Are elite LACs even harder to get into than their admit rate suggests?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good grief. Do you know how easy it is to send off 15 applications today with the Common app? High stats kids apply everywhere. Of course the schools latch onto to those ADMIT stats. The more important stats should be the students ATTENDING the college.

Yep. It's largely the same pool of applicants applying to all the highly selective colleges. I know a gazillion kids who applied to both the ivies AND Pomona or other LACs, like my own current Columbia student. (Pomona's essay question 4 years ago was to write about something interesting on your street.) I also know kids attending Amherst and Middlebury because they didn't get into HYPS. There are simply too many highly qualified kids with great stats and ECs, and they're all anxious and shooting off many Common App applications.

If you want to make an argument for LACs being harder to get into than meets the eye, you should look closely at the individual LACs. For example, I read that Amherst recruits heavily for sports and a large share of the supposed entry seats are actually taken by recruited athletes. This probably translates into lower "effective" admissions rates there.

Even if SLACs accept the Common App, a much smaller percentage of students are going to apply to SLACs compared to universities they've heard about. The vast majority of kids out there haven't heard of AWS, but everyone knows about HY and maybe Stanford. DH who grew up in the Midwest went to a decent highschool with a great state university (think Michigan, Wisconsin), but the college counseling there was an afterthought. It was simply assumed that most kids would go to the state university, and if you wanted to go to a private university you'd apply to Northwestern. This is how most kids applying to college face applications. DH didn't even know about AWS until he went to a top law school and met classmates who went to SLACs. Now he finds himself in a different environment than the one he grew up in (which is probably how much of American lives), in a small social circle in DC full of law firm partners, where there are a lot of alum from AWS, our kids attend a big-3, and we are strongly suggesting that our kids consider applying to SLACs for college. It's a much smaller group of students with a certain background who are actively encouraged to pursue a college education at a SLAC.

Ok, but you're just saying:

Admissions rate = acceptances / applications

And you're saying the denominator is smaller at LACs than at Ivies, because LACs have fewer applicants.

But you're ignoring that the numerator--acceptances--is also lower at LACs. Last year Pomona admitted 970 out of 8091 applications, or 10%. Compare to Harvard which accepted maybe 2000 out of 37,000 applications, for an acceptance rate of 5%.

5% is still less than 10%.

Nor does it follow that the 2000 accepted by Harvard are necessarily of lower caliber than the 970 accepted by Pomona.

You miss the point--which is that the pool of applicants from which SLACs draw is a *qualitatively* different pool than the pool from which HYPS draw. It's not just about the numbers, which are negligible. It's the fact that most kids who apply to SLACs tend already to come from a background with relatively high SES. SLACs try very hard to get students from lower and middle SES communities, but it is very, very hard for kids who are perhaps the first in their families to attend college to choose to apply to--much less attend--a school that has no brand recognition in their home communities compared to HYS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Good grief. Do you know how easy it is to send off 15 applications today with the Common app? High stats kids apply everywhere. Of course the schools latch onto to those ADMIT stats. The more important stats should be the students ATTENDING the college.

Yep. It's largely the same pool of applicants applying to all the highly selective colleges. I know a gazillion kids who applied to both the ivies AND Pomona or other LACs, like my own current Columbia student. (Pomona's essay question 4 years ago was to write about something interesting on your street.) I also know kids attending Amherst and Middlebury because they didn't get into HYPS. There are simply too many highly qualified kids with great stats and ECs, and they're all anxious and shooting off many Common App applications.

If you want to make an argument for LACs being harder to get into than meets the eye, you should look closely at the individual LACs. For example, I read that Amherst recruits heavily for sports and a large share of the supposed entry seats are actually taken by recruited athletes. This probably translates into lower "effective" admissions rates there.

Even if SLACs accept the Common App, a much smaller percentage of students are going to apply to SLACs compared to universities they've heard about. The vast majority of kids out there haven't heard of AWS, but everyone knows about HY and maybe Stanford. DH who grew up in the Midwest went to a decent highschool with a great state university (think Michigan, Wisconsin), but the college counseling there was an afterthought. It was simply assumed that most kids would go to the state university, and if you wanted to go to a private university you'd apply to Northwestern. This is how most kids applying to college face applications. DH didn't even know about AWS until he went to a top law school and met classmates who went to SLACs. Now he finds himself in a different environment than the one he grew up in (which is probably how much of American lives), in a small social circle in DC full of law firm partners, where there are a lot of alum from AWS, our kids attend a big-3, and we are strongly suggesting that our kids consider applying to SLACs for college. It's a much smaller group of students with a certain background who are actively encouraged to pursue a college education at a SLAC.

