USNWR rankings do not use acceptance rate. However, increased application volume may include a larger number of stronger applications, so the college may be able to raise its admit / matriculant stats (USNWR cares mostly about test scores and somewhat about class rank). Stronger incoming students tend to have higher retention and graduation rates, which are also used in USNWR rankings.
1 Like
Few colleges will publicly admit it. Quite a few posters on CC (Iâm not among them) believe that it isnât a problem and colleges can just hire more AOs to meet the challenge. If the quality of the admits do go down, it will take years to find out. If it goes down more-or-less uniformly, some colleges may be okay with it because they wonât lose their standings relative to their peers.
I donât think colleges can afford to substantially increase the number of AOs because theyâre full time year round employees. They can higher more seasonal app readers since app fees probably cover that cost. The problem is itâs not easy to hire and train an army of seasonal app readers and feel confident in the quality.
1 Like
Arguably many colleges are already giving substantial weight to factors other than âqualityâ (if you define that as academic potential) in order to meet non-academic priorities (like admitting legacies and athletes). And as far as rankings go, given the move towards test optional, itâs entirely plausible that measures of achievement, such as SAT scores, will be increasingly de-emphasized in favor of non-academic metrics (for example how many students receive Pell grants).
We are still to see how test optional/test blind plays out in terms of student âqualityâ. But even if it does lead to a decline in academic performance, it seems many colleges and/or politicians are fine with that if it results in increased âequityâ (which has been motivating force behind much of this shift in California).
1 Like
I agree with that.
This isnât a new issue. College applications is a seasonal event, so many colleges hire seasonal employees to read applications. For example, the article at Busy season for college admissions officers mentions that UCSD hired 130 admission readers to compliment their staff of 22 during the class of 2013 back when they had ~70k applications. Iâm sure UCSD has scaled up both their number of readers and staff, as theyâve increased to over ~100k applications in more recent years.
Training staff is not as challenging as you might think. There have been reviews about the UC admission system that describe the training readers receive, which sounds like it could be completed in days, rather than weeks and involves things like reading practice applications and assigning numerical ratings and comments. There also are public audits that describe how well the readers do by measuring things like consistency in ratings between different readers. The audits found that a good portion of UC readers were used before they successfully pass the training, as measured by correct assessment of practice applications. I think this says more about the UC system than generally not being practical to train readers. Itâs not a given that all colleges will use readers who do not successfully pass training, particularly at colleges that have more financial resources than the UC system, such as Ivy Plus type privates.
The full-year staff doesnât just sit around and waste their time during off season. Some travel to different high schools (partially in an effort to increase applications), some analyze or review different aspects of the admission process, some work in slightly different areas for the university. Many of these tasks also scale as applications increase.
Actually, Iâve done this for something very similar plus I was an app reader in college and my sister was an app reader recently for a top 20. Itâs very hard.
Someone in HR at a FANG company explained it like this, âitâs easy to hire competent people, but we have to hire the best not just the competent 10,000 times a year.â
1 Like
Searching online the
The reference was whether the training was challenging, not whether rating applicants + writing evaluation summaries is challenging. The first application seasonal reader position that came up in a Google search is this one at https://www.oxy.edu/sites/default/files/assets/Seasonal%20Readers_Admission_Job%20Description_for%20Winter%202018_FINAL%20(1)_0.pdf for Occidental College (#40 USNWR) . It mentions their reader training is a 3-day program, and no prior experience is necessary. If a person with no prior experience can be a reader after 3 days of training, that does not sound like training new readers is too challenging to be practical. Your college using students as readers points towards a similar conclusion.
I disagree. It is near impossible to train 100+ people to read apps in 3 days plus manage them, and have any confidence in their judgements.
That was the point of the original post in this thread. Someone who is plugged in like Selingo is hearing from the selective colleges that adding more people isnât working anymore. So now what?
2 Likes
Extreme marketing is only one cause of the increase in applications. In Canada McGill University had a major increase in applications this year:
Quebec CEGEPs +31%
Ontario high schools +37%
Other Canadian high schools +15%
U.S. high schools +40%
Overseas high schools +19%
McGill does minimal marketing. They have never had an essay in their application. The increase has wreaked havoc in their top down admissions process, making estimating yield extremely difficult. McGill does not offer application fee waivers. nor do they trumpet the increase in applications. I found the above figures buried deeply in a document on their website.
