College game is still rigged

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:It’s not a rigged game. It’s a product with limited supply and high demand so any way of allocating it is going to be somewhat irrational.

What drives me more nuts is the public schools funded by our tax dollars but which pick inferiors applicants from out of state or from rural parts of the state over better qualified kids from the suburbs. So the whole country ends up in the crazy cycle where everyone pays more to send their kids farther away than they want.

Umm...the qualified kids from the rural areas of your state also deserve to use the State U system. They have had a different first 18 years of their lives, so might not seem the same as your overachiever on paper, but that doesn't mean they are not qualified and equally smart. They deserve UVA just as much as anyone else

+1 rural taxpayers in your state are also funding your state U. The state U is there to serve everyone.

No they don’t. Many of these “rural” boosts are not poor farm kids or migrants. They are suburban bozos who live in a comfortable house and have a far easier academic experience.

DP. Doesn’t matter what kind of house or neighborhood they live in. They’re state residents and state taxpayers. There are more than enough suburban bozos from NoVa at every single state school in Virginia already.

The point is that they are academically inferior in every way. There are plenty of lower tier schools that would fit them well.

How do you know that the kids in rural/underserved communities are academically inferior?? Sometimes they’ve had a lot of support from their parents and teachers once their potential has been recognized. Georgia has a Star Student program that recognizes high-scoring kids from every country school district and private school- UMC/rich suburban kids don’t have a monopoly on academic achievement/merit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not a rigged game. It’s a product with limited supply and high demand so any way of allocating it is going to be somewhat irrational.

What drives me more nuts is the public schools funded by our tax dollars but which pick inferiors applicants from out of state or from rural parts of the state over better qualified kids from the suburbs. So the whole country ends up in the crazy cycle where everyone pays more to send their kids farther away than they want.

Umm...the qualified kids from the rural areas of your state also deserve to use the State U system. They have had a different first 18 years of their lives, so might not seem the same as your overachiever on paper, but that doesn't mean they are not qualified and equally smart. They deserve UVA just as much as anyone else

Thank you for saying this. It’s true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It’s not a rigged game. It’s a product with limited supply and high demand so any way of allocating it is going to be somewhat irrational.

What drives me more nuts is the public schools funded by our tax dollars but which pick inferiors applicants from out of state or from rural parts of the state over better qualified kids from the suburbs. So the whole country ends up in the crazy cycle where everyone pays more to send their kids farther away than they want.

Umm...the qualified kids from the rural areas of your state also deserve to use the State U system. They have had a different first 18 years of their lives, so might not seem the same as your overachiever on paper, but that doesn't mean they are not qualified and equally smart. They deserve UVA just as much as anyone else

+1 rural taxpayers in your state are also funding your state U. The state U is there to serve everyone.

No they don’t. Many of these “rural” boosts are not poor farm kids or migrants. They are suburban bozos who live in a comfortable house and have a far easier academic experience.

DP. Doesn’t matter what kind of house or neighborhood they live in. They’re state residents and state taxpayers. There are more than enough suburban bozos from NoVa at every single state school in Virginia already.

The point is that they are academically inferior in every way. There are plenty of lower tier schools that would fit them well.

You are so incredibly clueless, I feel sorry for you, actually.

[Anonymous]

The moment that it becomes known that an in-demand flagship school gives a rural boost, guess who will be the first to game the system by moving out there?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The moment that it becomes known that an in-demand flagship school gives a rural boost, guess who will be the first to game the system by moving out there?

Nah. Most DCUMers couldn't hack it.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:One of the easiest ways to fix college admissions is to limit the number of times one can take the SAT/ACT. That would vastly reduce the number of 1500+ applicant pool. But college board makes money off of SAT so that is not going to happen. Its all about the money people..

Or just get rid of super scoring.

Administer it in school with a proctor on the first day of school, digital and randomized with no personal electronics AT ALL , inspect eye wear. There is rampant cheating and one in done is the only way to make it truly fair. You don’t get to sit for it multiple times starting in middle school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the easiest ways to fix college admissions is to limit the number of times one can take the SAT/ACT. That would vastly reduce the number of 1500+ applicant pool. But college board makes money off of SAT so that is not going to happen. Its all about the money people..

Or just get rid of super scoring.

Administer it in school with a proctor on the first day of school, digital and randomized with no personal electronics AT ALL , inspect eye wear. There is rampant cheating and one in done is the only way to make it truly fair. You don’t get to sit for it multiple times starting in middle school.

