<p>It appears that every year, colleges report that they had "a record number of applicants" and thus report the lowest acceptance rate in history. This may not be the case for some lower-tier schools, but it appears to be a consistent trend amongst most US colleges- every year, it is becoming more and more competitive. </p>
<p>My question is, will this, if ever, hit a plateau? Are acceptance rates going to decrease and decrease EVERY year? Will there come a point in which Harvard has a 1% or even lower acceptance rate?</p>
<p>I just can't imagine how tough it will be to get my own children into college, which I roughly guesstimate will be in about 26 years from now...</p>
<p>Depends on what you mean. For the tippy top schools – yes it’ll get harder. For the 2nd and 3rd tier schools, they benefit from the increased quality of the typical applicant nowadays. It’s not as if less kids are getting into college. It’s just that many kids now aim higher with the advent of the Common App and other societal pressures to get into an Ivy-caliber school. 15 years ago, many top applicants applied to 1-2 or 3 colleges and that was it. Now, they apply to 15 colleges including many top 20 schools.</p>
<p>I think the admission percentages can be very deceiving. I’m not sure the chance of getting into a highly selective college is all that lower now than it was 10 or 15 years ago for truly well-qualified applicants.</p>
<p>The top colleges certainly are not reducing the sizes of their freshman classes. Unless the number of truly well-qualified applicants is increasing by huge leaps and bounds every year, the chances for admittance of those applicants are not in a precipitous decline, either.</p>
<p>I think there are two things driving the numbers: (1) very well-qualified applicants who are applying to 10 or 12 of the top colleges, instead of 2 or 3, as was the case a few years ago, and (2) huge numbers of less-well-qualified applicants who are swelling the applicant numbers.</p>
<p>I realize that the following is anecdotal, but may nonetheless be enlightening. At my D’s school - a selective-enrollment public HS where the average ACT of the class that just graduated was between 31 and 32 - there are a large number of students who apply to 12 to 15 schools, all highly selective, then throw in our state flagship as a safety. There was one kid two years ago who applied to all 5 of HYPSM and was admitted to all except S. If this is representative of a larger pattern, it means that each highly selective college is getting more highly qualified applicants than ever, and of necessity offering admission to fewer and fewer, yet enrolling about the same number. </p>
<p>The other thing can be gleaned from looking at our school’s Naviance. I just browsed through the scattergrams for HYPSM applicants (over the last three years, n>600) . Almost half the applicants had ACTs below the published 25th percentile for the school they applied to. Again assuming this is typical, it tells me that there are a lot of students applying to top schools who have no chance to get in, which of course drives down the acceptance rate. I would suggest that this may be driven by (1) the marketing efforts of schools that really don’t need to market to attract enough high-quality applicants and (2) parents who read USNWR (or hear about the rankings) and immediately conclude that unless their kids get into a top-20 school, their lives will be ruined.</p>
<p>I am the parent liaison to the board of trustees for my D’s school. Last winter, several board members were raking the head of the college counseling office over the coals for what they perceive is a too-low acceptance rate at the top colleges. Her answer: The problem is that parents think they are qualified to be college counselors and push their kids to apply to schools where they have no chance. The Naviance data makes me think this is an accurate assessment rather than just excuse-making.</p>
<p>It would not be surprising if admissions got more competitive at high reputation schools that are either relatively inexpensive (e.g. good in-state public schools, or good private or out-of-state public schools with lower tuition or better financial aid than typical) or which give generous financial aid (e.g. Harvard, Stanford), at the expense of high cost second tier schools, due to the continuing rise in the costs of attending a university.</p>
<p>But how much increased admissions competitiveness is real, as opposed apparent increased competitiveness due to high school grade inflation, test score inflation (the SAT was rescaled some years back), and proliferation of low value AP courses and tests which allow students to run up the number of AP courses and tests taking relatively easy courses?</p>
<p>Indeed, if high school grade inflation has been occurring, then the 4.0 student who stood out a decade ago would be just one of several 4.0 students now, which may adversely affect that student’s admission chances now compared to a decade ago.</p>
<p>Agree. At a tippy top school, the number of kids who do not make it past the first read is huge. This alters the actual admit percentages for the vast pool of qualified kids.</p>
<p>If you’re talking about the VERY top – let’s call it HYPSM, the rates will probably decline for the forseeable future.</p>
<p>Essentially, there is a relatively fixed number of students that these schools can enroll each year. This does not grow much. However, the number of qualified students who apply is increasing over time for several reasons, including: general population growth, better financial aid (lower income students can attend), students applying to more schools generally, and probably a few others. So, the acceptance rates decline.</p>