1 Like
That is just not true. My son has been a Yale outreach ambassador since freshmen year. He is specifically assigned to high minority enrollment public schools in our city and surrounding rural H.Sâs. The AOâs when they come to our region usually participate in a âcollege dayâ with some other selective school reps at one central public school that is an event advertised to all the schools in the area. Sure, there is probably more attention paid to some feeder schools, but this comment is total hyperbole. Letâs also look at the outcomes, for the last 2 admissions cycles, 2023 and 2024, minority, Pell Grant, first gen, legacy percentages are 2024 55%, 21%, 19%, 8% https://admissions.yale.edu/sites/default/files/2024classprofileweb.pdf ; 2023 51%, 20%, 17% and 12%. https://admissions.yale.edu/sites/default/files/2023classprofileweb.pdf
Agree with the above comments that the schools have no incentive to reduce applications. The issue is that the overall system encourages multiple applications, especially in cases where the student has no real shot, but they think they do because of the marketing or some misguided belief that this is like the lotto where each app increases their overall chances. The easy answer is to reduce the number of Common App applications a student can submit to 10. If they want to apply to more, then they have to use a school specific form which requires the essay portions to be handwritten.
Agreed. Why would they change anything - these schools love to trumpet the fact that they are seeing more applicants than ever before. It just highlights how prestigious they are. The irony in all of this is that, overall, the number of students applying to college was actually down slightly this year â many colleges will struggle to fill their classes as opposed to being unable to process the number of applications they receive. The gulf between the college âhavesâ and âhave notsâ is only going to widen when the number of college age students declines beginning in 2025.
Did Selingo/his guest actually say that?..if they did, I missed it (which is entirely possibleđ)
He certainly didnât say it in the blog post in which an admissions officer at an unnamed college seemed to mention struggling this year, in which there was likely:
- A larger increase in applications than expected resulting in fewer readers/staff than desired
- Challenges related to being newly test optional including using a new and different procedure for reviewing applications that may place greater emphasis on non-stat criteria
- Challenges related to COVID-19 including working remotely, evaluating students with pass/fail grades this year, and reading essay after essay talking about negative effects of COVID on studentsâ lives
The blog post also doesnât imply quote is in any way representative. For example, he may have had 100 other quotes from admissions officers that all made it sound like they were overjoyed to have a big increase in applications this year and were handling it well, but those quotes did not make as interesting a blog post.
The quote doesnât appear to be an official one and does not come up in a Google search. The only things that do come up are this thread and the Dean of Admissions at WPI disagreeing with the quote and saying,
Close relative of mine worked as a seasonal reader for one of the HYPâs for several years.
Folks- the purpose of the training (whether 3 days, 5 days or 7 days) is NOT to turn the Readers into Adcomâs, where a significant amount of training, judgement, experience, etc. is required. The purpose of the training is to get the readers to the point where they can take a stack of 100 applications, knock out the âHail Mary Passâ kids (B students with 1150 SATâs who write in their essay âIâm applying because Grandpa says that his four years a X were the highlight of his lifeâ, knock out the kids who are ranked 70 in a class of 300, no extra-curriculars, average recommendations, at a well regarded HS in an affluent area where the college WILL take 4-5 kids every year-- but not this kid, etc.
That gets the stack of 100 applications down to a more manageable level, which the Reader then is able to score using the ratings system (which the Reader applies, does not create) to assemble an even MORE manageable pile which then goes to the Adcom for that region for the hard stuff.
My relative was an active alum of the college, advanced degrees, professional experience in education, etc. As were the fellow âReadersâ. Itâs not like Princeton is taking clerks from Wa-Wa and trying to teach them how to score an application.
2 Likes
Hi there, where were you able to find the info re # of apps? I was trying to see if McGill experienced the same increase as US schools. Looks like it I guess.
The large increase in applications that many highly selective colleges experienced this year generally has little to do with marketing. Instead one of the key drivers is a highly selective college being newly test optional, which removes a key barrier that would prevent many students from applying in other admission cycles.
McGill is a highly selective college that went SAT/ACT optional this year, and McGill has made it clear that they plan to require SAT/ACT next year. So I am not surprised to see that McGill big increase in number of applications this year.
In contrast Chicago may do mass marketing, but they are not newly test optional this year, so Chicago did not see a big increase in applications this year⊠or at least no where near as large an increase as Ivy Plus colleges that are newly test optional. Some specific numbers I listed in another post are below:
Class of 2025 Increase in Number of Early Application Over Previous Year
MIT: +62%
Harvard: +57%
Columbia: +49%
Yale: +38%
Cornell: +36%
Dartmouth: +29%
Rice: +29%
Penn: +23%
Brown: +22%
Duke: +18%
Georgetown: +12%
JHU: +11%
Norte Dame: +9%
Emory: +8%
Chicago: +6%
Because it is appropriate, and because I, at least, think that Iâm funny, I will repeat something that I wrote back in June, 2019:
2 Likes
Unlike many US schools McGill had no press release touting the increase in applications. I located that information deep in their website in a budget document. Sending you a PM.