Princeton follows Harvard re: EA

Parents Forum
201

<p>JHS:</p>

<p>I don't have the Yale numbers handy, although they are available in the on-line Yale factbook.</p>

<p>Swarthmore's acceptance rate was 23% in 1970 and 22% in 2005.</p>

<p>Williams acceptance rate was 19% in 1980 and 19% in 2005. </p>

<p>The general trend was low acceptance rates during the baby-boom. A steady increase in acceptance rates from the 1970s through the mid-1990s -- there were simply fewer college age people in the pipeline. Followed by a decline in acceptance rates over the last ten years as the echo-boom demographic bulge moves through the system.</p>

<p>The details of the intervening years vary from school to school. For example, most of the male schools in the northeast were able to partially offset the declining college population by doubling their applicant pools with the admission of women.</p>

<p>The historically co-ed schools got a double-whammy in the 1970s -- the end of the baby boom bulge and newfound coed competion from the Ivies and other elite colleges. For example, in 1965, it could be legitimately argued that Swarthmore was the most prestigious coed school in the northeast. Ten years or so later, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Dartmouth, Brown, Williams, Amherst, Duke, UVa and many more were coed institutions accepting applications from women. The impact of that is easy to see in Swarthmore's acceptance rates for a decade or so starting from the mid 1970s to the mid 1980s. They jumped from a 23% acceptance rate in 1970 to 40% in 1975. Colleges that went coed were seeing the opposite effect, although not enough to completely offset the end of the baby boom bulge. It appears that the one-time statistical disruption from the co-ed movement appears to have stabilized by 1990 or so.</p>

<p>As for median SAT scores, don't forget that the SATs were recentered for the entering class in the fall of 1995. In their Institution Research data, Swarthmore reports the median scores for the fall 1995 freshmen both ways -- original formula and recentered.</p>

<p>For the same cohort of freshmen, the middle 50% were:</p>

<p>Old-style: 1260-1440
Recentered: 1320-1500</p>

<p>From the years 1970 up through the recentering for 1995, there had been little change: a 20 point drop in median verbal and a 20 point rise in median math.</p>

<p>Since the recentering in 1995, there has been a slight increase: 20 points in Verbal, 20 points in Math. That rise corresponds to the increased number of echo-boom applications (and perhaps to the increased emphasis on test-prep, multiple sittings, etc.).</p>

<p>The way I read the data: college admissions are mostly a function of the allocation of slots (male/female, white/non-white) and the ebb and flow of demographics in the underlying population. Looking to the future, the trend colleges see is a decline in white high school seniors from the northeast corriodor and a rapid increase in Latino and Asian American applicants from other regions. I think that colleges making big diversity pushes today are doing so, in part, to position themselves for the demographics of the future just as colleges decided to admit women when they were staring at a significant decline in their previous applicant pools.</p>

202

<p>I have detailed data on about 100 top schools, very early 1970s (from Cass & Birnbaum guide) vs. 2003.</p>

<p>Unfortunately this data is on my primary computer. Which had a "blue screen" and is hopefully being repaired or at least data resurrected, so I don't have it now.</p>

<p>Trust me, the overall trend was towards more selective now, by a wide margin. There are individual winners and losers, and a number of schools were about the same. But, in the context of an ordinal ranking, an acceptance rate that was about the same 1971 vs, 2003 actually put the school rather farther down in the overall pecking order.</p>

<p>If I recall correctly, the most selective schools the year my stats were from (I think 1971)were Yale and Cooper Union, both at around 17% admitted. Nothing to sneeze at. But Yale was about 12% in the recent year I was comparing with, and it's down to about 8% now I think. All these numbers are from unreliable memory.</p>

<p>I've actually posted some of these stats, in the past, but I don't want to look for them now. If I get my computer back soon I'll post some of them.</p>

203

<p>They reject more candidates, but it doesn't make them "more selective". It doesn't make them more likely to get the candidates they truly want; the qualifications of those they accept doesn't rise and, in all but the very most prestigious institutions, yield goes down. For while there are somewhat more applicants, there are MANY more applications.</p>

204

<p>I'd love to hear Middlebury's numbers from, oh, say 1976 or so. I really feel like a chump reading about how easy it was to get in back then. I had an SAT which, according to posts here, woulda put me in Yale's top 25%, and GPA etc to match (and, I promise, no prison record). Maybe back then it wasn't so easy for a female student with financial difficulties who worked instead of doing many EC's. I think I might've had a better shot these days.</p>

