<p>With schools like Harvard, Columbia, etc. now accepting fewer than one out of ten applicants, there's a perception that getting into a good college is tougher than ever. While it's true that at a small number of schools the number of applicants for the same number of slots keeps rising, these schools are the exception: </p>
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A small number of colleges have become much more competitive over recent decades, according to Caroline M. Hoxby, an economist at Stanford University. But her study -- published by the National Bureau of Economic Research -- finds that as many as half of colleges have become substantially less competitive over time. </p>
<p>The key shift in college admissions isn't increased competitiveness, Hoxby writes. Rather, both trends are explained by an increased willingness by students generally, and especially the best students, to attend colleges that aren't near where they grew up. This shift increased the applicant pool for some colleges but cut it for others.</p>
<p>"Typical college-going students in the U.S. should be unconcerned about rising selectivity. If anything, they should be concerned about falling selectivity, the phenomenon they will actually experience," Hoxby writes.
<p>Great post. Question: is it even more difficult to get into HYP now than it used to be??</p>
<p>A persistent, though perhaps dumb, question I can’t figure out is: The admissions rate at HYP etc may always be going down, but has the selectivity rate gone way up at the same time? In the past 15 years has the quantitative “quality” of admitted students at HYP-etc gone up relatively as far as the admit rate has gone down?</p>
<p>And if it’s no more difficult today to get accepted at Yale or wherever than it was 15 years ago, why all the angst?</p>
I think it has, although I’m not entirely sure that “quantitative” is the right word. I’m not sure the grades and scores of admitted students at HYP are that much higher than in the past, but I think that the overall achievement levels of these students has increased. In part, I think this is just because of the increasingly national (and international) reach of the applicant pool.</p>
<p>i think the average applicant has dramatically better stats than our predecessors. i was talking to my parents and they thought an sat in the 1200’s was good when they went to school, and people didn’t study for them either. i outdid my dad by 200+ points on the sat reading/math and it’s still just ok. at this point anything outside 1550+ is pretty good at best. now there are also ap tests and it’s not uncommon for people to enter college with half an associate’s degree or even half a bachelor’s at this point. the fact that most colleges have become less selective doesn’t really mean anything because most students want to go to the top schools anyway. it’s great that i can have a bunch more safeties, but the acceptance rate for most places i’m applying has gone down.</p>
<p>First, the SAT has been ‘dumbed-down’ twice since your dad took it. So your score versus his amounts to ‘apples and oranges.’ </p>
<p>As far as the “Most Colleges LESS Selective, Not More” standpoint … MOST schools don’t matter (when the subject is selectivity). So, going any deeper into it is pointless. That said, because of the common app, kids are applying to more schools. This can give the appearance that a school is less selective, when in fact a student never was going to go there and only did the application because he/she could do it quickly and easily.</p>
<p>My observation doesn’t really have much to do with grades and scores, but rather with what portion of students admitted to the most selective schools are “superachievers” compared to 30 years ago when I attended college. I think more of them are.</p>
<p>To me “superachiever” is a misnomer if the only thing they have achieved are awards and the like. Plus we’ve become a society where awards are given out for just participating in a baseball league. Certainly, magnet sites like this allow for the ‘super-dweeb’ to have found his people. We had the same kids 30 years ago, they just were spread out with no Internet web sites to draw them together and make it appear like there are more of them then they really are.</p>
<p>ctyankee-- please elaborate on your statement that ‘the SAT has been dumbed down twice’ in the past. I’m asking from a vantagepoint of curiosity-- what has actually been done to the SAT, and how do you know?
Thanks.</p>
<p>Years ago it was about the grades and the scores. Now it has become more and more about the grades with more and more schools (e.g. Bowdoin) going S.A.T. optional. </p>
<p>I will agree that window-dressing is up. Three sports are better than one. Five school clubs are better than two. Creating a charity versus helping an existing charity one-ups the game. The net-net being that kids are now mediocre in three sports versus more skilled in one. I love the parents that report with pride across their faces how they have been driving their kids from one activity to the next activity. </p>
<p>Yes, expectations (of a sort) are up. Results are not. </p>
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<p>Sure. This should help. The test has been ‘recentered’ multiple times as well as changes to what the test contains. </p>
<p>I’m not buying that study one bit. None of these are considered elite schools and they are all more selective than ever.</p>
<p>University of Florida
University of Central Florida
University of South Florida
University of Alabama
Auburn University
Florida State University</p>
<p>Lets see, every school my child has considered is more selective than ever…That’s 100%</p>
<p>I can tell you that when your parents and I took the SAT it was a very different test than it is now, although I also can attest to your parents memory of how the SAT was regarded. A score over 1300 was very impressive and I don’t know anyone who studied for it. My husband, who apparently was a little wild in high school, had a hangover when he took the SAT and scored in the high 1300’s. He and I only took it once, as did all of our friends, and I don’t remember anyone talking about prepping for it. College applications were very different also. I went to UF, but I never recorded volunteer hours or wrote an entrance essay. I really feel for your generation as I think you have more pressure on you than those of us from my generation.</p>
<p>I have to agree with navarre1 regarding the schools listed that they are more selective for the most part, but as a high school teacher I have personally observed less qualified candidates get accepted to UF verses more qualified candidates. My understanding is that in addition to top grades and test scores, UF is trying to create a more diversified student body. This could also explain why some “top-notch” schools seem to be less selective. Maybe they are trying to create a more diverse student body and not just straight A 1500+ test takers. There are a number of studies that show it isn’t always the straight A - high test scorer who is always the most successful. I don’t really know as I am not a college admissions representative.</p>
<p>The SAT was “recentered” at least once. I don’t think the test itself was dumbed down.</p>
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I’m sorry, but you must not know many of the kids who go to the elite colleges if you think this is true. These kids have impressive accomplishments. Some of this is because there are opportunities that weren’t around decades ago. But the idea that these achievers are mediocre in multiple activities just isn’t so–rather, they excel in multiple activities.</p>