It would be very helpful to prospective applicants if public universities increased the transparency about admission by publicly publishing the following, as applicable:
For all of the following, if admission is determined by major or division, publish the information for each major or division. Additionally, split each admissions segment by in-state or out-of-state status if it matters.
For pre-set stats automatic admission: Publish the pre-set stats for automatic admission. Example: Arizona State University and others.
For competitively-determined stats admission: Publish the thresholds for past admission cycles. Example: San Jose State University.
For admission that uses subjectively determined factors: Publish admission rates by stat bands (for test-blind) or matrices (for test-optional or test-required). Example: none (UC does this, but only for entire campuses, not majors or divisions).
For combinations (e.g. #2 for campus admission with #3 or #4 for major admission, or #2 or #3 for higher stats applicants and #4 for lower stats applicants): Publish the listed information for each segment of admissions. Example: none (Texas public universities do this for #2 for a portion of campus admission, but not #4 for the rest of campus admission or admission to division or major).
If the above were published by public universities, prospective students would have a better idea of what could be a reach, math, likely, or safety, at least among public universities. Also, many seemingly anomalous results could be easily explained.
Personally, I would like state flagships to go farther and promise admission to general studies for any resident with a gpa of X and a test score of Y. At some point, as a taxpayer, I wish my state did that for kids. This is a start, though.
My guess is that it’s the lawyers who make these decisions. Lawyers generally believe that the less information you release voluntarily the better, so they probably feel that the universities already reveal too much.
Except the public universities, especially the flagships, also want the most applications and the $ that comes with that, and they too play the ranking games.
The good news for students is that there are plenty of direct admit programs, some of them extremely strong for certain majors, that are transparent in admission. And more importantly, there are strong schools that still have rolling admission.
I’d love for all the publics to go back to offering non binding, rolling EA. Early acceptances take the pressure off senior year so much.
I also think that the biggest part of the problem is that too many students and parents feel schools are “beneath” them and don’t apply to true safeties. My D was a very strong student in HS but her safety was an auto admit for her GPA/test scores, with a rubric for merit aid. She had that acceptance, with full tuition, honors college, and a study abroad stipend by October 1st. And she would have been happy to attend if she hadn’t gotten in anywhere else, as it checked off all her boxes.
It’s been said ad nauseam here but families and students need to build the list from the safeties up, not from the reaches down.