We can try to reduce the effects of increased applications due to general uncertainty by looking only at the early round in which students typically apply to only one of HYPSM… rather than applying to large number of colleges because they don’t know where they will be accepted. Rate of increase in applications by college during the early round for different highly selective private colleges.
Increase in Number of Early Application Increases Over Previous Year
MIT: +62%
Harvard: +57%
Columbia: +49%
Yale: +38%
Cornell: +36%
Dartmouth: +29%
Rice: +29%
Penn: +23%
Brown: +22%
Duke: +18%
Georgetown: +12%
JHU: +11%
Norte Dame: +9%
Emory: +8%
Chicago: +6%
There appears to be a loose correlation with selectivity. The two most highly selective colleges on the list are the 2 with the largest increase. And the relatively less selective colleges tend to have relatively smaller increases. Chicago is a key outlier. Chicago is highly selective, yet it had the smallest increase of the 15 colleges. This likely relates to Chicago previously being test optional before COVID. Several other previously test optional colleges show a similar pattern For example, Bowdoin actually had a decrease in applications this year. The dean of admissions at Bowdoin wrote:
"“We are noticing that our competitive peers who have become test-optional this year due to the pandemic are seeing increases in applications, while schools that have been test-optional prior to the pandemic are not seeing those increases,”
Smaller increases among previously test optional colleges is consistent with test optional being a key driver rather than general uncertainty. The increases also do not appear to be primarily due to students sending out applications to larger number of colleges such as applying to 20 colleges instead of 10 since the increases were quite large in single choice SCEA/REA/ED, often similar or greater increase than RD. You could say that once the score barrier is removed, relatively lower scoring students have less certainty about whether they’ll be rejected or not, and that is driving the increase. However, that’s similar meaning to my original statement.
Of course, immigration has a selection effect. The immigrants themselves may be more highly motivated on average than most people in either the old or new country, since they are willing to move to a completely new country, leaving the one that they are familiar with. The immigration laws of the new country may also screen immigrants in favor of (for example) PhD students and skilled workers.
As one of these immigrants that made it here, I can tell you that we come very well educated, especially in math and sciences. My country has a few magnet high schools with emphasis in math and science that accept based on an entrance exam. The quality of the teachers is (used to be) excellent, and some classes were taught by university professors. Of course, the education is free and anybody who is gifted and/or prepares well can enter regardless of SES. The university education used to be excellent as well, not so much now, but still, it continues to be free. My husband and I got scholarships to do graduate studies here, and we did not have to work one day in low-paying jobs to support ourselves.
Compare this with a low-SES student, going to a bad school with unqualified teachers. First, they got a terrible HS education, then they have to work their way through college as this poor young woman to pay the fees. The odds are stacked against them.
I’m going to reverse what I said earlier. I’m on the prep (day) school track and heard from a credible source that the schools in our area that remained test-required have seen a drop in applications.
Forbes had an article about test-requiring universities in Florida seeing plummeting numbers. It was the only public system that chose not to go test-optional last year., in part because of Bright Futures (the top 25% students in FL get a state grant for full or 75% free tuition; it’s based on course rigor, GPA, community service hours AND test scores. The State also refused to let go of the testing component for the scholarship and it has to be claimed immediately after HS graduation, no gap years allowed. As a result, students without a test score couldn’t even apply to public universities in-state and if they only took the test once as juniors they may not qualify for Bright Futures since there were no test dates from August to December, and in December all the South Florida test sites were closed.)
Short quotes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/akilbello/2020/11/16/why-applications-are-plummeting-at-floridas-state-universities/
At a recent Florida Board of Governors (FLBOG) meeting, Kenneth Furton, provost of Florida International University, stated that applications to state universities have already plunged by 50%
I don’t know whether the Florida system’s Board of Governors relented, if the Florida publics’ numbers stayed down by that much (50% fewer applications at some universities 0_o) or what. Does anyone know?
Jenny Rickard, CEO of the Common Application, said “For those colleges who still require standardized tests, application volume is down more than 25%."
(Note that Florida publics are not on the CommonApp for most of them, which means the phenomenon has affected other colleges that chose to require tests, although for the life of me I cannot imagine why colleges would choose to require tests when those have been cancelled date after date, and the “home tests” never materialized).
IMO, poor and uneven K-12 education should be the focus of eduational equity and fairness, not test scores. By almost all measures, US, relative to other deveoped countries (and even less developed countries), does a very poor job educating its students in K-12. It’s also one of the most unfair. Many colleges are forced to offer remedial classes (which, BTW, also contribute to the high cost of college eduation) even though many students in those classes have received “good” grades in high schools.
A solution could be to offer a “grade 13” for free, for students who would need remedial college education. It’d cost much less to the individuals (no loans, no college credits, and… since it’d be right near where they live, much easier to arrange in terms of logistics) but also to the State (running an extra year in HS education costs less than running classes at a college), and it’d be more efficient with good incentives (pass the class= guaranteed move on to community college with no remedial credits to pay for; get an A in x, z, and y class=guaranteed admission to X and Z class at 4-year state school, with full admission if X and Z are passed).
In urban districts, Year13 could be chosen in another school area (ie., if the HS is terrible, keeping the students there for another year may not be a solution. Switching HS for Y13 would provide a new setting and perhaps a “new start” to kids who are underserved by their current school).
The State could even study the cost:benefits: some districts are on the Y13 model, some districts are on the “CC remedial class” model, see what works best for the best value.