205

<p>Here's a couple of those earlier posts, best I can do now:</p>

<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=66472&page=3%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=66472&page=3&lt;/a>
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=167854%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=167854&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>I do agree with the spirit of post #203 ; much easier to make multiple applications now. But I recall checking some recentered SAT numbers that also seemed higher today vs in the day. After making relevant adjustments.</p>

206

<p>"Mini and Int-Dad make it sound as if hooks are the first cut. And further, what's insulting about that is that it also implies that academic excellence is the last thing being considered (the "leftovers" in the pie). That is not the way the process works, as I have been told."</p>

<p>I think you are mischaracterizing somewhat. There isn't quite a "first cut" or a "last thing" - it is the construction of a class that counts.</p>

<p>Also, I think it is more useful to think of "buckets" and "hooks". They work rather differently.</p>

<p>"Buckets" are the repository of applications for slots that must be filled. Athletics are the obvious example. You can't play if you don't have a football quarterback (and a backup.) So think of the quarterbacks' "bucket". Now if you need only two, and there are only three "qualified" quarterbacks (and assuming a high yield), you might take all three of 'em - 100% are admitted. If, on the other hand, there are 30 quarterbacks and you only need two, there will be 10% admit rate. Now, this doesn't mean that all the others get rejected. It just means that they go to the general pile for consideration. There's more gamesmanship to it than that. At Williams, my alma mater, once you have the minimum SAT/GPA, you are more likely to be "tagged" to come out of the bucket by the coach if you have a lower SAT/GPA rather than a higher one, because the coach has learned, from experience, that the higher ones have a better chance of emerging from the general pile. Now at HYP, roughly 25%+ of the student body has to come out of the athletic bucket. </p>

<p>There are lots of smaller "buckets", too. Think oboe players. The student orchestra cannot operate without two oboe players. If there are three competent oboe players, the school is likely to accept all 3 (100% admit rate). But if they accept 10 (and 8 attend), there are going to be some very, very unhappy students who came to the school expecting to play the oboe. The small Egyptology bucket might work the same - the department desperately needs a few students to justify its existence, but too many will overwhelm it.</p>

<p>Pell Grant recipients (very low income applicants) seem to occupy a bucket of their own. The number who matriculate don't seem to vary much from year to year (unless there is a new institutional mandate passed down from on high, as at Amherst). And that stands to reason. If the financial aid budget is fixed in advance (as it seems to be - the budgets change very little year over year), taking too many Pell Grantees means less money for desirable applicants in the $100-$160k family income range. Take too few, and there aren't enough to support each other, to justify support services, or to take the edge off a silver-spoon impression of the place.</p>

<p>It is not clear to me whether URM status is a bucket or a hook. The percentage of URMs does not seem to vary much year over year, which I would have thought rather surprising. But, at any rate, there seems to be a floor, and perhaps a "soft" ceiling, which would give it bucket status.</p>

<p>Hooks are something different. In a true hook, the admissions office will admit as many as they can get. Developmental admits are the prime example. If H. can get 40 families to give them $25 mil, they'll accept 40 development applicants rather than 4. The same is probably true of holders of patents, published novelists (ah-hem), sons and daughters of U.S. Senators. Fortunately for these schools, the number of these doesn't vary much year over year.</p>

<p>Legacies are somewhere between a hook and a bucket. On the one hand, accept too few legacies, and the alumni get p-i-s-s-y. Accept too many, and they can be a drag on quality. Admissions necessary to please important feeder school GCs are probably in the same category. </p>

<p>Anyhow, when you add all of these together, you quickly realize that more than half (roughly 55%) of the places are taken. Now the bucket applicants aren't immediately rejected. They go to the general pile, where SAT scores, GPAs, "character", and ability-to-pay the freight come to the fore. It doesn't mean any of those features were ignored before. And don't misunderstand me - it doesn't mean they know the income status of each individual applicant. They can be "need-blind" without being need-blind - with decades of experience behind them, the admissions folks know neighborhoods, schools, GCs, etc., and can select a class accordingly, without ever fearing breaking the budget, and coming out with a class that looks, financially speaking, the same year after year (unless there is a change in mission which doesn't emanate from the admissions office.)</p>

<p>And so they contruct a class that meets their institutional objectives. If you were them, would you do it any differently?</p>

<p>""Gee, what do we need this year -- athletically, Pell-grant-wise, etc." -- & then go hunt for those people -- whether or not such needed students are actually excellent. And then "fill" a certain number of slots and say, "Gee, we should look for excellence now.""</p>

