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<blockquote> <p>I doubt college admissions will ever be the same as in the 80s and before.</p> </blockquote>
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<p>Actually, the acceptance rates at many top colleges (Swarthmore, Williams, etc.) are about the same today as they were in the baby boom years (60s and early 70s).</p>
<p>A lot depends on how many international applicants there are in the next generation.</p>
<p>I HIGHLY HIGHLY doubt that these outrageous acceptance rate will ever go down .Because the accetpance rate is goign down every single year, i wouldn't be suprised if a school only accepted 5 percent of their applicants in the next 10 years. Beside, parents are preparing their kids and planning their road to college starting middle school.</p>
<p>Xanatos:</p>
<p>I read the excerpts you quoted as spin.</p>
<p>Article in NYT today (Saturdady, Feb. 5, 2005) about state unis recruiting out of state to compensate for predicted shortfall of students and revenues.</p>
<p>Some of the increased competition in recent years may be as much perception as reality. Since Marite says I often "shoot from the hip" ;-) I will use some MIT data. According to CDS figures, between 1999 and 2002 the MIT acceptance rate declined from 21.8% to 17.0%, a 22% decrease. However the 25%-75% SAT remained exactly the same for both V&M.</p>
<p>It is certainly true that insofar as the number of hs graduates are increasing there will be more competition assuming that the size of freshman classes in the elite colleges remain constant. Also, students are becomming more sophisticated which means that a top student from a middle class family in Arkansas is increasingly more likely to realize that a Harvard or Stanford is not nearly so far out of reach as he would have thought 8 yrs ago.</p>
<p>However, I think some of the increased competition is also due to the trend of students to send out increasiingly larger numbers of applications. This does not make the competition more competative, rather it makes it more random. Instead of an adcom looking at 2 students with similar transcripts, she may now be looking at</p>
<p>So yes college admissions is getting more competative but probably not to quite the extent to which we perceive it.</p>
<p>BTW, the only reason I chose MIT is because it was the most selective one which came up when Googled.</p>
<p>Marite, thanks for the heads up.</p>
<p>My favorite section of the article was the one that mentioned you can get the same education elsewhere.</p>
<p>Image sells.</p>
<p>originaloog:</p>
<p>LOL!</p>
<p>I agree with you about perception vs. reality. Here is an excerpt from the NYT article, accompanying a map showing losses and gains by state:</p>
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<blockquote> <p>The Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education, an advisory group, has projected that the high school population in the US will increase over the next two decades. But the growth will be unevenly distributed, with projected decreases in some states.>></p> </blockquote>
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<p>Among the states showing decreases in student numbers: VT, NH, ME, MA, NY, PA, WVA, WI, IO, ND, SD, MT, WY, MO, NM, OK, MISS. The other states show increases ranging from 1% to more than 25%.</p>
<p>The increases and decreases in student numbers will directly affect public universities (the subject of the article); it is not clear how private colleges will be affected, given other factors such as the greater use of the Common Application, availability of financial aid (need-based and merit).</p>