<p>cltdad: I agree with you. The jaded opinions are from aspirants and aspirants’ families. From the recruiting side of things (I recruit for one of H’s competitors but have similar target pools), our attitude is to get the word out to find the diamonds in the rough. A huge amount is spent on mailing, travel, etc in terms of money and man hours to visit schools from a wide variety of backgrounds. I’m 100% certain that if HYPMS decided not to reach out, they’d still find reams of applicants to fill their ranks. However, they are committed to finding the best students. Frankly, the rankings don’t mean that much to us. It may be hard to fathom for a HS student who is obsessed but in reality, the tippy top elites don’t give much of a flip.</p>
<p>When I give presentations, I certainly am not there to stir multiple unrealistic applicants’ hopes. I tell them exactly the rigors of applying but also the features of my college. I tell them plainly what a viable applicant looks like. It’s up to them to apply or not. I’m recruiting, yes. But I’m not just there to count coups. If not a single application arrives due to my work, I’m fine with it.</p>
<p>Every single year, when this common thread about mailings go out, the same refrain: they want more apps to reject more to maintain their USNWR rankings: I find to be rubbish.</p>
<p>Acceptance rate only counts for 1.5% of the total score anyways. And with the rates already as low as they are, decreasing from like, 7% to even 6 or 5 won’t have a large effect.</p>
<p>What Harvard and other colleges are trying to do is tell people that they have a chance, when maybe they weren’t even considering going to college, or were just planning on going to a community college because they didn’t think they could make it anywhere else. A lot of people also might think that schools like Harvard cost too much for them to even consider applying, but the letter I believe explains Harvard’s very nice financial aid policy.</p>
<p>Like, people on CC have access to a lot of information about how college admissions work, so that’s why these letters probably don’t have an effect on you. But most people aren’t on CC. Though depending on the criteria used, these letters may even be helpful for those on CC who don’t think their 2300 SAT score is good enough for colleges like Harvard.</p>
Yes, but let’s be honest: Before even thinking about USNWR, the first thing people look to when determining how selective a school is is acceptance rate. Whether it’s right or wrong is irrelevant; acceptance rate plays a huge role in others’ perceptions.</p>
Neither, here, I had just figured that that was the reason (seemed reasonable and I’ve been told that’s the reason so many schools do it). I suppose it does help with discovering students who were on the edge or didn’t think of applying, but I also believe that the other explanation has merit, too. A lot of how a college is perceived is a numbers game, and Harvard (like so many other schools), is trapped in that system of prestige. However, that, like so many other things, is the fault of society.</p>
<p>
This is a bit of an exaggeration. Yeah, people are going to feel bad about themselves if they get rejected from a school they want to go to, but I don’t think it destroys lives.</p>
<p>BillyMc: Again, I respectfully disagree. As an alum from one of the schools that is always in USNWR’s top three listing, I can tell you that neither I nor my alumni friends nor any other alums from the other two schools – even give a whiff about what “outsiders” feel is our relative worth or ranking vis-a-vis each other or other colleges. We are cognizant of the inherent good and shortcomings of our institutions and we respect other peer universities as well.</p>
<p>To say we are “trapped in a system of prestige” is an outsiders’ explanation – it’s not the universe that HYP actually lives in or considers. That’s not our reality. We are accountable to our students, our alumni and yes, our heritage of being some of the world class universities. But to read USNWR rankings and fret about them? Sorry but it’s not the case.</p>
<p>I know this rather sounds snobby. I don’t intend to be so at all. I consider myself extremely blessed and fortunate to have attended the school I did. I also consider my admission to the other colleges that accepted me, to be great honors and I would have loved to attend those as well. I work alongside and under the guidance of people from many educational backgrounds. They contribute tremendously and I’m better because of them.</p>
<p>Often I purposely evade telling strangers of my college. In my field, people are easily estranged from others whom they feel are very different from them. I therefore, rarely tell people my college. It’s not necessary in most every day occasions. As a holder of a degree that’s coveted by most of the visitors of CC, all I can say is “Been there, done that” and while happy and grateful, all I can do is to impart to you my character and hard work – and not have you judge me by my college’s so-called “prestige”.</p>
<p>^ Who are you kidding? I attended two college fairs last fall that included Harvard. Both Harvard representatives led with the fact that Harvard’s acceptance rate was 7%. It was disgusting. Please don’t tell me that Harvard doesn’t get a giant rush out of being “so selective.” I had many friends apply to Harvard with 3.3 GPAs and 1900 SATs. These weren’t “diamonds in the rough.” They were kids who never had a chance.</p>
<p>Taking the college’s perspective, Harvard is interested in assembling a freshman class with a wide range of experiences and gifts. If Harvard sends 50K letters, Harvard will no doubt gain the interest of some students who would not have thought Harvard was a possibility. The same goes for other top-tier schools. </p>
<p>DD was admitted to some top-tier schools and wait-listed at others. I chalked this up to the unique things she had to offer vs other applicants, and the applicant pool from which each school drew.</p>
<p>“they are committed to finding the best students.”</p>
<p>That’s right, and more importantly, they’re committed to finding new kinds of students – the kind that doesn’t see Harvard as a real institution where actual mortals go. If they stopped recruiting, they’d still have a great class, but they wouldn’t get the valedictorian from the county high in Wyoming, or the inner-city high in St. Louis, or the artsy kid who thinks Harvard is just for old-money preps, or the sports fan who thinks people at Harvard don’t have any fun. That’s who they’re trying to reach. It’s about diversifying the pool as much as it is about enlarging it.</p>
<p>I’ve been to many of the joint Harvard/Duke/Georgetown/Penn events. At every event, there are a couple of HS students who approach the Harvard alumni and say “I came to hear about D/G/P…I never even considered Harvard before today. I thought [insert myth here]. Is that true?” And we have a conversation that results in Harvard getting a competitive application it wouldn’t otherwise get.</p>
<p>Harvard is not spending money in order to attract 3.3/1900 applicants, and it’s not telling them they’re going to get in. If you’ve seen something to the contrary, tell us about it.</p>
<p>Old college try: I agree with you that I also would have found that Harvard attitude to be offputting. (Maybe that’s why I never applied there myself). However, I can tell you that my college gets “no rush” from our meagre accept rate. Frankly, we wish it could be higher and freely tell people so. If your 3.3GPA friends had come to my table, I would have told them the following: “viable and ‘in the ball park’ candidates to my college are the very topmost scholars in their high schools. The teachers know it, the principal and other administrators know it. If you’re one of them, then consider applying to my college”</p>
<p>The implication is if one isn’t then they have zero chance (like your friends). As I said, I don’t want any unrealistic people to be wowed by my sales pitch. I’m not pitching them.</p>
<p>“they just want to continue to be the most selective school in the country.”</p>
<p>I guess with this thinking, you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t right? How about this for an alternative view? The tippy top colleges have gotten that way by slogging through lots of mess, investing in faculty and facilities, managing & growing their endowments and yes, being led by some very inclusive minded administrators who focused their universities on being world class. This included a revamping of admissions which pulled away from the traditional WASP, north east heavy bases of students to women and many many more “diamonds in the rough”. And you know what? It worked. They rose in actual quality, and not just name recognition or prestige. Now the gen’l public is fixated on the brand name and kids apply to them in droves.</p>
<p>And people slash them for trying to maintain their selectivity for its own sake. That’s your view. I disagree</p>
<p>I got something from Harvard today, but I didn’t open it. It was in a big envelope so it could be an app. It’s in a hefty bag with the rest of my college mail (my friends and I are having an awesome bonfire after graduation next year)</p>