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

[Anonymous]

Purdue, Indiana, Ohio State, Penn State, Auburn,
Georgia, North Carolina, Clemson, Florida.

[Anonymous]

I think ED2 has drastically transformed many colleges from universal targets/safeties to extremely selective. ED2 is such a racket that really makes college admissions much more stressful bc basically all the old safeties/targets now accept under 10% RD. It’s unfortunate.

In the 80s/90s literally every ED2 school was a shoo-in RD with mostly A/A- grades and a 1250. Except Chicago. So you could apply 1-2 reaches, 1-2 safeties and you were done.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think ED2 has drastically transformed many colleges from universal targets/safeties to extremely selective. ED2 is such a racket that really makes college admissions much more stressful bc basically all the old safeties/targets now accept under 10% RD. It’s unfortunate.

In the 80s/90s literally every ED2 school was a shoo-in RD with mostly A/A- grades and a 1250. Except Chicago. So you could apply 1-2 reaches, 1-2 safeties and you were done.

And if your ECs were like honor society, cheer, camp counselor you were set.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Obviously UMCP especially for those in certain counties (MoCo, Howard, others).

This. Back when I was in college (late 90’s - early 00’s) UMCP would let pretty much anyone in.

[Anonymous]

Tulane. It used to be an expensive party school for rich kids.

[Anonymous]

USC, Northeastern, Purdue, Florida

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Northeastern
Vanderbilt
Any of the SEC schools for OOS kids
NYU
USC (when I took the SATs they were doing the stuff Chicago does now- sending the biggest and most mailings of anyone and generally acting desperate)

Nope. Vanderbilt has been competitive and difficult to get into for a long time.

One of the ditziest girls in my class went there because her daddy donated was an alum who donated a lot of money to the school. It was more like a finishing school back then.

[Anonymous]

Our impressions from decades ago often have limited relevancy to today.
The applicant pool is larger and more talented across the board.

Also, certain schools are always a huge draw, but others see big increases in very good applicants who weren’t accepted into their top choices. Just one example is IU Kelley - always a great school but in our area it’s getting more and more popular bc great students are being shut out of schools a tier above. Then the students who might normally have tried for IU are pivoting to places like large state unis like SC and TN. Just something we’ve noticed the past few cycles.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Tulane. It used to be an expensive party school for rich kids.

I would say it's competitiveness has remained fairly consistent.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Northeastern
Vanderbilt
Any of the SEC schools for OOS kids
NYU
USC (when I took the SATs they were doing the stuff Chicago does now- sending the biggest and most mailings of anyone and generally acting desperate)

Nope. Vanderbilt has been competitive and difficult to get into for a long time.

One of the ditziest girls in my class went there because her daddy donated was an alum who donated a lot of money to the school. It was more like a finishing school back then.

While Vanderbilt was known as a "good school," it definitely wasn't as hard to get into in the 90s.

[Anonymous]

Grinnell
Northwestern

Grew up in early 80s Iowa. Someone is going to say “but NU has always been ranked up there!” and my response is, okay, but back then if you dutifully checked the boxes, you were guaranteed a seat. No one was turned away if you had $$ with really solid grades, a solid ACT and one EC like student govt or a lead in the school play

[Anonymous]

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.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:LOL BU for me. It was the safety for C students at my private school. In CA, UC Berkeley had a 50% acceptance rate and would accept most solid B students. UC San Diego was for dummies. UC Davis was a safety for anyone with Bs and a few Cs.

Did we go to the same prep school? Our college office put BU on every single college list, it was treated as a near-universal safety. We were far enough from Boston that I never heard of NEU until my kids were looking. UConn and UMass were almost unthought of. Although in fairness the one girl I knew who went from my prep school to UMass is the only one of us all who wound up writing for the New Yorker, so maybe we were always just snobs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our impressions from decades ago often have limited relevancy to today.

Of course. A thread like this is not trying to hold back change, but finding a space to say “I’m not crazy, right? Things have really changed!”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our impressions from decades ago often have limited relevancy to today.

Totally agree. Some parents make the mistake during the process of overlaying their experiences onto today’s realities. Best to accept that many things have changed and adjust expectations. And be open to some great new possibilities.