Selectivity in College Admissions in the past

Applying to College
1

<p>I was wondering if anyone had any information about how hard it was to get into elite colleges maybe 20-40 years ago, and how much it has changed.</p>

<p>I have heard a lot on this forum about how (especially recently) elite colleges have become dramatically more selective. Especially at Stanford, which was risen in prestige over the past half-century or so, or so I'm told. Anyway, I was wondering if anybody has some concrete statistics, or articles or anything like that about this trend. I hear a remarkable number of people talk about it in passing but few people mention anything specific or at length. My specific motivations for this are that a girl I know has been bragging about her legacy status at Stanford, and another guy has been trying to use his father's Harvard acceptance to prove his intelligence. All of these admissions were 30-40 years ago. When I went to remind them of how petty this is, especially in light of the relative ease of admission back then, I thought, well, I can't really back that statement up. The ease of admissions that is, the pettiness is obvious :). Anyway, I'd love to see any information anybody has, even if it is just a personal story for the parents out there.</p>

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<p>About 25 years ago, HYP had accept rates about 15-16%. The reason why their admit rate has halved is due to the insane upswing in applications for the same number of slots as 25 years ago. Relative ease? These were still the lowest admit rates of that generation. But people only applied to 5-6 schools max in general. And there were fewer international applicants too.</p>

3

<p>Here is an indirect indicator:</p>

<p>At Berkeley around 25 years ago, more than half of the entering freshman class was placed into remedial English composition courses (to avoid that, one had to get a high enough score on the English Achievement Test, AP English test, or a school-administered writing test – current criteria here: <a href=“http://writing.berkeley.edu/about-us/frequently-asked-questions#3[/url]”>http://writing.berkeley.edu/about-us/frequently-asked-questions#3&lt;/a&gt; ). Now, less than 10% of the entering freshman class is placed into remedial English composition courses.</p>

<p>You can probably find some information about the UC schools from [University</a> of California: StatFinder](<a href=“http://statfinder.ucop.edu%5DUniversity”>http://statfinder.ucop.edu) , but it may not go back far enough for what you want.</p>

4

<p>Good question, I will follow this thread. A common topic among parents in our neighborhood is how many of us realize that, as members of a previous generation, we may not be admitted now to the same schools we graduated from under today’s criteria. This is a very supportive and honest group and I am repeatedly floored by how many good kids with strong apps do not gain admission to their parents’ alma maters, so I agree with OP’s legacy observation.</p>

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<p>Just read this article, talks about how increase in applications has made schools more selective. Kind of obvious, but it goes into some causes for that increase that I thought were interesting. [More</a> College Applications Means Rising Selectivity - Room for Debate - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2010/09/12/why-are-colleges-so-selective/more-college-applications-means-rising-selectivity]More”>More College Applications Means Rising Selectivity - NYTimes.com)</p>

6

<p>In the past, students applied to fewer schools, and even the most famous ones did not have much geographical or socioeconomical diversity in the applicant pool. One thing that changed this was the College Board’s “Student Search” program that started up in the early '70s. At that time, the Viet Nam war was winding down which meant that the draft was also winding down so many marginal students who went to college as a way of avoiding the draft for a while were not choosing college over other options, and there was an impending drop in the number of high school graduates. The college admissions officers could look at those demographics and knew that they would have to cast a much wider net just to keep their classes full. Some signed up for the “Student Search” program and bought the names and addresses of students with scores in a certain range from parts of the country that they had had few students from before. Some came up with other marketing schemes, or educational models, some colleges simply collapsed because they couldn’t find enough students.</p>

<p>Eventually, of course, the numbers of applicants began to increase again, but by that time the marketing machines were up and running, and many colleges and universities had developed a national draw. Which of course contribute to the difficulties faced by current applicants.</p>

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<p>Basically, because of a number of factors (e.g., population growth, increased number of non-US students, increased financial aid making top schools feasible for a larger segment of the population, et al), the college population has doubled in the past 25 years, while the number of slots at most of the top schools has remained constant. So if we’re talking HYPSM it is somewhat more selective. </p>

<p>However, the group of schools that is perhaps lower ranked than these but that clearly are considered ‘top tier’ has also expanded somewhat. So, these things even out.</p>