<p>After checking decisions from various colleges, namingly WashU, Johns Hopkins, and Cornell, I've realized that many have gotten waitlisted/rejected that shouldn't have. Have those colleges really become that much more selective, or just this year was the most competitive college admissions year EVER?</p>
<p>i guess you can say it's both. more people with competitive scores are applying, thereby lowring the admit rate.</p>
<p>Duke applicants this year were exactly the same quality as last year's batch. The PR fiasco may have scared away some top applicants, though.</p>
<p>Selectivity has increased at many top schools, mostly because they're getting more applicants.</p>
<p>^^ PR fiasco?</p>
<p>Lacrosse team?</p>
<p>Most competitive ever and least competitive it will ever be.</p>
<p>I have to agree.</p>
<p>Only four Ivy acceptances from my senior class and we had some amazing students. I was surprised.</p>
<p>pr=public relations, i think</p>
<p>quite frankly--the only way admissions gets more competitive year to year is if there are significantly more applicants applying than the year before. Other than that, they remain largely the same. People need to disregard SAT scores being "higher" because...more people have higher SAT scores. If 10 years ago 1500 was the 99th percentile, and today 1550 is the 99th percentile...then well more people are scoring higher. It doesn't make it more competitive--there are always the same proportion of top students year to year.</p>
<p>Every year gets more competitive. Year after year, students realize earlier the importance of good extra-curriculars, SAT scores, essays, etc. and prepare more. This is especially true about the PSAT. Look at the trend of Semi-finalist cutoffs. It goes up a point a year on average now.</p>
<p>And it's supposed to be even more competitive next year – through about 2010.</p>