<p>Megan, you really think it was better when the headmaster at Exeter or Andover picked up the phone with the Directors of Admissions at Dartmouth and Harvard and Yale and just divided up the seniors at the top prep schools? When there were no women at Yale, the barest smatterings of non-whites at Princeton, and a few token non-Episcopalians at the rest of the elite schools? Really? That was a good thing?</p>
<p>No, the good thing was when the smart kids ended up at the top schools like they were supposed to.</p>
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<p>I don’t know what you are remembering, but I remember the Ivy’s always being hard to get into. Maybe if you went to Exeter or Andover, it was easier. But, what about all the other smart kids that didn’t.</p>
<p>When you have 1,000 slots for 25,000 qualified kids that apply, a lot are not going to get in.</p>
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<p>One of the great things about the world is that there are a TON of smart kids. And they’re everywhere, all over the US and all over the world. There are far more of them than can be accomodated in the few dozen colleges and universities that might be considered top of the heap. </p>
<p>I’d rather have a more generous supply of smart kids, meaning that they end up going to many more schools, than have just enough so that they all get a spot at a “top” school.</p>
<p>It’s always been difficult to get into a Top-20 school, but the demographic bulge of students from the Baby Boom Echo have made it insanely difficult to get into one of these schools the last half-decade or so. This will pass, somewhat, since the number of annual high school graduates peaked in the last year or two.</p>
<p>It’s a little surprising that none of these top schools took advantage of the insane demand to acquire and rebrand an existing college as, say, “Harvard West” where they could accept the next tier of near-perfect applicants. Would it really dilute the brand too much to raise the acceptance rate to 10% from 6%?</p>
<p>Why does Harvard owe anybody an education? Harvard is now using its capital dollars to invest in neuroscience, new strategies for eradicating disease, and developing the next generation of bio-engineers right in its own backyard. What possible advantage is there for society to have Harvard acquire a failing LAC in California and have to duplicate its infrastructure 3,000 miles away?</p>
<p>Megan- you are living in a dream world if you believe that the old boys network resulted in the smart kids ending up where they belong. The old boys network created the Gentleman C- Harvard and Dartmouth were filled with moronic rich kids who got in because the headmaster at Groton pulled some strings.</p>
<p>There are smart kids everywhere- why do you think they don’t end up where they belong?</p>
<p>“It’s always been difficult to get into a Top-20 school, but the demographic bulge of students from the Baby Boom Echo have made it insanely difficult to get into one of these schools the last half-decade or so.”</p>
<p>That’s exactly what I was thinking…</p>
<p>Blossom - I think that because of the experience I and others just had going through the admissions process. These kids are faced with insurmountable obstacles that we never had at many different colleges and universities. I wonder if I would have been accepted at the same college today that I was when I was young, considering how difficult it is to get in now.</p>
<p>A lot of these kids don’t want to be the smartest kid at their college, and I don’t blame them. In fact, I have a friend whose daughter is planning on transferring out of a college for just that reason. She’s bored out of her mind. They should be with other kids that are their intellectual equals, and at a school that will challenge them.</p>
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Don’t forget that the SAT scores were recentered. A 730 verbal score then, would be an 800 today.</p>
<p>Megan - I believe that the students accepted to Ivies are all top notch. But many of the “rejects” are top notch too. That’s why you’ll see the terms “lottery school” and “crap shoot” so much on the CC threads. </p>
<p>It’s Supply and Demand. But these days Ivies have best need-based FA, so LOTS of applications.</p>
<p>Well, eons ago, my hs val didn’t get into Harvard- and, back then, he as also a rare kid with plenty of great leadership. And, it was a nationally top hs.</p>
<p>I blame some of the competition on the Common App- just too easy to add another handful of schools to your list.</p>
<p>Eons ago I didn’t bother applying to those top east coast schools partly because “need blind” admissions didn’t exist in my day. Plus, even with tuition, room and board paid for I never could have afforded any clothes or activites to fit in. Plus- no way was I going to Radcliffe instead of Harvard! I did find out years later Harvard may have started accepting women in my year. A moot point.</p>
<p>Thank goodness the rest of the country uses better standards than trying to be “the Harvard of the West” or some such. There is life beyond the Atlantic rim and many schools better than Harvard in some fields (eg computer science). Many different ways to approach college, the Ivies aren’t always the best for many top students (eg not liberal enough with the same majors).</p>
<p>Agree with the Common App creating more applications. A poster on the UW (Madison) thread suggests it as improving the school’s status as well as making it easier for OOS students. I disagree- those that want the school will make the effort to do things the way that works best for UW. Different applicant pools in the east and midwest.</p>
