<p>Their should be a well defined % of the following (say 20%)
1. Legacies
2. Atheletes
3. URM
and universities should increase intake by that % ( say 20%) to help the general admission students.</p>
<p>It is becoming insane looking at the college admission this year.
< 10% at most of the top Universities.</p>
<p>It is causing not only stress to prospective student but their immediate families.</p>
<p>Universities sitting on Millions of dollors of endownment should use the money to increase the student intake.</p>
<p>Point is if the universities uses 40% of its students intake using the special status (legacy, atheletes, URM) then these univerisities should increase their student intake by at least 40% to not affect general admissions.</p>
<p>100% of the present student intake should be assigned failry without any consideration of Legacies, URM or Atheletic status.
If Universities need to accomodate these special quotas then they should increase their intake by that much %.</p>
<p>There will never be any hue and cry over admissions then.</p>
<p>I disagree. By doing so, it will dilute the overall quality of education. Look at school like michigan, Texas, and nyu, can they really afford to add 15k students?</p>
<p>What do you mean by diluting? That means Universities has the right to use 40% of intake for special quotas.
This will discourage them to reduce the special admissions to 5 - 10%.</p>
<p>The Ivys have no reason to increase the size of their student bodies. Why would they want to do that? The fewer percentage of students that they admit increases their cache. Part of the reason that everyone wants to go there is that getting in when they only accept 10% MUST make you special. (sarcasm...) </p>
<p>The fact is, that increasing the population by 20% will change the atmosphere of the schools and they have no incentive to do so. As far as URMs, legacies, and athletes go, the schools have figured out what they want in these areas are going to choose accordingly. The Ivy League schools are PRIVATE. They can do what they like. They will make choices that they feel are in the best insterest of each institution. They are all doing quite well so obviously they are making good choices. Their schools are thriving.</p>
<p>Colleges won't do any of this because it means they lose donations. Alumni donations increases USNWR rank for two reasons because % of alumni donating and endowment are both considered. </p>
<p>Also, at my Ivy, housing is not guaranteed for all 4 years, so increasing the enrollment will further decrease my ability to live on campus all 4 years if I wish to do so.</p>
<p>Well without legacies, where would the "top universities" get their large donations from (through which they fund the education of low-income students).</p>
<p>This is just a result of Echo Baby Boom (which will apparently end in 2011, Great I'll be applying in 2010 - The Most Selective Year Eva!)</p>
<p>Edit: Venkat beat me to it, but I swear I was typing before he posted!</p>
<p>Sure SweetLax88, I'm not stating that universities should not take special interests students. They should but they need to be responsible what is true 40 years back doesn't hold true now.</p>
<p>40 years back you have less students applying a minority of these were Legacy or Atheletes or URM.
Now these universities can chooses almost entirely from the special quotas students as there are that many special quotas students so the number of these special quotas student have ever been increasing.</p>
<p>There should be a limit to these students. I've no problem if these universities come clean and tell the world that they will admit 20% of such students and then stick to it.</p>
<p>These are private but are exploiting us only. They charge a lot of tuition but are not ready to fund increase capacity. </p>
<p>Why cann't these Universities fund additional specific target colleges like
F.W. Olin, I don't think any student will feel any issue getting rejected from Ivies if they get into F.W. Olin which is fully paid.</p>
<p>QUOTE:
"They charge a lot of tuition but are not ready to fund increase capacity. "</p>
<p>You bet they're not ready. They are not going to increase their capacity to the standard desired by the public, because that will increase the size of the most desired institutions by 2 to 3 times. One of the features that families pay high tuition for is that of a manageably sized campus and an attractive professor to student ratio.</p>
Exactly. They're tickled to death about the low acceptance rates. If I had a penny for every time I've heard someone say college A is better because it's more selective...</p>
<p>ParentofIvyHope - Why should the colleges limit their admission of special populations? They need to do what is working for the INSTITUTION. They are not going to admit students for whom there is a high probability of failure. They may admit students with lower stats than rejected students, but if those students flunk out, it doesn't help the institution. They have a pretty good idea of which students are going to be successful and which aren't. The problem that you are having is that there are many students who could be successful at a highly elite institution and not enough spaces for all those students. </p>
<p>"These are private but are exploiting us only. They charge a lot of tuition but are not ready to fund increase capacity. "</p>
<p>They aren't exploiting you at all. You are only being exploited if you choose to participate. You don't have to donate to the schools. You don't have to apply to the schools. You can completely ignore the schools. And my guess is that if your child gets admitted you will gladly shell out the tuition and feel grand that YOUR child got admitted and not expect them to increase capacity for the dollars that you are paying.</p>
