Square the circle: how are acceptances harder to get than ever yet basic skills are at their lowest?

[Anonymous]

Ok can someone please square the circle

Schools are harder to get into than ever before yet we are hearing from faculty that there is a crisis of basic competence in the student body.

What is going on?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Ok can someone please square the circle

Schools are harder to get into than ever before yet we are hearing from faculty that there is a crisis of basic competence in the student body.

What is going on?

IT's simple---those applying to T25 schools are not the same ones who are "in a crisis of basic competence"

A kid can get into Harvard, despite the fact 40% of their HS class will not graduate/barely graduate and 60% won't even go to college. One has nothing to do with the other

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok can someone please square the circle

Schools are harder to get into than ever before yet we are hearing from faculty that there is a crisis of basic competence in the student body.

What is going on?

IT's simple---those applying to T25 schools are not the same ones who are "in a crisis of basic competence"

A kid can get into Harvard, despite the fact 40% of their HS class will not graduate/barely graduate and 60% won't even go to college. One has nothing to do with the other

No, I mean specifically faculty at t20s who say that there is a crisis of competence with their undergrads these days

Not the general unwashed population

[Anonymous]

grade inflation
test optional
vague, subjective scoring of essays and ECs
holistic admission
yield algorithms

[Anonymous]

More people submitting more apps

[Anonymous]

Cell phone addiction means that 98% of people have the attention span of a gnat and the writing skillz that allow them to construct sentences like this: "bruh - hmu when u hav a sec. Ima hit da gym"

For the record, I don't know what a gnat's attention span is, but I believe it's not great.

[Anonymous]

Not the same cohort of kids

[Anonymous]

Supply and demand.

[Anonymous]

Big population of private school, parochial school, International students and some top feeder publics at the Ivies/T10/15/20s.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Big population of private school, parochial school, International students and some top feeder publics at the Ivies/T10/15/20s.

^ they aren’t the ones in remedial anything. My kid was more than prepared

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:More people submitting more apps

This is really it. It's not like they're accepting fewer people it's just more people are applying and the rate of the mission is going to look low

[Anonymous]

I think this is part of it: On the federal exam (the NAEP), the bottom has basically fallen out of math and reading achievement. The average score has dropped a bit, but scores for the bottom 20% have fallen much more.

The additional part is simply that students are applying to more colleges via the Common App. That makes it harder to get accepted to any given college, but not harder to get accepted to a given group of colleges.

Say, imagine there are 100 students applying to 20 college. If each student applies to 5 colleges, they have a 1/4 chance of being admitted to each one. If each student applies to 20 colleges, they have a 1/20 chance.

There are still spots for everyone. But don't set your heart on any given college!



IT's simple---those applying to T25 schools are not the same ones who are "in a crisis of basic competence"

A kid can get into Harvard, despite the fact 40% of their HS class will not graduate/barely graduate and 60% won't even go to college. One has nothing to do with the other

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok can someone please square the circle

Schools are harder to get into than ever before yet we are hearing from faculty that there is a crisis of basic competence in the student body.

What is going on?

IT's simple---those applying to T25 schools are not the same ones who are "in a crisis of basic competence"

A kid can get into Harvard, despite the fact 40% of their HS class will not graduate/barely graduate and 60% won't even go to college. One has nothing to do with the other

No, I mean specifically faculty at t20s who say that there is a crisis of competence with their undergrads these days

Not the general unwashed population

Because when it is lower across the board, both can be true.

[Anonymous]

The average kids have gotten worse while the top kids have gotten better. Different populations.

[Anonymous]

Fewer kids regularly read or write for pleasure, and I'd imagine that explains some of it. Independent reading lends itself to a greater range of general knowledge, better critical thinking skills, a larger vocabulary, and better language and communication skills.