<p>P.S. This is HARVARD - they don't have to hunt for ANYONE. (It's more interesting, and the tradeoffs more daunting, at my alma mater.)</p>

207

<p>In the mid-seventies, when my husband and I applied to college, the acceptance rate for Brown was 30%. That, of course, was back when Brown was not a "hot" school.</p>

<p>According to US News, in 1976 Univ. of Penn. accepted 60% of its applicants. And I'm positive it was a heck of a lot easier to get into Columbia then than it is now.</p>

208

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<p>Do you know any of these individuals personally? You might find their results surprising. I knew a B student in this group who was denied by the entire Ivy League. S/he ended up at a school often considered an Ivy safety.</p>

209

<p>You took me far too literally, mini. When I said "hunt," I meant AMONG THOSE APPLYING to that particularly Ivy. Nor did I limit my comments to Harvard. The discussion has evolved further than H.</p>

<p>You seem quite sure of just how this is done & how supposedly quantitatively driven it is, top-down, with "needs" coming first. I don't agree with you. No question that campus needs figure in & are deciding factors among actual candidates whose apps are in front of the committees. What an "elite" campus first needs is an outstanding student body to maintain its reputation as an elite, and a critical mass of paying customers, followed by a percentage of those paying more than just tuition. After that, the "others" figure in, but the college is not going to appreciably sacrifice its standing & reputation for the sake of a team, an orchestra, URM representation, or economic diversity. And the point of is, they don't have to. Excellence is still the standard; it is just not a stand-alone criterion.</p>

<p>Pell grants are small, mini. They are 6% of total granted aid for a full-ride student at P. And the Pell grant recipients can be brilliant. (Not needing to "support each other," LOL)</p>

210

<p>Mass Dems have just voted by a landslide for Deval Patrick as the Dem candidate for Governor. URM: he is African-American. Prep school graduate: Milton Academy. But he went there on scholarship from a poor neighborhood in Chicago. And from Milton, he went to Harvard College. It does not have to be either/or: Either URM from inner-city school or Affluent prep school grad.</p>

211

<p>">sons and daughters of U.S. Senators</p>

<p>Do you know any of these individuals personally? You might find their results surprising. "</p>

<p>The one I know went to HYP.
Then there's the Governor's kids who went to the local politico-machine-haven.</p>

<p>They all met up in an investment bank.</p>

212

<p>
[quote]
the college is not going to appreciably sacrifice its standing & reputation for the sake of a team, an orchestra, URM representation, or economic diversity.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>They most certainly do. Every year when they enroll Academic 5s and 6s for the football and ice hockey teams. All of the Ivies will go down to at least a 1250 SAT/"B" average for certain athletic recruits. In some ways, the willingness to "sacrifice" is even more apparent when they enroll an affluent high-SAT white kid who has posted a mediocre high school transcript.</p>

213

<p>ID,
Please. A few middle-stat kids do not a student body make.<br>
Or I guess we're to assume that HYP matriculants are short-changing themselves, entering such "mediocre" schools. I said the word "appreciably." I still don't buy the generalizations.</p>

<p>Or if so, I assume that schools one rung down are admitting even more numbers of "mediocre" students who apply ED, because those places need the money more than HYP. You know, slacker schools like Swat, Williams, etc.</p>

214

<p>"the college is not going to appreciably sacrifice its standing & reputation for the sake of a team, an orchestra, URM representation, or economic diversity."</p>

<p>Who's "sacrificing" anything? They are making the school more desirable, more prestigious, more alive, just plain ol' better.</p>

<p>If you want to see what a school with 70-80% valedictorians/salutatorians looks like, you should visit Reed. We have. I know - lots of folks like it, but to me (and my d's) it was extremely unattractive.</p>

<p>">sons and daughters of U.S. Senators</p>

<p>Do you know any of these individuals personally? You might find their results surprising. "</p>

<p>My alma mater had few of them. However, I did live next door for a year to the "military-industrial complex" (sons of the CIA, Sec. of Army, and two military plane and engine manufacturers), all acid-dropping icehockey players from the "best" schools, and it wasn't a pretty picture. But I would also note that they all did very well for themselves in life, as is to be expected. And I believe their education likely served them rather well, and they've contributed more back per month to alma mater than I am likely to in my lifetime.</p>

<p>I also have Biff ("Bill") Bennett stories....(his bro was a VERY good bridge player ;))</p>