<p>I guess simply saying that there are not enough seats for every applicant makes sense, but why is that they only consider certain people when reading applications? I don’t think I’d look too far into the kid who graduated in the bottom one hundred or so people in their class, but why not look at the kid who kept solid grades in all of high school, even though they weren’t a near all-around brilliant student?</p>
<p>Seriously how old are you? The problem with colleges is that more people want to attend them than there are spots. It’s a simple arithmetic problem.</p>
<p>In your parents generation you went to the college you could afford or you went where your parents went. Somehow that’s morphed into this belief that there are vast differences in colleges, somewhat spurred by the escalation of the middle class and a desire of that class of nouveau riche to be “elite” and the idea that all good can be ranked in some manner and that to be higher ranked yields a better product. This has created a pocket of schools that everyone wants and the concept of supply and demand. But if a student really sits down and can make a list of the factors that are important to him or her they will find that there are “many” colleges that fit that criteria. If you were to take a small “popular” college and admit everyone that wanted to attend you’d soon have a very large college much like the very, very good large universities…which would be reflected as they are in large universities with a wide variety of students with wide variety of capabilities and interests. It is a business model for colleges to be at a particular size…so look at the large universities and you will find what you appear to be searching for. Your false assumption is assuming that only smaller institutions are “great” institutions.</p>
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<p>I am sorry you are so misinformed.
Harvard (and many other schools) had a “closed system” of admissions (numerus clausus).
For a large portion of the 20th century, only a very small handful of highly qualified Jewish applicants were admitted to Ivy and other institutions.</p>
<p>[Numerus</a> clausus - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“Numerus clausus - Wikipedia”>Numerus clausus - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>They only have so many spaces. And if more people apply than they have room for, then they have to reject some. If they have 1000 openings and 1000 applicants, they will likely be stuck with a 100% acceptance rate. If they have 1000 openings and 100,000 applicants, they will have a 1% acceptance rate.</p>
<p>For the record, I cannot stand Harvard. My children know my feelings and why. If they got full rides there, they all say they would still pass them up. It is probably personal, but, I cannot stand Harvard. And I do not think Harvard accepts the best and the brightest. I think they accept the wealthiest (pretty much legacies) and then people who fit in to the race card or other such hooks. Everyone I have ever known who went to Harvard (which is a small number of people) were not good people, and not bright. They ALL had some sort of hook, like legacy or race. The smart people I know, who maybe earned their way, went to other schools that I have more respect for. I am sure there must be SOME decent people at Harvard who have an IQ above 100, but I just have not met them yet.</p>
<p>I’ve only known a few people that attended Harvard, and the were quite decent people. Sorry you’ve had bad experiences. lmk,</p>
<p>golfather - I don’t know, all my Jewish friends and family didn’t have any trouble getting into ivies and others. They were at the top of their class, and they went to the top schools - Princeton, Penn, MIT, Northwestern, Harvard, etc.</p>
<p>I think there are vast differences between schools. The level of education at the top schools is definitely not the same as some lower down the list. I think there are some good large universities, but there are also some not so good ones. There has to be something for everyone. It’s just a shame that the top students sometimes get the short end of the stick because there’s so much competition at the top colleges.</p>
<p>Megan, Brandeis was founded because the elite schools had quotas limiting the number of Jews allowed- and so a bunch of Jewish philanthropists who cared about education started their own college. CUNY (a public university) was where top students of all ethnic groups ended up when they were barred from the private U’s. You are using a couple of anecdotes to try and argue against reams of data (which the elite universities finally admit to be factual).</p>
<p>Which top students get the sort end of the stick? The kid in California who ends up at Berkeley and not Stanford? The kid in Virginia who ends up at UVA because his family couldn’t afford U Penn or he couldn’t get into JHU?</p>
<p>I’m not sure what you are arguing. But I don’t think there has ever been a society in the history of humanity with so many exceptional educational offerings available to so many students.</p>
<p>Yes, the level of education at Yale is not the same as at Quinnipiac up the street or U New Haven down the road. But someone studying Fire Safety/Emergency Management at U New Haven is not likely to have been interested in Yale in the first place. There are very few students at U New Haven who are getting the short end of the stick because they couldn’t get into Yale due to “so much competition”. To be blunt- they are not what Yale is looking for, and Yale is not what they are looking for. That’s not a bad thing.</p>