What is really behind the surge in applications to top colleges?
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Anonymous
We're asian and my DS applied to only 3 in-state colleges...can't imagine wasting all that money on application fees. |
Anonymous
| Desperation by white and Asian parents. |
Anonymous
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Harvard reported 3000 more applications than last year including a 14.9% jump in Asian-American and 18.7% jump in African-American applications.
http://www.thecrimson.com/article/2018/2/14/applications-numbers-2018/ Also, with so many more applications, you'd think yield rates (#matriculating/#accepted) would go down (if Johnny is applying to 12 schools when 10 years ago he would have applied to 6) but yield rates are going up at most of the Ivies. |
Anonymous
| The issue is that these schools are likely accepting the same top 5-10% of kids. This just results in more acceptances for the top kids and more rejections for the rest. There needs to be some kind of cap or regulation. I also refuse to believe that kids are writing 30+ essays. Chances are they're paying "college counselors" to write them. |
Anonymous
| It's because admissions at the top schools is such a crapshoot. Even the most qualified, impressive kids can't be certain if getting in at any particular top school, so they apply to more to increase the likelihood that they will get into at least one of them. |
Anonymous
I disagree. Based on the experience of DC and his friends, getting into one school in a particular tier was no guarantee of getting into others that were similarly ranked. |
Anonymous
Because fewer students are getting into multiple colleges. I'd guess that no more than 200 students get into more than 1 among HYPSM each year. Yields are also going up or stable at the non-Ivy top universities like NU/Rice/Hopkins, state flagships, and the top LACs. |
Anonymous
| Some schools are very attuned to yield and focus on offering admission to those they are reasonably confident will accept (Georgetown is a great example of this). Binding ED helps with yield. Really getting a feel for a kid (dad, grandpa, and great grandpa are all Princeton men? Yale might be hesitant to make an offer) can potentially influence an acceptance. |
Anonymous
HYPS and MIT don't have binding ED yet their applications and yields still increase. Wouldn't ED have a net downward effect on number of applications? If you get in to your ED choice, that's it--one and done. And don't mean to be snarky but how would Yale know where your grandparents went to college? |
Anonymous
Yeah, it's so easy. Just click a button. Watch your kid navigate the Common App before you talk about how easy it is to apply to college. There's no fast way to fill it out unless you're being sloppy about it. |
Anonymous
That is an overstatement. The first one is hard. After about three, most of the essays are recrafts of things you already wrote. |
Anonymous
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It is a vicious circle.
Because she kids apply to more schools, the seemingly random element of admissions increases (schools have thousands of identical applicants, yet have to choose while balancing student stats and yields). The appropriate response to randomness, is to apply to more schools.... which when everyone does it, increases the probability of rejection..... |
Anonymous
Really? Wow that’s a new record if heard |
Anonymous
That's because you Asians created your own applications arms race. Haven't you noticed that the elite schools are only taking two kids per high school? And then every top kid in the school is submitting 20-30 applications to those top schools? What the heck do you think is going to happen? My white kid, strong academics and test scores but meh grades, and meh extracurriculars is 5 for 5 on apps to highly ranked competitive schools, both public and private. 4 were good/stretch fits and 1 safety. Only waiting to hear from one reach school. Start being realistic about the process instead of applying to all reach schools. |
Anonymous
It is more than 200, I would guess around 800-900 or so. Here is why: There are about ~700 kids each year who turn down a Princeton acceptance. One can safely assume that at least 70% of these non-enrolling admits (~490) turn down P for HYSM. It could very well be more than 70%. The 70% number is a conservative estimate in line with the Stanford senate minutes leaked online a few years ago which showed that 75% of Stanford non-enrolling students matriculated at HYPM for the class of 2014. http://mathacle.blogspot.com/2012/01/stanford-or-harvardyaleprincetonmit-or.html The situation is similar for Yale :~700 kids turn down a Yale acceptance, and it is again reasonable to assume that at least 70% do so in order to attend HSMP. So far you have at least 490 names on the Princeton non-enrolling, HYSM-enrolling pool and another 490 names on the Yale non-enrolling, HPSM-enrolling pool. So at the very least you got 490 students with more than one HYPSM choice. Of course the total number is more than 490. This is because a) the rate above could be higher than 70% , b) the two pools above cannot overlap 100%; (100% overlap would mean that there are no people who turn down Y and enroll at P and vice versa) and c) you also have to account for: 1. the H/S/M enrollees who were H-S, H-M, M-S or H-S-M cross-admits, but had neither a Y nor a P choice (either didn't apply or they applied and did not get accepted) 2. the students who got into H and/or S and/or M but chose to enroll at Y or P instead 3. the cases of HYPSM cross-admits who ended up enrolling at a non-HYPSM school. This is not a big number but it is also not zero (choosing Columbia to be in NYC, Penn for Wharton/dual degree, Caltech or major merit-aid at state honors programs are the most common cases I have come across where one would make a non-HYPSM choice over one or more HYPSM choices) Adding up all these additional cases could easily bring the total up to 800-900 students, considering that there are ~ 350 admitted names every year that turn down each of H, S, MIT. |