“Harvard doesn’t even beat out Tufts.” 
Tufts is an elite institution with an acceptance rate under 15%. Boston College’s is under 20%. You’re simply proving my point.
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all are large - so that’s part of it too - their pools to begin with will be larger. Could you run the same - but with YOY % increase?
I couldn’t find - this is as close as I could. I would assume many small schools would rise to the top - mostly, but not all elite. I mean, someone may just be on a roll 
It’s interesting - but that’s what it is - interesting.
2021 College Admissions Trends: Analyzing the Data (■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■)
Your post talked about “elite” institutions, as does the subject line of this thread. Harvard has been named specifically through both the linked article and this thread. When people on this forum talk about “elite” colleges, they generally aren’t referring to Boston College, Boston U, Tufts, and similar. As stated in my post, I selected Boston area private colleges that were a step down in selectivity from “elite” and the frequent Harvard references. If you step down another level in selectivity among private colleges in the Boston area, then you might have colleges like below.
Babson – 68% of bottom income kids became top income adults
Bentley – 61% of bottom income kids became top income adults
Harvard – 58% of bottom income kids became top income adults
Brandeis – 51% of bottom income kids became top income adults
Would you be satisfied if “elite” colleges like Bentley, Boston College, Brandeis and similar increased remote enrollment, and satellite campuses instead of Harvard?
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BTW, D&K study is going on two decades old. Here’s something more recent. Mobility Report Cards: The Role of Colleges in Intergenerational Mobility | NBER
The percentages listed are from the Chetty study you linked to above, not D&K.
I don’t doubt that the colleges with the largest application increase this year were generally selective ones with especially high test scores, for the reasons I listed in my earlier post. Continuing with the Boston private theme, the largest percent increase among Boston area private colleges were as follows. MIT led the pack by a good margin, followed by Harvard, then BC/Tufts. It doesn’t strictly follow how high the test scores were, but there is a clear correlation. MIT’s 66% increase may be the highest increase related to going test optional among all US colleges. Caltech (test blind) hasn’t published stats yet, but I wouldn’t be surprised if their application increase was higher than MIT. I am excluding Colgate’s >100% application increase since I don’t think it primarily relates to going test optional.
MIT – 66% Increase to 33k applicants
Harvard – 42% Increase to 57k applicants
Boston College - 35% Increase to 40k applicants
Tufts – 35% Increase to 31k applicants
Boston U – 24% Increase to 76k applicants
Northeastern – 17% Increase to 75k applicants
The Northeastern story - from 20 years ago to today - is simply AMAZING. While they may not get the national attention, their “selectivity” is pretty insane.
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I didn’t read all 99 pages. What controls did they use? I would certainly expect more upward mobility for the lowest quartile income students at an elite school vs. other schools. They only let upper tier students in regardless of their socioeconomic status. Other schools let students with lower grades and test scores in. Unless this is factored for in the study, it just confirms what D&K said. The cake is baked in HS.
There was not a regression analysis or controls. Instead they looked up tax report earnings and reported percentages of students/parents with different income groupings… The colleges with the largest portion of lower income students who became wealthy adults tended to be ones with a large portion of students entering high paying fields or ones with a small and inaccurate sample size. The top 10 among 4-year colleges were:
- St. Louis Pharmacy – 92% of low income kids are wealthy adults
- MA Pharmacy – 91% of low income kids are wealthy adults
- Albany Pharmacy – 85% of low income kids are wealthy adults
- CA Maritime – 85% of low income kids are wealthy adults
- Rose Hulman – 78% of low income kids are wealthy adults
- Kettering – 75% of low income kids are wealthy adults
- Harvey Mudd – 74% of low income kids are wealthy adults
- CMC – 68% of low income kids are wealthy adults
- Babson-- 68% of low income kids are wealthy adults
- WPI – 68% of low income kids are wealthy adults
Among Ivy Plus colleges, the range was 67% for MIT (highest) down to 45% for Chicago (lowest).
