I think there are no 2nd chances now to get in either to schools like Harvard and Yale. That contributes to the pressure.
Stanford used to accept 150 transfers a year in the 1990s. Harvard used to accept 150 transfers a year as well.
Now, they accept 15 at Harvard and 30 at Stanford. It was possible 30 years ago to work hard at another college, do well and then transfer into Harvard etc.
You can’t do that now to such an extent.
For most students, peer academic strength will be higher in college than in high school. I.e. if one defines “peer quality” in terms of higher academic strength, it is likely to get better in college anyway, even without attending an elite admission college (or major).
Among the other students, there’re some who attend highly selective high schools (private or public), or who attend more normal high schools where they feel they have few academic peers, may look for colleges with academically stronger peers. Are they the ones disproportionally driving up the number of applications to elite colleges?
yes, and those reasons you mentioned are motivators for parents like yourself to pay those amounts for their children’s education. because of this narrative that students HAVE to get into an elite school to have a successful career, they curate their resumes and a persona to present to admissions officers. i know of many of my peers who currently ARE doing this- they pick activities and hobbies and experiences and everything just for the sake of impressing an elite college. in the process, they lose themselves- as children they were curious and had a genuine interest for learning for the sake of learning… not anymore. that motivation has turned into “getting into an elite college”.
My son observed this in certain peers in high school, and ended up feeling that he really doesn’t want to go to a university filled with these people.
One would hope that admissions at elite institutions would be able to see through at least some of this behavior, though.
I am the same as your son, I really want to attend somewhere that’s collaborative with a healthy amount of competition!! So I totally understand him, especially if he’s had first hand experience with his peers who might be toxic with competition.
Some of the kids in my grade have “founded” clubs or “youth organizations” that host maybe one event or meeting and they disband after admissions 
You hear of students holding leadership positions in like 5 clubs and these clubs tend to even run on the same day 
lol
‘One would hope that admissions at elite institutions would be able to see through at least some of this behavior, though’
I wish that were true but I’m skeptical.
As I said, the girl I know (I’m best friends with her brother so he told me this) took part in every single competition she could to try and win + running for student body president + UN speaking for this reason.
She crafted herself as being a leader and deservedly got into Harvard. She wants to work in finance.
I always wonder about that. If schools are seen to reward the kind of activities that tend to be pursued with college admissions in mind - summer academic “enrichment” (mostly paid-and expensive), internships (typically available to those who already have connections), research (often paid - or accessible through connections), starting a business (often bankrolled by parents) etc - some kids will continue to do them. Frankly, I think it is ridiculous that a high school student needs to find an internship or participate in research to show their intellectual “passion”. When did it stop being OK for kids to spend the summer working and hanging out with friends?
To be honest with you, isn’t this exactly what schools like Harvard want?
Kids who are able to plan this far ahead and be talented enough to win competitions.
Welcome to the 21st century.
Both of our kids enjoyed outside interests - club soccer (D) and chess (S) but they also managed to fit in academic ECs that they both liked, learned from, and helped with their college “resume”. Such activities are not mutually exclusive.
I believe that internships &research are relatively accessible without paying for the position/ without having connections, but I agree that it is so much more difficult to land a mentorship in your preferred passion, let alone a paid internship! However students that don’t get guidance on how to find mentors or literally how to even get started struggle so much : / so I don’t believe that research isn’t a very strong indicator of passion in STEM, I know many students who despise research but do it because “colleges like it”
That’s awesome for your kids, but there’s a growing percentage of students unlike your kids who thin themselves out and break their backs for college admissions when they don’t really have a passion in those fields. Instead they want the college lol
I agree that they shouldn’t NEED to. But this blanket statement seems to overlook the fact that some genuinely WANT to. Some of my daughter’s most valuable, enriching experiences have come through doing research and internships. She has thoroughly ENJOYED them and learned so much from them. And we are not wealthy nor connected - we have NEVER paid for ANY of these opportunities; in fact, almost all the internships have paid her. We ARE fortunate to live in a part of the country where such opportunities are relatively plentiful for those who seek them out. That too of course is privilege - I fully realize that. And, despite all of this, she still has had plenty of time for a job (she works every summer at a summer camp but it is only a half day camp so she has her afternoons free for other pursuits) and for friends.
Some kids do genuinely enjoy research and internship experiences and you don’t necessarily need to be wealthy or possess connections to pursue them. But I do agree that kids shouldn’t feel pressured to pursue such thing just for the sake of being competitive to colleges and I do dislike the resulting admissions rat race. But I’m not sure there’s any easy solution to that, unfortunately. There will always be research geeks and internship wonks - whether you’re in high school. college, or beyond.
Life is all about learning isn’t it?
Some kids may work too hard chasing a school. Some may get in, change their focus to something they love and have great experiences. Some may ultimately fail only to pick themselves up.
It’s really most important for your first job after college (particularly if you want top IB/consulting). Then, you have show what you’ve got. Companies want performers, not just diplomas!
Go back about 30 years, and the SAT had a much higher ceiling, meaning that 1500+ scores were much rarer back then compared to today. But it has been repeatedly dumbed down since then, so a 1600 SAT or 36 ACT doesn’t mean as much as it used to. SAT subject tests have also disappeared, and not all schools offer many AP classes. And this is even before we get to the topic of many schools getting rid of test scores altogether. Grade inflation has also increased.
So given that high achieving students cannot distinguish themselves through tests or grades, they need to do so through ECs. And this primarily helps high income families.
In short, if you want someone to blame for the EC creep, blame the colleges.
I do. And as these types of activities are rewarded, students will continue to do them. I realize that for some kids pursuing research or getting an internship comes from genuine passion and that is great. However, there are many kids pursuing these things with the sole objective of creating a “spike” for college. That’s not so great.
Exactly. Otherwise, how would most of these elite colleges distinguish among their greatly expanded pool of “qualified” applicants?
I don’t think as many kids would participate in ECs if it didn’t help with college.
If you look at the UK, far fewer kids there participate in ECs because it doesn’t really matter there.
That leads me to believe there are lots and lots of kids participating in ECs for college unless American kids are different to kids in other markets.
This is not a criticism of any system or saying it shouldn’t be like that, just pointing it out.
By “repeatedly”, do you mean twice, when they published conversions for the 1995 recentering and 2016 redesign of the SAT (the 2004 redesign of the SAT did not seem to come with any score conversion chart)? Have not heard of anything similar for the ACT, though.
The pre-2004 SAT ceiling was somewhat higher in terms of how much esoteric vocabulary one needed to know for the verbal section (the math section was just high school algebra and geometry). It was presumably supposed to proxy how much one read a variety of complex works, but, even then, there were books of “SAT words” to try to help SAT takers game that proxy measure. But the ceiling was still not high enough to distinguish between the “typical excellent” and the academic superstars, even though the somewhat lower ceiling now expanded the size of the (plausibly) “typical excellent” pool.
But also, test prep generally is much more common now than it was 30 years ago. That likely contributes to some score increases and additional expansion of the (plausibly) “typical excellent” pool (in terms of test scores).