If you graduated college in the 90s/00s which schools shocked you with their change in status/competiveness?

[Anonymous]

The 1996 Rose Bowl made Northwestern a national brand. Before that, it was seen as an excellent regional school with nationally known journalism and business programs.

[Anonymous]

I can't get over how hard it is to get into Northeastern and USC!

[Anonymous]

Villanova is a lot harder to get into than it used to be.

[Anonymous]

Early 1990s, JMU was an in-state safety school comparable to ODU. Not today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Virginia Tech.

I had a 3.5 1250 SAT (1310 now) and VERY few ECs. I moved a lot and didn't play sports.

I'm old enough to recall that if you had a 2.0 and graduated from a VA HS, you were let into VaTech (for everyting except engineering I believe)

DP. I grew up here (NoVA) and that is simply BS.

It really isn't BS. VPI used to have rolling admissions and the main thing to get in was to apply in Sept or October. Maybe the GPA had to be 2.5 rather than 2.0, but for sure minimum GPA was not 3.0 or higher. It was back in maybe 1970s though, so not this century. Back then JMU, GMU, and ODU admitted almost anyone in state.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:the book on colleges from the late 80s was Barons

This was the bomb in the mid-80s. I wore this book out. So well done. Graduated from high school in ‘84

[Anonymous]

Michigan. WAs always good, bit it's really risen in recognition. Or maybe I was just too small minded in the 90s to see anything beyond the East Coast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The 1996 Rose Bowl made Northwestern a national brand. Before that, it was seen as an excellent regional school with nationally known journalism and business programs.

In the late 80s the engineering school was well regarded nationally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:the book on colleges from the late 80s was Barons

I used Fiske in the late 80s.

[Anonymous]

My friend's sister got into Northeastern in the early 90s. She almost flunked out of HS and took two years off to work to get her life together. Lovely girl but not bright.

Northwestern was always very good but it was a clear safety for Ivies. No shame in that, but a 1300 SAT and you were fine.

From a good suburban school, 1350+ with good grades made you competitive for Ivies. I went to a very competitive public school that sent 30/350 to Ivies and maybe 2/3 a year scored 1450 or up. I don't know why they have compressed the scores so much.

[Anonymous]

All of the T15-50 today. All. Of. Them. These are schools that had 30-70 percent acceptance rates when we went. Something doesn’t add up though. Students are statistically underperforming in HS compared to our generation, Tests have been dumbed down, grades have been inflated…. And yet the kids at my DCs college (pick any of the ones mentioned already) are seriously smart and driven. So are the top 5 percent of students that much better than the median? Has the bar really been raised for them and not others?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Virginia Tech.

I had a 3.5 1250 SAT (1310 now) and VERY few ECs. I moved a lot and didn't play sports.

I'm old enough to recall that if you had a 2.0 and graduated from a VA HS, you were let into VaTech (for everyting except engineering I believe)

DP. I grew up here (NoVA) and that is simply BS.

It really isn't BS. VPI used to have rolling admissions and the main thing to get in was to apply in Sept or October. Maybe the GPA had to be 2.5 rather than 2.0, but for sure minimum GPA was not 3.0 or higher. It was back in maybe 1970s though, so not this century. Back then JMU, GMU, and ODU admitted almost anyone in state.

"VPI"? You're right, not in this century.

[Anonymous]

Northeastern
Any of the SEC schools for OOS kids

Another +1 for these and will add American. I grew up here and went to NCS after public ES in MCPS, nobody I or my siblings knew from either went to these giant southern football schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:JMU and VT have kind of switched places as far as level of student who goes there. (Coming from big NoVa HS in the 90s) And hardly anyone in my high school cared much about W&M at all. I never even looked at it and I can only think of one person out of my huge HS class who went there, and he was an athlete. (I went to UVA.)

I grew up in VA and remember the 90s and that’s how I remember it. JMU at my HS was 2nd to UVA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:All of the T15-50 today. All. Of. Them. These are schools that had 30-70 percent acceptance rates when we went. Something doesn’t add up though. Students are statistically underperforming in HS compared to our generation, Tests have been dumbed down, grades have been inflated…. And yet the kids at my DCs college (pick any of the ones mentioned already) are seriously smart and driven. So are the top 5 percent of students that much better than the median? Has the bar really been raised for them and not others?

Nope. I teach at an R1 institution that is selective beyond anything it could possibly have imagined when I was applying to college thirty-five years ago, and my students aren't anywhere near where my cohort was when I was their age, in terms of their analytical abilities or capacity to work independently. They are disturbingly concrete in their thinking.