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

[Anonymous]

It's not that people aren't capable of understanding this. It's that they are often not aware of it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I'm sad to hear about all the seniors turning down Georgetown for Notre Dame.

When I went to Georgetown in the 1990s, Notre Dame was not even a close follower for 'best Catholic'. Now ND is a solid top 20 and spends all that football money, and all those Georgetown alums dedicated to public service have been DOGEd.

My kid really wanted to go to Georgetown, but once its campus was compared to places like ND, BC, Michigan, Wake, & Northwestern, it lost much of its appeal.

But Georgetown’s location in DC is so much more appealing than Notre Dame (rural, boring town), BC (suburbs), Wake (boring and isolated). Northwestern (pretty but so far from downtown Chicago). I will give you Michigan, hard to beat A2.

Location I'll give you, but have you been on any of those campuses lately? GTown looks like a dump compared to the others.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:None. I don't think about this stuff at all. My kid is at community college and working.

Actually: Community college is the answer. When I was in high school, the perception was that going to community college was for stoners.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:HS class of 1987. In VA, W&M was a harder admit than UVA among my classmates from a public Central VA school.

That year, JMU was more competitive than VA Tech but that has now changed.

Mary Washington was much more selective than now.

Christopher Newport was a commuter school and one step above a community college.

Hardly anyone went OOS.

I'm of a similar timeframe but one state further south.

Carolina and State were the go-tos for any in-state student and I generally mean "any" -- if you had a pulse, had an SAT >500 (when 400 was the minimum for merely signing your name), and could pay the paltry $400/semester tuition -- you were "admitted." They made zero effort to retain anyone.

ECU was the JMU. Super big party school and the semi-mainstream alternate to UNC/NCSU.

App State was barely heard of.

A&T was the local choice but mostly as a commuter/PT option. Most of my classmates had to work.

High Point didn't exist.

Not a single kid of our class of 325 went OOS. But then again, when only 9 or 10 of us even attempted a 4-yr institution....

To answer OP's question, though, I'm most shocked at UNC, especially for OOS (I think it's still relative "easy" as in-state). And definitely most of the SEC.

Were those NC State / UNC stats from a rural area? I live in Raleigh (but not from NC originally) and know there is a wide range in in-state acceptance rates to State and UNC. Applicants in the Triangle & Charlotte areas are likely facing 10-15% acceptance rates for UNC-CH. No one is getting in without an UW 4.0 tons of APs or IB path.

[Anonymous]

Of the current Top 5 Publics, their 1990 acceptance rates are below …

UCLA: 40% (~ 4.2x)
Berkeley: 37% (~ 3.0x)
Michigan: 52% (~ 3.0x)
UVA: 34% (~2.2x)
UNC: 33% (~1.7x)

For reference …

Brown: 20% (~ 3.3x)
Cal Tech: 28% (~ 9.0x)
Columbia: 25% (~ 6.3x)
Cornell: 29% (~ 3.3x)
Dartmouth: 20% (~ 3.3x)
Duke: 21% (~ 4.2x)
Harvard: 15% (~ 4.4x)
Johns Hopkins: 53% (~ 8.2x)
MIT: 32% (~ 7.9x)
Northeastern: 88% (~ 9.8x)
Northwestern: 41% (~ 5.9x)
Penn: 35% (~ 6.1x)
Princeton: 16% (~ 3.7x)
Stanford: 15% (~ 3.8x)
Vanderbilt: 65% (~ 8.3x)
Yale: 17% (~ 3.3x)

[Anonymous]

Northeastern at 88% amazing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of the current Top 5 Publics, their 1990 acceptance rates are below …

UCLA: 40% (~ 4.2x)
Berkeley: 37% (~ 3.0x)
Michigan: 52% (~ 3.0x)
UVA: 34% (~2.2x)
UNC: 33% (~1.7x)

For reference …

Brown: 20% (~ 3.3x)
Cal Tech: 28% (~ 9.0x)
Columbia: 25% (~ 6.3x)
Cornell: 29% (~ 3.3x)
Dartmouth: 20% (~ 3.3x)
Duke: 21% (~ 4.2x)
Harvard: 15% (~ 4.4x)
Johns Hopkins: 53% (~ 8.2x)
MIT: 32% (~ 7.9x)
Northeastern: 88% (~ 9.8x)
Northwestern: 41% (~ 5.9x)
Penn: 35% (~ 6.1x)
Princeton: 16% (~ 3.7x)
Stanford: 15% (~ 3.8x)
Vanderbilt: 65% (~ 8.3x)
Yale: 17% (~ 3.3x)

Thanks for posting

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of the current Top 5 Publics, their 1990 acceptance rates are below …

UCLA: 40% (~ 4.2x)
Berkeley: 37% (~ 3.0x)
Michigan: 52% (~ 3.0x)
UVA: 34% (~2.2x)
UNC: 33% (~1.7x)

For reference …

Brown: 20% (~ 3.3x)
Cal Tech: 28% (~ 9.0x)
Columbia: 25% (~ 6.3x)
Cornell: 29% (~ 3.3x)
Dartmouth: 20% (~ 3.3x)
Duke: 21% (~ 4.2x)
Harvard: 15% (~ 4.4x)
Johns Hopkins: 53% (~ 8.2x)
MIT: 32% (~ 7.9x)
Northeastern: 88% (~ 9.8x)
Northwestern: 41% (~ 5.9x)
Penn: 35% (~ 6.1x)
Princeton: 16% (~ 3.7x)
Stanford: 15% (~ 3.8x)
Vanderbilt: 65% (~ 8.3x)
Yale: 17% (~ 3.3x)

Why were Penn and Northwestern unpopular in 1990 but very popular today?

