<p>The absolute number of U.S. 18-year olds will increase every year until 2009, when it will start to go down. You can look this up because, obviously, these kids have already been born. Assuming the same percentage applies to college each year, admissions will get tougher before they get easier.</p>
<p>The only thing I found interesting about this article was that I would imagine that Bowdoin would be groaning to be thrown into the same category as Pitzer!</p>
<p>At many schools measures of student academic potential...namely SATs....have grown along with selectivity. Some examples:</p>
<p>MIDDLEBURY
1999 admit rate/SAT (m+v): 30%/1328 (mean)
2006 admit rate/SAT (m+v): 24%/1364 (mean)
<a href="http://www.middlebury.edu/NR/rdonlyres/7263728D-2A5D-4E85-8954-8DC88A58BCF2/0/admissions06.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.middlebury.edu/NR/rdonlyres/7263728D-2A5D-4E85-8954-8DC88A58BCF2/0/admissions06.pdf</a></p>
<p>BOWDOIN
1999 admit rate/SAT (m+v): 30.4%/1340 (median)
2006 admit rate/SAT (m+v): 21.6%/1400 (median)
<a href="http://academic.bowdoin.edu/ir/data/admissions.shtml%5B/url%5D">http://academic.bowdoin.edu/ir/data/admissions.shtml</a></p>
<p>TUFTS
1999 admit rate/SAT (m+v): 32%/1331 (mean)
2006 admit rate/SAT (m+v): 27%/1405 (mean)
<a href="http://www.tufts.edu/ir/FACTBOOK20032004.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.tufts.edu/ir/FACTBOOK20032004.pdf</a>
<a href="http://www.tufts.edu/ir/FactBook20042005.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.tufts.edu/ir/FactBook20042005.pdf</a>
<a href="http://www.tufts.edu/ir/FactBook0607Abridged.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.tufts.edu/ir/FactBook0607Abridged.pdf</a></p>
<p>WILLIAMS
1999 admit rate/SAT (m+v): 23.1%/1410 (avg of 25%-75% ranges)
2006 admit rate/SAT (m+v): 19.1%/1420 (avg of 25%-75% ranges)
<a href="http://www.williams.edu/admin/provost/ir/2000cds_admission.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.williams.edu/admin/provost/ir/2000cds_admission.htm</a>
<a href="http://www.williams.edu/admin/provost/ir/CDS2006_2007.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.williams.edu/admin/provost/ir/CDS2006_2007.pdf</a></p>
<p>BOSTON COLLEGE
1999 admit rate/SAT (m+v): 35%/1285 (avg of 25%-75% ranges)
2006 admit rate/SAT (m+v): 29%/1320 (avg of 25%-75% ranges)
<a href="http://www.bc.edu/publications/factbook/meta-elements/pdf/06-07/06-07_freshman_admission.pdf%5B/url%5D">http://www.bc.edu/publications/factbook/meta-elements/pdf/06-07/06-07_freshman_admission.pdf</a></p>
<p>So, my question is: has the academic experience improved in any way (classroom to late-night peer banter) at colleges or universities that have seen steady & substantial increases in freshman student SAT scores?</p>
<p>Caveats...of course one could argue that some of these SAT increases are artificial due to an increase of the use of prep classes, but some of these SAT increases are pretty darned big. (& Bowdoin going SAT optional might cause an apparent SAT increase as well.) Also, SATs are certainly not the end-all as a metric of academic potential, as we all know, but its a convenient metric for this type of cross-institutional comparison nevertheless.</p>
<p>decided to post the question in my prior post as a separate thread:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=327309%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/showthread.php?t=327309</a></p>
<p>
[quote]
And the colleges don't get one bit better as a result of the year-over-year changes.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, that depends on whether you think higher scoring students bring more to the table and elevate the level of discourse in the classroom. I also think grading systems could change in response to the student body. If you have more grade grubbing high SAT scoring kids (to use a stereotype) in your class, you might change the number of As you give out, or you might start assigning more or different work to try to distinguish among the students. Or you might just give them all As. (A la Harvard.)</p>
<p>I appreciated Calmom's comment about the vitality and diversity of a particular campus. She expressed something that has crossed my mind several times. My thought was if colleges become increasingly grade and score driven is it at the expense of a diversity of thought, action and society? Yes, we read that the schools focus on ECs but in my reading even that seems to becoming prescriptive to some degree.</p>
<p>The article is curious using Bowdoin as an example because as others have stated, Bowdoin has been highly ranked and admission has been highly competitive for many years. </p>
<p>2007 admission rate 18.3%</p>
<p>Bowdoin Ranking US News and World Report Past 10 years.
1997 and 1998 (#8), 1999(#9), 2000 (#6), 2001 (#5), 2002 (#6),
2003 (#10), 2004 (# 7), 2005 and 2006 (# 6) and 2007 (#7).</p>
<p>Along the same lines, I'd like to cross-post something that was written by ahimsa - a Barnard alum and parent of a current student- in another thread:
[quote]
I have to say, too, that Columbia College students today are a far cry from the guys I remember from the 80s when NYC was still dangerous and Columbia not as "hot." Valedictorians went to HYP, not Columbia, unless they were renegades. We all prized our eccentricities, no one bragged about their GPAs, college pride was declasse. Smart, offbeat, ironic, odd people. Columbia by virtue of NYC still attracts some of these types (at the risk of generalizing), but the campus feels so much more traditionally Ivy League to me now in both good and bad ways.
[/quote]
<p>Of course, times have changed as well -- but I know when I read that post, I thought my d. would have been more at home at the campus of the 80's. From the limited exposure I get through my daughter's reports and my one, short visit -- I get the sense of a very driven, serious student body. I'm wondering if the kids who are smart but also able to relax and have fun are being squeezed out by the current climate of competitive admission practices.</p>
<p>
[quote]
We all prized our eccentricities, no one bragged about their GPAs, college pride was declasse. Smart, offbeat, ironic, odd people.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>So which schools today are the Tufts/Columbia/good-but-not Ivy of yesteryear, where "kids are smart but also able to relax and have fun"?</p>
<p>FYI, Bowdoin hasn't recently gone "SAT Optional." It has been SAT optional since 1969. The USNews rankings were never the reason to drop the SAT requirement.</p>
<p>Mathmom: Maybe Harvard used to give all A's back in the day. It's not all that easy to get an A now. I believe that most of the Harvard parents on this board would verify that.</p>
<p>Totally agree with twinmom.
I'm not sure how easy it was even then to get As, though A-s were easier. When the first discussions of Harvard grading surfaced, in the late 1990s, they were about honors (easily fixed by raising the grade level required for honors without changing grading practices). If I recall my own research into this matter, Harvard's average GPA was actually a tiny bit lower than Princeton and on a part with a lot of other top schools. </p>
<p>Perhaps Princeton parents can chime in. Is the 35% cap on As at Princeton just for As or for a combination of As and A-s?</p>