Possible info Colleges don't Want you to know when applying

Applying to College
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I always love how some people make all sorts of generalizations about “colleges” which ignore the fact that the vast majority of students attend colleges for which these “generalizations” are not true.

Almost 70% of all students who attend a 4 year colleges are at a colleges which accepted >50% of their applicants. Yet, we still have people coming on here and making blanket claims based on the assumption that “colleges” are accepting fewer than 25% of their applicants.

A. Only a few hundred of the 2,000 non-profit four year schools even have binding ED applications, so this should be qualified

B. This is only true if you don’t care about how much you will be paying

Only a handful of colleges find it important, and even many colleges which have “level of applicants interest” as “important” really do not pay all that much attention. I mean, does anybody think that U Arizona tracks the interest of all its 40,000 applicants? Does anybody think that the 34,000 or so who are accepted all demonstrated interest? If they did, I expect that the AOs at UA would be pretty cynical by now, considering that almost 80% of the students who supposedly demonstrate interest do not attend UA…

There are colleges which really care, but most do not.

I have absolutely no idea where you came up with this one.

Colleges want students who will succeed in college, and, even more important, they want students who will succeed after college. They like a good mix of different types of students, in order to “diversify their investments” in a manner of speaking. However, how you got from there to "each students needs to have “one niche” is not clear

Once again, almost 80% of all students attend colleges which are accepting >50% of their applicants, and the vast majority of these colleges do not look too deeply at the applications, and many colleges just care about the stats.

However, let us consider colleges which are considered “elite”, like UCLA, which accepts 12.3% of their applicants. The percentages are low, but the numbers are high - they accept over 15,000 students. The idea that each of these students have “niches” makes little to no sense.

In fact the sheer number of applicants and admitted students to UCLA and Berkeley make it practically impossible for the AOs to have perused deeply through these applications. There are about 120,000 students who apply to these colleges (usually the same set for both), and the UC system does not have the money that, say, Harvard does to pay AOs to spend time going through each application in deep detail. The idea that the AOs will have spent the time to divide these applicants into “niche” groupings makes no sense.

Again, a generalization for “colleges” which is not only not even relevant to how the vast majority of students, but not even true for the small number of colleges which review each applications in detail.

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Please describe your experience or expertise that serves as a basis for describing your perceptions as facts?

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Do any public universities track demonstrated interest?

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I have altered the title of this thread to make it less clickbait-y. The original title was mostly untrue and misleading.

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@ojllfdjalkjf

Please give us your background and also tell us where you are getting your information?

Are you an adult who has worked in college admissions?

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Tough crowd. Loren Pope would’ve had a hard time here. :wink:

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I would prefer Mr Pope retitle to “Colleges that may possibly change lives”. :grinning:

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No can do, he’s been dead for 13 years. And although I like the book well enough, the CTCL group of schools is primarily for marketing. Fundamentally, any college can change lives, even community colleges.

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My friend who is a college professor and department chair says, “ALL colleges change lives. Not going to college changes lives.”

Did Pope think Harvard, Yale, Stanford did not change lives? They aren’t on his list.

His books, and the schools listed, were to make money. They are now a club that markets schools at fairs an online.

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“Colleges that may have a moderate impact on your life”

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It’s funny that Pope is getting beaten up here for CTCL. I wasn’t even thinking of that when I referenced him. Maybe I’m dating myself, but it was Pope’s article, “20 Myths That Can Jinx Your College Choice”, that raised him to national prominence. That article later served ar the first chapter of Pope’s best selling book, Looking Beyond the Ivy League. I was drawing an analogy between Pope’s “20 myths” and the OP’s 10 tidbits of “possible info”.

CTCL has taken on a life of its own as the colleges named in that book jumped on the opportunity to use their new found prominence as a marketing tool. But that’s not Pope’s fault. Understood within the context of his first book, to which CTCL was the sequel, Pope was simply saying that this is a list of schools that you can look to if you follow his advice to look beyond the Ivy League, schools that can make a difference in your child’s life.

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It’s humorous to watch you get down to the type sniffing level of distinguishing between THE and AN. If you want to get that literal, I concede your point.

But while we’re at it, let me point out that you’ve completely ignored the OP’s use of the word POSSIBLE in his title. Surely we can give that as much attention as “the” and “an”.

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The “possible info” was a later edit by a mod; the original wording was “facts.”

Loren Pope was a college placement counselor (although admittedly, some counselors are better than others) and a former education editor for the NYT. The OP has not stated their qualifications, but I would be surprised if they are not a current HS student or very recent HS grad.