I don’t really understand this mindset. Imagine a kid with a subpar math education. (There are many.) Kid takes the test, realizes she wants to do better, uses Kahn, reads the books, does practice tests, improves. Maybe stops there, maybe thinks, “hey, I’m really learning this stuff.” Keeps going.

In the meantime, she IS learning. She is better prepared to hit the ground running in college, and she has proved that she can study, set goals, and reach them.

Is this not exactly what a college is looking for? (And if not, what’s wrong with them?)

[Anonymous]

The game is not really rigged. It is primarily about supply and demand with some math and perception or misperception on the part of parents and applicants. There are about 4,000 colleges in the US with everyone chasing for the sake of argument the top 25 schools. 25/4000 = 0.00625 or less than the top 1% of schools. Since a number of these schools have small student populations you may be looking at about 100K freshman slots in total. Universities like it or not have needs, athletes, band members, development cases, gender balance, enough full pay to keep the school afloat, etc. So you are down to say 60K seats. Each year you have 75K students (top 5% of students) applying with 4.0+ GPAs and 1500/35+ on the SAT/ACT, so not everyone will fit.

Adjust expectations to the to 50-75 schools and most of those 75K kids have a shot at getting accepted. Same goes for the rest of students applying every year, aim for realistic outcomes, or expect results consistent with playing the lottery.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Article in Ny times.. by Jeff Selingo


“That mind-set makes acceptance to a highly selective college feel like a game. The rules are set by colleges, then carried out by admissions offices, and are stacked against the vast majority of teenagers. Fewer than a tenth of applicants win that prize of getting into one of the nation’s most selective colleges. If that weren’t enough, every year elite colleges move the goal line with new rules for getting across it.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/22/opinion/college-admissions-seniors-stats.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare


I doubt most people will learn anything from his book or article. We keep playing this game and colleges keep winning..

Selingo says in this article you can’t do anything about the rules set by colleges. It’s called legislation. Abolish ED.

For the last time, anyone can do ED. You must simply run the NPC and be willing to accept the results.
However, if you are full pay (90K) and cannot afford it, nothing changes with ED vs RD at any of these schools. They still will not give you merit and make it "affordable".

You seem to not get that ED was created to benefit colleges — and not the student consumer.

So, I get that. But it also benefits students who know where they want to attend/have a top choice and are willing to commit. You can be done by Dec 15 and relax and enjoy your senior year.

And yes, most places with ED are private universities, they can do whatever they want to find the right class each year. They are businesses that want to fill exactly X students for the fall. This helps them hit that number more closely.

And yes you can do ED if you want. Nobody is forcing you to. But if you cannot afford it or need to "compare offers" then it's not for you. You can still apply RD/EA to as many places as you want. It's a choice you get to make

It benefits students that are wealthy enough not to have to consider cost. Fixed that for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The moment that it becomes known that an in-demand flagship school gives a rural boost, guess who will be the first to game the system by moving out there?

So let them, who cares?

Have you all actually looked at the numbers, at least for UVA? For several of the most rural, remote counties, there might like one or two students admitted in any particular year. It’s negligible.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The game is not really rigged. It is primarily about supply and demand with some math and perception or misperception on the part of parents and applicants. There are about 4,000 colleges in the US with everyone chasing for the sake of argument the top 25 schools. 25/4000 = 0.00625 or less than the top 1% of schools. Since a number of these schools have small student populations you may be looking at about 100K freshman slots in total. Universities like it or not have needs, athletes, band members, development cases, gender balance, enough full pay to keep the school afloat, etc. So you are down to say 60K seats. Each year you have 75K students (top 5% of students) applying with 4.0+ GPAs and 1500/35+ on the SAT/ACT, so not everyone will fit.

Adjust expectations to the to 50-75 schools and most of those 75K kids have a shot at getting accepted. Same goes for the rest of students applying every year, aim for realistic outcomes, or expect results consistent with playing the lottery.

+1 it is not "rigged," but the colleges work hard not to disclose the numbers of essentially reserved seats nor the criteria they use to filter which applications get past 1 reading so I understand the frustration.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The moment that it becomes known that an in-demand flagship school gives a rural boost, guess who will be the first to game the system by moving out there?

Texas and the UCs both give huge boosts to that group.