Why is it so much harder to get into a top school now?

[Anonymous]

Like if a kid went into a Time Machine and went back five years, it seems with the exact same profile he or she would likely get into a more selective college. I understand kids are applying to more schools but that also means yield has to decline. But it seems there is a much larger pool of highly qualified applicants to top colleges or at least it is incrementally more difficult for a high stat kid to get accepted into his or her preferred school. Why is this?

[Anonymous]

Too many easy student loans

[Anonymous]

easy answer - more full pay international applicants

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Too many easy student loans

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Too many easy student loans

Do you mean private loans? No way a kid can go to a private school for undergrad using federal loans. The cap is $27K for the degree, not per year.

[Anonymous]

Test optional. Test optional allows kids with good grades but mediocre or bad test scores to apply to highly selective schools. Top schools want to take some of those kids because it fulfills their DEI and financial goals. At some better schools, test optional now accounts for 40% of applications and 25% of admits. If those applications didn’t exist, there would be more room for the kids that got admitted five years ago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:easy answer - more full pay international applicants

Not sure about that. There have been more full pay applicants but the seats allocated to international has been stable. So it shouldn’t affect domestic applicants (unless international as a percent of the student body increased a lot)

[Anonymous]

OP, 175,000 kids applied to college with SAT (ACT equivalent) scores >1400; 75K >1500. Source: https://s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/ca.researc...nt_ResearchBrief.pdf

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Test optional. Test optional allows kids with good grades but mediocre or bad test scores to apply to highly selective schools. Top schools want to take some of those kids because it fulfills their DEI and financial goals. At some better schools, test optional now accounts for 40% of applications and 25% of admits. If those applications didn’t exist, there would be more room for the kids that got admitted five years ago.

Ok but top schools haven’t really increased their URM allocations have they? I see stability there. This theory would imply blacks and Hispanics are being provided more seats

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Test optional. Test optional allows kids with good grades but mediocre or bad test scores to apply to highly selective schools. Top schools want to take some of those kids because it fulfills their DEI and financial goals. At some better schools, test optional now accounts for 40% of applications and 25% of admits. If those applications didn’t exist, there would be more room for the kids that got admitted five years ago.

This. Schools know they need to drop their academic standards to maintain enrollment because of the demographic cliff. The trick was always going to be dropping standards without being called out on it or losing ground on the USNWR rankings. Along came COVID and an excuse to go test optional and they all ran with it. The bridge classes (after COVID and before the 2008 babies) are getting squeezed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Test optional. Test optional allows kids with good grades but mediocre or bad test scores to apply to highly selective schools. Top schools want to take some of those kids because it fulfills their DEI and financial goals. At some better schools, test optional now accounts for 40% of applications and 25% of admits. If those applications didn’t exist, there would be more room for the kids that got admitted five years ago.

This. Schools know they need to drop their academic standards to maintain enrollment because of the demographic cliff. The trick was always going to be dropping standards without being called out on it or losing ground on the USNWR rankings. Along came COVID and an excuse to go test optional and they all ran with it. The bridge classes (after COVID and before the 2008 babies) are getting squeezed.

This implies it has become more difficult for high stat kids to get in because they are sort of arbitrarily giving seats to no stat kids.

[Anonymous]

Grade inflation combined with test optional. Nearly everyone has a 4.0 or above.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Test optional. Test optional allows kids with good grades but mediocre or bad test scores to apply to highly selective schools. Top schools want to take some of those kids because it fulfills their DEI and financial goals. At some better schools, test optional now accounts for 40% of applications and 25% of admits. If those applications didn’t exist, there would be more room for the kids that got admitted five years ago.

Ok but top schools haven’t really increased their URM allocations have they? I see stability there. This theory would imply blacks and Hispanics are being provided more seats

+1 and William and Mary is a good example. URMs represent 14% of the fall 2022 class. However, 34% of enrolled students applied TO. https://news.wm.edu/2023/03/01/wm-extends-tes...T5fO8ka0LvVyJBErY738

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Test optional. Test optional allows kids with good grades but mediocre or bad test scores to apply to highly selective schools. Top schools want to take some of those kids because it fulfills their DEI and financial goals. At some better schools, test optional now accounts for 40% of applications and 25% of admits. If those applications didn’t exist, there would be more room for the kids that got admitted five years ago.

This. Schools know they need to drop their academic standards to maintain enrollment because of the demographic cliff. The trick was always going to be dropping standards without being called out on it or losing ground on the USNWR rankings. Along came COVID and an excuse to go test optional and they all ran with it. The bridge classes (after COVID and before the 2008 babies) are getting squeezed.

This implies it has become more difficult for high stat kids to get in because they are sort of arbitrarily giving seats to no stat kids.

Yeah. That’s what’s happening.

I suppose the colleges would say they’re not giving those seats away “arbitrarily,” the students have some accomplishment. Regardless, it means the number of seats left for students with top test scores is smaller.

[Anonymous]

In response to op's question: It isn't if you expand your definition of "top school".