivies/equivalents.
BTW, stats have gone up at the better public flagships (let’s say the top 20 or so publics) because they are now more likely to attract all of the best students in their state as well as interest from abroad and OOS.
For instance, the rise of OSU from open admissions to fairly selective along with a falling OH HS population has really hurt all other OH schools. OH LACs have to give out more merit money than comparable LACs elsewhere and Case and Cincy are relatively easy to get in to when you consider what they offer and the strengths of their crown jewel programs.
“There’s no need to look at total acceptances when undergraduate body size divided by 4 can give you the number of freshmen slots. I have 16 research U’s and 14 LACs as Ivies/equivalents.
Between them, they have about 25K slots. Maybe a little more than that. I think the percentage who attend who are hooked is more than a third. Probably more like half. Granted, many of them would still have stats that look in line. So say that 1/3rd are lesser-stats and hooked. So there would be roughly twice as many unhooked in the top 1 percentile as there are seats for unhooked in the Ivies/equivalents.”
This is EXACTLY what the admissions director from ND says in his presentation cited above.
“If the increase was all non-contenders, you’d expect entering class stats to remain constant. But they’re higher—from 660-760 SAT CR to 680-780, and from 680-780 SAT M to 700-800. These may seem like small differences, but for class-wide medians they’re not, especially at the 25th percentile level. The difference between a 760 and a 780 SAT CR is inconsequential; both are 99th percentile. But the difference between a 660 and a 680 is the difference between 86th percentile and 91st percentile nationally. So the top of the class is more or less the same, but the bottom of the class is measurably stronger—and that’s where the competitive crunch comes.”
I think BC nails it with this data.
The increasing apps and decreasing admit rates don’t really tell you what the level of competition is. That’s pretty noisy data. But the increasing stats of the enrolled students does say that the competition is continuing to get keener.
Look at these ACT ranges from USNWR #15s for the 2016 entering class: Rice (33-35), ND (33-35) and Vandy (32-35). Crazy! Until the stats level off or go down, I don’t think you can say that the competition has topped out or eased off.
But: Are the increased stats due to a widening of the applicant pool (after all, it wasn’t all that long ago that the Ivies were effectively regional institutions with a scattering of students from elsewhere), which thus allows a school to choose from a larger number of high-stats applicants, thus increasing the entering class statistics, or is it an actual tightening of the requirements?
Be careful here. While the most selective colleges have high retention and graduation rates, other colleges may be unbalanced due to drop outs or those who transfer out. In addition, some colleges take substantial numbers of transfer students, unbalancing the enrollment in favor of upper level students.