215

<p>Reed has 80% valedictorians? My daughter's prom date goes to Reed -- definitely not that kind of guy. Smart, sweet, and flakier than a croissant. Probably not as driven or competitive as the bread product, though. Different color hair every time I saw him. It saddens me to think how miserable he must be if that's what Reed is like, except I think he's pretty happy there. It can't be THAT bad.</p>

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<p>mini, your earlier post certainly implied sacrifice, to me. ID's last post stated the word. I'm glad you've come to realize that talents are diverse (not just ethnicities), & that Universities are indeed enriched by a multiplicity of talents, & more particularly when those supplement academic excellence.</p>

<p>Not looking for 70-80% sals/vals. Never been interested in Reed (my D's) because of culture, orientation, location. Older D is supremely & confidently challenged where she is, at one of those sacrificing, mediocre schools now ranked #1 (because students <em>prefer</em> mediocrity, no doubt). She meets, I repeat, students from all over the globe, getting much more of a lesson in true diversity (geography, ethnicity, income, style of education) than she would in her "diverse" major metro home-town. But I will have to clue her in on how much she has "sacrificed" by matriculating there. I guess she just hasn't come to terms with that, yet -- or maybe she's just in flat-out denial.</p>

<p>(Last comments intended for the HYP bashers.)</p>

217

<p>"mini, your earlier post certainly implied sacrifice, to me. ID's last post stated the word. I'm glad you've come to realize that talents are diverse (not just ethnicities), & that Universities are indeed enriched by a multiplicity of talents, & more particularly when those supplement academic excellence."</p>

<p>I don't know how many times I have to repeat myself, but if I ran the admissions office at HYP, I would do EXACTLY what they do (really, the only major change I'd make is raising the list price a bit more rapidly than they are already.) My description of what they do should be accompanied by my great admiration at how they are able to do it. They always get the classes that meet their institutional priorities, and if that means they reject 3 out of 4 students with top SAT scores, etc., in favor of ones with lower ones, well, tough. ;)</p>

<p>"Probably not as driven or competitive as the bread product, though. Different color hair every time I saw him. It saddens me to think how miserable he must be if that's what Reed is like, except I think he's pretty happy there."</p>

<p>I'm glad he's happy! There's a school for everyone. But consider this (just as one of a dozen examples I have): the admissions office reports that 75% of Reed students played a musical instrument before coming there, but they can't put together a 30-piece orchestra. (We checked that one out very carefully, and didn't take the admissions office at their word.)</p>

218

<p>"The student orchestra cannot operate without two oboe players."</p>

<p>One of my best friends in college was perpetually oboist number 3. Very frustrating!</p>

<p>And thoughts on other posts....</p>

<p>I agree about the need to look at recentered SAT. My old scores low (700s) translate to an 800 for verbal and exactly the same for math. I don't know if I'd get into Harvard today. I was an A- to B+ student at a good prep school. </p>

<p>Oh while Harvard was officially single sex - classes have been co-ed for ages, I think the 1950s. Though back in those days women took their exams separately because Radcliffe called for unproctored exams and Harvard didn't. The houses went co-ed at about the same time Yale and Princeton did - in the early 70s.</p>

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<p>So now we've gone from "mediocre" to (i.m.o.) lower than mediocre. Harvard rejects 3 out of 4 high-scoring students "in favor of" lower-scoring ones. Again, I'm sure that's news to the H. applicants & admits. So 3/4 of their student body has sub-par stats. Definitely dishonest Common Data Sets.</p>

<p>(Yes I know rejecting 3 out of 4, like rejecting Vals, can mean an overload of high-scoring <em>applicants</em>. But you said that they were being replaced by lower-scoring ones. That does not compute & is not believable, given H's yield.) </p>

<p>It has nothing to do whether you like schools that are well-rounded & forgiving of stats. It has do with presenting statistics accurately, which I don't think you're doing.</p>

220

<p>
[quote]
Oh while Harvard was officially single sex - classes have been co-ed for ages, I think the 1950s. Though back in those days women took their exams separately because Radcliffe called for unproctored exams and Harvard didn't. The houses went co-ed at about the same time Yale and Princeton did - in the early 70s.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>But Radcliffe was much smaller than Harvard, and even after they merged admissions committees in the mid-70s, they maintained a quota of 2.5 males admitted for every female.</p>

<p>Harvard finally abandoned the gender quota for "sex-blind" admissions starting with the class that entered in fall 1976. Even so, women constituted only about one-third of the applicant pool at that point, so it took some years before entering classes approached a 50-50 balance.</p>