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

[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? Are you the same one that kept using that term a few months ago, and some other poster (not me) even showed you an article that showed it hasn't been called "VPI" in generations?

[Anonymous]

Boston College. Another commuter school that has evolved dramatically from its roots.

[Anonymous]

I graduated from UVa in the 90’s. In my peer group, one had heard of CNU and JMU was a good backup if you were rejected from UVa.

No one had heard of Northeastern, and thought they meant Northwestern!

[Anonymous]

Any SEC school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A B+ average at my private school 30+ years ago made kids competitive for Emory, Northwestern, Wash U, Tufts, Case, GWU, and BC. Northeastern and the SEC schools weren’t on anyone’s radar screen.

I think Northwestern in the late 80s was seen as a much better school than Case, GW, BC!! Not Ivy level, but not in the same tier as the others discussed here. Emory and Wash U were always a notch below NU too. But both were better schools than Case, GW, BC. BC has particularly risen up the perception rankings.

Yes, late 80s Northwestern was ranked 19th by USNWR and Kellogg was typically #1 or #2 (MBA)
So it was seen as "just below the Ivies/Stanford/MIT" And certainly much above Case/GW/BC

[Anonymous]

Seems like some northeast LAC’s have declined Wesleyan, Middlebury, Colgate.

[Anonymous]

Graduated in 89 and went to UMD. It was very easy to get into and I am not exaggerating at all. I was a 3.0 student in HS and very unmotivated. No APs. My 3.8 DC is unlikely to be admitted with APs and DE.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Graduated in 89 and went to UMD. It was very easy to get into and I am not exaggerating at all. I was a 3.0 student in HS and very unmotivated. No APs. My 3.8 DC is unlikely to be admitted with APs and DE.

^to clarify that is his uw GPA. I think his weighted is a 4.3 or 4.4.

[Anonymous]

Vandy was a safety school for me in the early 2000s....

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:USC

OMG this is the hill I will die on. When I was in college in CA in the late 90s/early 00s, USC was known was being a great school for film, football, and being a loose sorority girl… and aside from that was a total JOKE.

No one will ever be able to convince me that it’s worth any $$$. And I would never let my kid go to school there.

Wow, I had to look at the date to make sure this wasn't some old post I had written!
Same here, I graduated from a southern CA high school in the early 90s. The people I knew that went there were either wealthy but not that bright, or extremely bright and went because they were given a great financial package (and needed it!)

I am class of '93. I grew up in rural PA. I had no idea USC had this reputation until I started reading about it on this board.

I just remember Steve Sanders really wanted to go to USC and didn't his dad, Rush, also want him to go to that school too? I always thought it was a prestigious school back then because of the emphasis they seemed to place on that school. But he didn't get in and had to go to California University instead.

If USC's reputation was University of Spoiled Children - wealthy but dumb - wouldn't Steve have been a shoo-in?

[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.

This. PP from Des Moines. Not a difficult admit in the 80s for everyone in the 80th+ %tile who could pay

[Anonymous]

Northeastern, BC, and BU were commuter school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Michigan.

I graduated college in early 2000s

I had a 3.8, 2 AP classes, 32 ACT, was on one varsity sport (not captain). That’s it. I was in-state, but still. No way would I get in today.

Similar story, but UVA. Had a 3.75, 1390 SAT, had a number of ECs. But 100% not get into UVA with that profile now.

But if you were coming through now, your GPA and SAT scores would be higher. Stat inflation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:USC

OMG this is the hill I will die on. When I was in college in CA in the late 90s/early 00s, USC was known was being a great school for film, football, and being a loose sorority girl… and aside from that was a total JOKE.

No one will ever be able to convince me that it’s worth any $$$. And I would never let my kid go to school there.

Wow, I had to look at the date to make sure this wasn't some old post I had written!
Same here, I graduated from a southern CA high school in the early 90s. The people I knew that went there were either wealthy but not that bright, or extremely bright and went because they were given a great financial package (and needed it!)

I am class of '93. I grew up in rural PA. I had no idea USC had this reputation until I started reading about it on this board.

I just remember Steve Sanders really wanted to go to USC and didn't his dad, Rush, also want him to go to that school too? I always thought it was a prestigious school back then because of the emphasis they seemed to place on that school. But he didn't get in and had to go to California University instead.

If USC's reputation was University of Spoiled Children - wealthy but dumb - wouldn't Steve have been a shoo-in?

LOL I wonder if that was a paid product placement by USC to improve their reputation?

I graduated in 1987 from a Southern California HS. A friend's father was an engineering professor at USC and he did a hard sell to try to get me to apply (I was a really good math student) but I woudn't consider it and, even if I had and they gave me a scholarship, my parents would have objected to the dangerous neighborhood in LA.

My top choices were Berkeley and Cal Poly SLO, both much more competitive now. I opted for Cal Poly for their undergrad focus and hands-on learning. My dad also recruited a lot from there are really wanted me there. It turned out to be a good choice for me.

The "UCs are better than Cal States" snobbery hasn't changed, however. I got a lot of crap from classmates about choosing a Cal State. Prestige and ranking really weren't something I was aware of other than the UC/Cal State dynamic.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Your candor is appreciated.