Ok, but you're just saying:

Admissions rate = acceptances / applications

And you're saying the denominator is smaller at LACs than at Ivies, because LACs have fewer applicants.

But you're ignoring that the numerator--acceptances--is also lower at LACs. Last year Pomona admitted 970 out of 8091 applications, or 10%. Compare to Harvard which accepted maybe 2000 out of 37,000 applications, for an acceptance rate of 5%.

5% is still less than 10%.

Nor does it follow that the 2000 accepted by Harvard are necessarily of lower caliber than the 970 accepted by Pomona.

You miss the point--which is that the pool of applicants from which SLACs draw is a *qualitatively* different pool than the pool from which HYPS draw. It's not just about the numbers, which are negligible. It's the fact that most kids who apply to SLACs tend already to come from a background with relatively high SES. SLACs try very hard to get students from lower and middle SES communities, but it is very, very hard for kids who are perhaps the first in their families to attend college to choose to apply to--much less attend--a school that has no brand recognition in their home communities compared to HYS.

Good point -- and I'm a NESCAC grad (and former admissions staffer and alum interviewer). SLACs actually have a lot to offer these students, including the opportunity to connect with professors who can mentor them and strong alum networks, but we can do a better job of reaching out to these communities.

[Anonymous]

The NESCAC schools are even harder to get into than their stats suggest because they take their (DIII) athletes ED.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Isn't it mostly rich polished kids applying to the tony LAC? Average joes have never heard of Williams, everyone has heard of the top Ivies, Berkeley, Michigan...

we're asian from trump country and most of us went to 'tony' lac's except for the oldest who didn't know any better and went to a big 10 school after striking out at top ivies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As an alum of AWS, one professor of mine was of the opinion that SLACs have a higher "floor" of students, while HYP had a higher "ceiling."

excellent way of putting it. there are some real dummies at places like princeton (i know a couple of rower girls who were complete idiots - hot though with insane stamina from rowing).

I don't know any truly 'dumb' aws kids.

[Anonymous]

The whole NESCACs/top LACs being less socioeconomically diverse isn't true. Amherst, Pomona, and Vassar all do better than the Ivies and Stanford in bringing Pell Grant students (reserved for low income students; incomes below $40000- https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/09/17/upshot/top-colleges-doing-the-most-for-low-income-students.html). According to this (https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/18/upshot/some-colleges-have-more-students-from-the-top-1-percent-than-the-bottom-60.html), Williams, Amherst, Swarthmore, Pomona, and Vassar all enroll more students from the bottom 60% of income than HYPS.

The LACs do an outstanding job with diversity because they're smaller schools and can more readily craft a class. Pomona, Amherst, and Swarthmore are more socioeconomically and racially diverse than any of the Ivies. Only Columbia compares.

[Anonymous]

Seems like you'd need to know applicant pools. In another thread, there was a link with info on Amherst's applicants. For other schools, I only see info on those accepted.

[Anonymous]

Amherst, Middlebury, Swarthmore, Williams, Bowdoin, Pomona are as difficult to gain admission to as Dartmouth, Brown, non-Wharton Penn, and more difficult to get into than Cornell.

Still, HYPS are slightly tougher to get in. In general, LACs have less "fat" in the applicant pool, but still for HYPS, the sheer number of excellent students means it is still slightly more competitive to get into (but doesn't mean the applicants are better, just that there are more great applicants competing for the same spot).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Seems like you'd need to know applicant pools. In another thread, there was a link with info on Amherst's applicants. For other schools, I only see info on those accepted.

This--you need to know who HYP rejects vs who Pomona rejects. That's the whole basis for OP's claim, after all. We just don't have that data, though. You can see it on individual schools' Naviance pages, but not in the aggregate.

You'd also need to know ECs and other accomplishments, which are a key part of admit decisions. The PP's who have pointed out that the Ivies have some threshold for GPA and SATs are absolutely correct. After kids get past this threshold, the admissions teams decide based on ECs and fit. You could even turn OP's argument on its head and claim that the LAC kids had the high scores but not the standout ECs (I just point that out to highlight the perils of this kind of speculation).

Without this data on rejections and ECs of admitted kids, OP's claim is purely speculative. Not to mention, the hypothesis that higher SES kids are somehow brighter or more qualified is racist, classist and all the rest.