<p>The fact is, there are many excellent schools in the US that provide a wonderful education. However, the perception is that the best education is only provided by an elite few. The elite few like this perception and have no incentive to change it. As long as you have this perception it will drive you crazy that your child might not get admitted. Once you begin to realize that this perception is not particularly accurate, you can take a deep breath and start looking at schools that will provide an excellent education while still admitting more than 10% of their applicants.</p>
<p>Shennie - I do agree that the elite univs have no intention of changing and actually enjoy the situation.</p>
<p>We can make a change by bycotting the admissions all together but slah!! I won't be able to take that decision too for my child.</p>
<p>I think we might have to go on living under this stress till the admissions results are out and the child is not in. Then we will accept that there are other good colleges too. </p>
<p>Till that time we will hope (including myself) that the child will get into these colleges how difficult it might be.</p>
<p>I just tasted a rejection from Caltech YESS summer program where my child applied and didn't get accepted as they had 450 applications for 30 intake and the program is ment for URM leaving only 5 seats for general admission.</p>
<p>But I still had hope it might happen but it didn't and I may have to face the same come 2009 regarding the Ivies admission. Still I've hope and the child is working hard to make it happen. Will it happen??? may or maynot.</p>
<p>The only thing that will bother me in the end that the my child childhood was made unnecessary tough by the dubious standard of success.</p>
<p>ParentOfIvyHope: I can understand the sentiments that lie behind your unhappiness with the system but I think your solution is misguided, to be honest. But the frenzy of ultra selective admissions is IMHO mostly due to the purchasers (applicants and their families) much more than the sellers (HYPS, etc.). Is it Yale's fault that about 8 out of 10 Presidential candidates graduated there? It's not as if they and the others have gone on overdrive these last five years in advertising and recruiting. But the "college as upward mobility commodity" mentality has taken hold and isn't going away soon (see the College Rankings Revolt). Like lemmings over the cliff, everyone is applying to HYPS as their "reach" school -- further making the admit rate infintessimal. But whose fault is that? It's not as if the schools can arbitrarily decide to open up an extra 100 slots. (Yale is looking to seriously at expansion however, I know).</p>
<p>You mention quotas about URMs, legacies and atheletes. Well they tacitly already exist. </p>
<p>Given that it's a zero sum game, which ever you wish to increase, there's another voice telling the admissions director that the category should decrease.</p>
<p>YOu think they enjoy this? Many of them are the leading voices in striking down this rankings obsession because they are in the uneviable situation of declining many 1000s of great kids. In the past, their student bodies were just as great but there was less blood on the floor the day after decisions were mailed. I personally hate it. I recruit for Yale. I tell college night audiences that I'm honored to be speaking to kids that I'm relatively confident will have four great years ahead of them -- that it's 99% likely that whatever college they will attend, that it will challenge them and mature them.. The looks I get back form the audience? "Yeah, yeah. Hurry up and tell me how my S/D can get the upper hand at applying to your doggone school!"</p>
<p>T26E4: I do understand but cann't help it as you yourself said 8 outof 10 presidential candidates graduated at Yale and so do the Silicon Valley CEO that comes from Stanford.</p>
<p>It is this statistics only that generate passion to attend these schools.</p>
<p>I understand this frenzy is not good but do you think we can just let our child lay back and goto community college.</p>
<p>I strongly feel that children who works to get into these colleges and couldn't make are the ones who go to other college and shine in their future giving us statistics that children from other colleges also make it big but the fact remains that these children are those who actually worked hard for these elite colleges but couldn't make it but since these children have very strong base they do succeed in life from other colleges too.</p>
<p>so I don't think we are making our children childhood miserable as if they don't make it to Ivies they still be so prepared that they will outshine at other colleges.</p>
<p>Not all children are as smart, capable, or even hard working as other children. Why should these undergrad institutions increase their intake just for the sake of making people feel good? What's next, top companies hiring large pools just to make people feel good?</p>
<p>Sorry, but when you want the best, you have to compete. Limited resources means limited consumption. That's just how it is.</p>
<p>IvyHope- You and your child prodigy need to take a serious look at some other schools. Your Ivy fixation is just WRONG. Check out Oklahoma State, Arkansas or some other state schools. You'll be lucky if your kid even MAKES it to college with the pressure and prestige-hunting coming from you.</p>