Laughing at how many people are mentioning Wash U. At the time I went (class of '90) half of the students there were from the Midwest and it was their top choice, but the other half were East Coasters who were rejected from Harvard and Cornell and bitter about being stuck in St Louis for 4 years ;-).
Old fashioned 1— you are too funny! All my smart friends from California said USC was so easy to get into in the eighties. They all went to Cal and UcLA. Now they have kids and find it hard to come to terms with the fact that USC is a powerhouse. They all said they didn’t want their kids going there. Well, one such friend is eating crow as his son is attending. I will tell you that I know three east coast kids who spent the summer at UCLA and toured USC for an hour. They all applied to USC and not UCLA. My own daughter also toured both schools, only wanted to apply to USC.
I’m with the other Californians who didn’t realize just how selective Cal Poly SLO had gotten.
Even UCLA… I went to Berkeley for grad school and of course we looked down our noses at UCLA. My friend with older kids than mine had 2 of them get into UCLA and I thought, “oh, that’s nice (but it isn’t Berkeley!)”. LOL. Now I know… even UC Davis is hard to get into now.
And then there were my neighbors… their kids went to schools like San Jose State and San Diego State and clueless me thought they really had set their sights pretty low.
Oh, I forgot about USC! My school seems to be a feeder school for USC (something like 40% of kids who apply are accepted), so I had no idea how selective it really is until I discovered CC :-). It’s a wonderful school, and getting better as time goes on.
@washugrad yep, that’s why I turned it down. Of course the landscape of college admission is much harder now. Students are reaching out beyond their backyards. If I were doing it now I doubt I would get in anywhere, def not with scholarships!
Oh my gosh. I grew up and lived for a long time in the northeast, and now that my older kid is a junior I’m finally educating myself about colleges out here in California. I never heard of the Claremont McKenna colleges, for example, and thought the fact that there was a school called Harvey Mudd was ridiculous. As in, how hard could it be to get into some school called “Mudd.” …I have since learned. Very hard.
@ChasingMerit, back in my day UCSD was the ‘egghead school’ - in many ways more so than Berkeley or UCLA. I think the administration really wanted it to be an academic powerhouse rather than “beach bunny central” and made it a demanding school.
And wasn’t USC The University of Spoiled Children? and University of Dollars and Cents?
Remember, admission rates are not the most reliable indicator of selectivity. The strength of applicant and admit pools matters. Admission rate for a given level of HS GPA, test scores, etc. would be more informative when assessing chances for a given student, but that does not account for subjectively graded stuff like essays, and such information may not be available for different majors or divisions that may have different levels of selectivity.
As has been said Northeastern seems like they went from a commuter school to one fixated on gaming the rankings.
And for some it worked.
My wife and I lived in San Luis Obispo before kids so I know quite a bit about Cal Poly. But I was floored this week when I started researching Architecture programs for my junior daughter…Cal Poly is the best of the best.
Not all that long ago, Ga Tech was a safety school for many. Now it’s a reach for many.
^ @Ruby789 in Post #6:
" Rice: My high school boyfriend got in there so it can’t be too selective right? Wrong! "
But he was smart to select you! Right? 
CMU cares a great deal about demonstrated interest. Lack of it is the most likely reason for rejection.
When I went to HS in the 80s - anyone with a diploma from an OH HS could go to Ohio State (I refuse to use the THE - drives me nuts) It is hardly elite now, but it is WAY more selective now. I am a HS teacher, and it’s a top choice for many of my students. I have to remind myself to be pleased when they get accepted rather than say “.and…”
“it is WAY more selective now”
I was pretty blown away on my visit. This is not the OSU of the 80s, that’s for sure. They’re way ahead of a lot of flagships by housing everybody for two years.
Yep. It may be a tendency by the legislature to build up the flagship.
Back when tOSU was open-admissions, UCincy, MiamiU, and a bunch of the other OH regionals were considered to be stronger or at least as strong as tOSU academically. On a relative basis, tOSU has definitely risen vs. the other OH publics.
@lostaccount made a very good point about gaming the rankings, BTW.
Simply put, some schools don’t game so hard and some school go all-out in gaming the rankings.
That’s why I prefer tiering by the percentage of alums who are successful in various areas:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1893105-ivy-equivalents-ranking-based-on-alumni-outcomes-take-2-1.html
I know someone who went to CMU’s summer pre-college program two years in a row and was denied Early Decision from computer science. Regular decision, he got into electrical engineering. If you want to talk about demonstrated interest, that’s as good as it can get.
True story: I thought Beloit was a community college up until 2 years ago.
Oops; sorry, Beloit.
I’d heard of it because I live less than an hour away…
Someone told me to take D up there to see it, and I’m like “Beloit’s a 4-year college?” And then I saw it in CTCL!