Among highly selective private non-LAC colleges, the range was 78% for Rose-Hulman (highest) down to 40% for Miami (lowest)
Rather than low income kids needing to go to Harvard or similar “elite” to get high earnings, I think the bigger message is low income kids who apply to and attend selective colleges are a unique group that share different characteristics form typical low income students. A large portion of this unique group tend to be wealthy adults, whether they attend “elite” or non-elite selective private colleges. The percentage who become wealthy adults tends to be highest at colleges where a large portion of students choose to enter fields associated with higher salaries, such as tech. There is also a correlation between future income and being a high academically achieving student (selectivity of college), as well as the college being located in a high cost of living region. I see nothing to suggest the Harvard or similar “elite” college name is important.
Also note that the author’s definition of “elite” colleges includes colleges like Lafayette (59% low income become wealthy), Villanova (58% low income become wealthy), and college of NJ (50% of low income become wealthy)… not just Ivy Plus colleges.
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BC and Tufts are definitely seen as elite in the real world. BU too in many circles. Also Babson.
Pretty certain D & K also consider them elite. CC isn’t the real world.
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“I would certainly expect more upward mobility for the lowest quartile income students at an elite school vs. other schools. They only let upper tier students in regardless of their socioeconomic status.” My point is there are many more such “upper tier” students who could benefit from an education at an “elite” school, however you want to define that. (And if others want to argue until they are blue in the face that Villanova is a crap school, they’re free to so.) Dare I suggest there are some CC posters who worry their kid’s Harvard degree will somehow lose its magic power if the school’s 3% acceptance rate grows? That perhaps some of them are racists and classists who would rather exclude that include?
I think what Data10 shows is focus gets you results. Pharmacy - all graduate making six figures. Rose Hulman - only Engineering. Well mainly. Harvard - you have your humanities mixed in.
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“The cake is baked in HS.” Not necessarily. https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/us/politics/college-admissions-poor-students.html
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This.
You referred to the D&K study as evidence that elite schools should not expand their enrollment.
I don’t know whether or not elite schools should expand capacity, but I do think it would be nice if their classes looked a little more like our country as a whole and a little less like the clientele at your local Whole Foods. That being said, the hyper focus on these schools (which educate a minuscule number of our college students) is misplaced. It helps perpetuate the idea that there are only 50 or so colleges in the country that are worth attending – when that isn’t true at all. For all the talk of “prodigies” and being among your “intellectual peers”, it seems like these days elite schools are mainly focused on churning out our next generation of financiers and “consultants” instead of thinkers and intellectuals.
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This was a badly written article. Here is a relevant quote that suggests that the students in this program are qualified.
The suggestion is that passing means qualified to attend. But this was clearly written by a journalist who doesn’t get just how easy it is to pass at Harvard or Yale. As my nephew who graduated from Yale said, “It can be hard to get an A, but it’s much harder to get a C”. And given that the article later says that only 63% got a B or higher, this student pool would be concentrated at the very bottom if they were actually admitted.
The Ivy League colleges are not all alike even though some students think so. But Harvard and Yale are similar in one way: If your entire goal is to graduate from either of them, you really don’t need much more than a pulse. Both of them allow you to take as easy of a path to graduation as you could want.
But I also know that Harvard also has classes for the most advanced math and physics students in the country (and likely other topics). In other words, I think that both universities made a choice to allow students to focus their energies on areas where they are particularly strong and allow them to coast in other areas. They decided this approach works for them.
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How can these schools expand? Enroll more commuters? For many of these schools, there’s limited space to expand. They could establish satellite campuses with separate faculty and staff, but then they will likely be viewed as different colleges.
Online degrees through HES. 
You can argue that they’re already expanding that way. HES online. LPS online. There are a few others.
In any case, while they haven’t expanded their undergrad programs that much, it seems like they have expanded graduate programs tremendously (looking at you, Columbia).
It seems pretty clear to me that strong students do well no matter where they go. The “students need ‘elite’ schools to thrive” argument is simply an illusion based on the fact that they have an inordinately high proportion of already highly functioning students versus less selective schools.
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