Thinking about this more last night on a walk, I realized I’m not really concerned if the low SES (or high SES) students make it into the Top 1%. That can be an issue, but my more pressing concern is making it easier for low SES kids to have success via a sustainable job they like allowing their own kids not to be low SES.
I’ve seen enough in my 20 years to know one isn’t always going to break the cycle, because what the students do themselves matters and cycles can be very difficult to break - no rich family member is going to provide a safety net for these kids. But it pains me when I see kids who could do better and try to be better not be able to because the path is just too difficult if you’re not the one with the 100K idea or with the top math score or you just need to provide food/electric for your family when you get that first job - mom/dad are drinking their paychecks away.
I went to a very good high school and (for one year) a very rich private school (where some kids had oceanfront houses). But I learned the most (about life) teaching at my average public school and shudder knowing half (or more) of the schools out there have lower bars. If test optional helps more kids, I’m all for it. Get a great score, submit it. Don’t have a great score but teachers see the potential and you’ve done all you can at your school? Submit that and let admissions decide.
Ironically I was also catching up on my local newspaper yesterday and came across a story telling folks how they can be successful in a recession. One of the people profiled started a business - with 250K in loans from his MIL. Yeah, that’s doing it all yourself, no? Anyone can do that, right?
I agree with your comment about needing more immigrants. In our area, there are very few “top” math/science kids that do not have at least one parent that is “new” to the US. I am not sure why this is?
In our case, my family has been in the US for many generations, whereas my wife became a US citizen a few years ago. I lived/worked abroad for more than a decade. DS does well in our area in math/science and the related competitions. Both parents have been involved in raising our son and I do not think one has really been more involved than the other, so not sure why being new to the US seems to have an impact?
As we know what a good math foundation is, we can recognize when the math education is subpar and supplement it. In our case, I sent my son to a Russian math class when he was 4th through 6th grade, and that was sufficient for him to get a good foundation. Math is not rocket science but it’s cumulative so you need a good foundation. Which even our rich school district could not provide. As for Physics C, the teacher was useless. He (my son) taught himself the material from the textbook, and asked my husband if he got stuck. There is a lot of home schooling going on
our family’s friends - immigrants from west africa - have shown us so much. Kid is in a top school now - because his mom enforced on him the importance of education. The sacrifices that mom made are incredible.
When i volunteered in a kindergarten classroom, there was a kid who had grown up in a refugee tent camp. That kid worked harder than anyone, (and barely played at recess) because his parents said to “WORK hard in school all the time in the US”.
And a kid on my son’s HS soccer team who was from Syria looked at me like i was really ignorant when i asked the ridiculous question “How do you like the US compared to Syria” – and his answer was “it doesn’t matter how I like it. I’m not made to fight in a war. I’m able to get a high school degree here.”
comes down to the parents - and how they are seeing education as a way out. I feel like that sentiment can be lost the longer generations are here. Just not as “hungry” maybe? IDK
Wait, you mean not everyone has a MIL with an extra $250k laying around?
I think you touched on something that is often overlooked. No SES band is a monolith. Yet, many approach low-SES as a monolith.
I went to an elementary school where I would guess at least 75-80% qualified for F&R. Each one of us had our own unique circumstances. Some had families that were pushing them out of the crab pot, others had families pulling them down. Some had two fully functional parents, some had one, some had none. We all had different outcomes that span from prison to graduate degrees, small business owners and professional careers, and everything in between.
Our school, and this is key, was in the pushing out of the pot category, so at least we had a chance. Other schools are keeping kids in the pot (bigotry of low expectations is one factor). So, that is another big piece of the puzzle.
Then, as you touched on, there’s the lack of a safety net issue. I saw this with a couple friends whose college GPAs dropped below the 3.0 minimum to maintain their full-ride scholarships and they lost them and dropped out. High-SES kid messes up first semester and gets a 2.5, chances are they aren’t going to have to drop out.
I think we have indicators from programs like HCZ of what is needed and that you have to begin at the beginning and support through college transition. Unfortunately, I don’t believe it will ever happen large scale.
Many immigrants to the US are selected by immigration policy as PhD students or educated skilled workers (often in math/science/engineering fields). Educational attainment tends to transmit strongly across generations, so these immigrants’ kids are likely to be high educational achievers.
Anecdotally, that is what I see in my area. Lots of high achieving kids whose parents weren’t born here but came for college or work and then stayed. Most of the parents are highly educated themselves and many in STEM (or related) professions.
Self-selection is certainly one of the factors, but not all immigrants (e.g. refugees) are in that category. However, many of them do seem to have a stronger desire to want their children to do better than they themsleves and are more involved with their children’s eduation. They also tend to focus more on test scores (due to cultural as well as economic reasons), which may, incidentally, help create the backlashes against testing, especially in some areas.
Refugee immigrants may not have been selected by immigration policy for higher educational attainment, but (like immigrants in general) they are self-selected for motivation in that they were more motivated to want to move to a different country than those who did not try to move.
@austinmshauri , I beg to differ. Anecdotal, but I give you the case of my son. Attended an excellent, K-12 private day school. Did exceptionally well in high school - all honors and AP’s. Graduated with a solid GPA. Had intensive (and expensive) test prep two summers in an row. Took the ACT four times and got the same composite score each time: 28, 30 superscored. A 28 is not horrible, but it’s not competitive for the colleges he was looking at, especially considering his GPA and EC’s. 13 years in private school plus loads of test prep. Just not a test taker.
Now, imagine your son in a school where teachers are constantly missing and/or where only a handful of students makes it to precalculus senior year, with no test prep, no tutor… or just in the same curriculum but no prep/no tutor.