@exlibris97
"This is a common theme among highly competitive colleges, especially those with good financial aid programs. People are applying to vastly more universities than in the past. "
That’s not it. It may be part of the explanation but the common app has been around for a while now and, yet, this trend continues. The real reason is the flood of international students. That continues to grow. Also, we are seeing a growing number of kids who are the children of the previous generation of international students. A high percentage of those parents are tiger parents and they have prepped and pushed their kids to apply to the most competitive schools. So that explains the increasing number of applicants (99.8% correlation, by the way…I have the data). On top of that, there are Asian special interest groups suing colleges now, the most famous being Harvard. That will increase the acceptance rate, out of fear, for that group and further drive down the acceptance rates for other groups. This is the elephant in the room that no one wants to talk about. The consequence is that mental health issues among high school and college kids is also rapidly on the rise. Another consequence is that it is actually hurting diversity.
I’m not sure that most high school seniors are explicitly looking at this decision as a liberal arts vs research university decision. My daughter looked at each school as it’s own entity, independent of such labels, and tried to decide if she could be happy at each school she visited. She did decide that the UC’s were too large and did not apply to any of them. I think Wash U was the largest school she applied to, but she didn’t really even consider it when she got in, with Pomona far ahead on the list in her mind. She did not really consider the other LAC’s to which she gained admission either, because she thought they were just too small and quiet.
The fact of the matter is that most kids at Pomona were also looking at Stanford and the Ivies, and probably a couple of other LAC’s. I have spoken to many other Pomona parents. A common theme is “didn’t get into Stanford, Pomona was second choice, Pomona turned out to be better for my kid than Stanford would have been.” I think I have heard this 30 times. The other most common refrain is “fell in love with Pomona unexpectedly on a tour, applied early and did not apply anywhere else, even though the intention was to apply to Stanford and/or the Ivies.” The fact of the matter is that in the kids’ eyes, and in their parents’ eyes, the competition for Pomona is not the East Coast LAC group. It is Stanford and the Ivies, so the comparisons with those schools are valid and will continue to be made. There are now 9 kids from my daughter’s high school at Pomona (there are only 90 per class at the high school) and the stories from those families are pretty much in line with those two scenarios as well.
Agree my daughter was WL at Harvard but didn’t pursue it as she had fallen in love with Pomona. The students in her class (5) who were admitted to Pomona were choosing between Harvard, Yale and Pomona. 3 out of the 5 chose Pomona and 2 chose Yale. I do think however that top students from California are choosing between Stanford, Pomona, ivies, Cal and UCLA. Both my students got into UCLA which was a draw but they were afraid they wouldn’t get their classes without the Regents. One ended up going to Cal with a Regents. Both might consider Stanford for grad school. But both are very happy with their choices. One chose Cal and the other Pomona. The one at Cal ended up in a class of 300 at Haas, so both ended up in tight knit communities. The Cal student found research opps during her summers at Wellesley College. The Pomona student got a SERP. So both have been able to do research as undergrads.
@NotPeeCee I was intrigued by your comment, and the suggestion that international students are the cause of increasing applications, and so called Harvard and Columbia (I selected them as they are known to have significant numbers of international students). What was interesting is both reported that the number of international students admitted and enrolled has remained very steady over the past decade, averaging ~ 11%. Both universities maintain that the number of international students enrolled has not increased that much, while their acceptance rate has declined.
What was interesting is that Harvard and Columbia reported a significant increase in the number of “dual nationals” applying and attending these universities. These are students who hold US and another citizenship. Indeed, several articles have appeared in the British press alleging that Harvard, Columbia and Yale’s “international admissions” statistics are misleading since the majority of students admitted from the UK are either US citizens or dual citizens.
I’m also not at all surprised that universities are seeking international students as they add an important dimension to the student body. And for all but the handful of very wealthy universities that offer substantial FA to them, international students are a great source of revenue, with US universities competing with British ones to lure these “assets”.