In either case, readers are free and encouraged to form their own opinions as well as challenging the authors on theirs.

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Good catch on the edit. I missed that. I’ve been way from here for a few days.

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Super glad the title of this thread was changes. The OP posted things as “absolutes” which simply aren’t universal.

  1. Applying ED is significantly easier than EA or RD.

I don’t understand “easier” in this context. It’s the same application if you do ED, EA, or RD. Are you saying that admission rates are higher in ED? Definitely true at some schools, not true at others like MIT.

  1. Yield is the most important statistic to colleges(percent of accepted students that enroll)

I agree that this is true at many schools. They need to accurately predict yield to manage everything from budget to housing.

  1. Being full pay gives an applicant a significant leg up over everyone else.

Lots of top schools are need blind for domestic students.

  1. The tuition price is negotiable at any non-top 20-40 school

By definition a T20-40 school is still a top school ; ). Merit aid is usually not negotiable. Need based aid maybe reconsidered if a peer school makes a better offer.

  1. Don’t apply to schools for the sake of applying(only helps the college not yourself)

Agreed! Essays take time to write and most of the top schools have supplementals.

  1. Interest means everything, at a non top-20, with WASHU being the one top 20 that values it

Plenty of schools don’t consider interest. Look at the common data sets for schools on your list to see.

  1. Being an international applicant who needs aid is 100x times harder than an American on aid

No doubt international applicants have many more obstacles than domestics. Not 100x but admission rates are probably 1/2 of that of domestic students.

  1. Colleges want applicants with one niche. 2,000 freshman each with one niche makes a more well rounded class than 2,000 that our good at 3-4 niches but not great at one.

Couldn’t disagree with this more.

  1. Don’t be scared away by the price tag, POTENTIAL cost shouldn’t be a reason to stop someone from applying to a school.

Students and families should run NPCs and see if a school is affordable. Yes some calculators are less accurate than others but it’s a good guide.

  1. Private Schools can be cheaper than State Schools if you qualify for enough aid.

Yes, in some cases.

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Yes.

In 2019, it looked like about 29% of public colleges and universities considered level of applicant’s interest, according to what they said on their common data sets. (Versus about 57% for private non-profit colleges and universities.)

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The one item here that is objectively untrue is item 6.

WashU does state in their latest CDS that they consider interest. However, they are not the only “T20” to do so. Penn, Dartmouth, Duke, Northwestern, Rice and Notre Dame also state that it is considered.

There may be others I’m missing.

Purely my opinion, but I think there’s ample evidence and common sense to suggest nearly every very selective school considers it to some degree. Even when the school disclosed on their CDS that it is not considered. That doesn’t necessarily mean counting time spent on the school web site, feeding attendance rates of virtual and in-person info sessions to the AO, etc. Very selective schools assess applicants on mutual fit. Part of mutual fit is the applicant demonstrating they can sufficiently explain why school X is a good school for them.

An applicant should demonstrate sufficient research and care has been taken to identify some combination of programs, curriculum, faculty, and opportunities the school provides and how those items are useful to the student. Research/articulation of what an applicant understands regarding a given school = interest.

If anyone is interested in testing this theory, I encourage you to apply to Harvard describing unique aspects of Yale in your essay. Maybe toss in a New Haven style pizza reference. See how far that gets ya.

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CTCL is well loved here on CC, and Pope is well respected. However, you have to admit that the title is a bit hyperbolic. So people will sometimes poke fun at the title, even as they use Pope’s list and terminology quite extensively.

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I don’t think colleges are keeping the 10 items they ‘don’t WAnt you to know’ secret. I don’t think colleges care if you know they care about yield, that private schools can be cheaper than publics (and privates want you to know that), that schools might be cheaper than the posted COA (again, the TELL you that at the informational meetings), that aid for international is harder to come by…

Not sure I agree with the others about being full pay is a leg up for admissions, that ED is an easier app, that tuition is negotiable (I think tuition is the same for all (except instate/OOS) but how you pay that amount can be different and you can ask for more aid, more merit, etc.)

I really don’t think schools are keeping big secrets (except the Varsity Blues schools) and they want you to apply and want to you get in. That’s their business, getting students to apply and to attend.

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Hmmm … which college has an easier application/fewer essays/etc. that makes ED easy to apply? My D22 is applying to several school and, other than the application type check box, the application process is identical.

Fwiw, the entire list is full of typical “my friend told me” and “I’ve heard” statements with varying levels of factual accuracy, IMO.