[Anonymous]

Northeastern being considered anywhere close to elite will always be weird to me. Especially given it's location next to Harvard, MIT, BC, BU, Tufts even Wellesley, Babson and Brandeis. I know Boston is stacked but it's not even within the top 5, barely within the top 10 and used to be outside that. It would make more sense if it was located in a city without a lot of colleges, like Seattle.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of the current Top 5 Publics, their 1990 acceptance rates are below …

UCLA: 40% (~ 4.2x)
Berkeley: 37% (~ 3.0x)
Michigan: 52% (~ 3.0x)
UVA: 34% (~2.2x)
UNC: 33% (~1.7x)

For reference …

Brown: 20% (~ 3.3x)
Cal Tech: 28% (~ 9.0x)
Columbia: 25% (~ 6.3x)
Cornell: 29% (~ 3.3x)
Dartmouth: 20% (~ 3.3x)
Duke: 21% (~ 4.2x)
Harvard: 15% (~ 4.4x)
Johns Hopkins: 53% (~ 8.2x)
MIT: 32% (~ 7.9x)
Northeastern: 88% (~ 9.8x)
Northwestern: 41% (~ 5.9x)
Penn: 35% (~ 6.1x)
Princeton: 16% (~ 3.7x)
Stanford: 15% (~ 3.8x)
Vanderbilt: 65% (~ 8.3x)
Yale: 17% (~ 3.3x)

Why were Penn and Northwestern unpopular in 1990 but very popular today?

It's not that they were unpopular, they had about the same admit rate as MIT. Back in the day things were less competitive.

People also applied to fewer schools, imagine filling out a paper application for every school. Also, the SAT wasn't as compressed and there wasn't as much grade inflation, so it was easier to tell who was an outlier, as opposed to now where the stats are obfuscated so there are legions of high stats kids.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Northeastern being considered anywhere close to elite will always be weird to me. Especially given it's location next to Harvard, MIT, BC, BU, Tufts even Wellesley, Babson and Brandeis. I know Boston is stacked but it's not even within the top 5, barely within the top 10 and used to be outside that. It would make more sense if it was located in a city without a lot of colleges, like Seattle.

Agreed. I truly initially thought of these kids were getting NEU and NU confused. That students are actually EDing there will forever be wild to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s pretty simple. Way more kids are applying to college now than did back then and college has become more accessible to a wider range of kids. Plus just sheer population growth and the fact that it has become much more difficult to get a good job without a college degree over the years. Therefore, it’s not that surprising to me that it is harder to get into most schools now than it used to be. Also not surprised that colleges have changed the the ways in which the admissions process works to adapt to the greater volume of applications though it is interesting.

I’m from the south and I think what surprises me most is the growing interest in certain SEC schools like UTK and South Carolina that up until recently were incredibly easy admits.

I guess way more applicants and way more population, but it’s still wild. Have they at all increased their number of slots?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

Penn State is HUGE at our highly ranked public with the top stat kids. Two chose it over another top 20 school they got in to (Cornell and Duke). Maybe it's just at our school, but the trend seems to be that they go to Penn State because their APs transfer and they start out as sophomores. Most of these kids are getting an integrated masters in four years. It's spreading like wildfire seemingly.

They get a Masters in 4 years (starting as sophomores)?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of the current Top 5 Publics, their 1990 acceptance rates are below …

UCLA: 40% (~ 4.2x)
Berkeley: 37% (~ 3.0x)
Michigan: 52% (~ 3.0x)
UVA: 34% (~2.2x)
UNC: 33% (~1.7x)

For reference …

Brown: 20% (~ 3.3x)
Cal Tech: 28% (~ 9.0x)
Columbia: 25% (~ 6.3x)
Cornell: 29% (~ 3.3x)
Dartmouth: 20% (~ 3.3x)
Duke: 21% (~ 4.2x)
Harvard: 15% (~ 4.4x)
Johns Hopkins: 53% (~ 8.2x)
MIT: 32% (~ 7.9x)
Northeastern: 88% (~ 9.8x)
Northwestern: 41% (~ 5.9x)
Penn: 35% (~ 6.1x)
Princeton: 16% (~ 3.7x)
Stanford: 15% (~ 3.8x)
Vanderbilt: 65% (~ 8.3x)
Yale: 17% (~ 3.3x)

Thanks for posting

This is why Im not impressed by someone who is over 40 and went to MIT, like my brother. It was not hard to get into and not that hard to get through. Not easy but as impressive as, say, Purdue. Smart. Not geniuses.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Of the current Top 5 Publics, their 1990 acceptance rates are below …

UCLA: 40% (~ 4.2x)
Berkeley: 37% (~ 3.0x)
Michigan: 52% (~ 3.0x)
UVA: 34% (~2.2x)
UNC: 33% (~1.7x)

For reference …

Brown: 20% (~ 3.3x)
Cal Tech: 28% (~ 9.0x)
Columbia: 25% (~ 6.3x)
Cornell: 29% (~ 3.3x)
Dartmouth: 20% (~ 3.3x)
Duke: 21% (~ 4.2x)
Harvard: 15% (~ 4.4x)
Johns Hopkins: 53% (~ 8.2x)
MIT: 32% (~ 7.9x)
Northeastern: 88% (~ 9.8x)
Northwestern: 41% (~ 5.9x)
Penn: 35% (~ 6.1x)
Princeton: 16% (~ 3.7x)
Stanford: 15% (~ 3.8x)
Vanderbilt: 65% (~ 8.3x)
Yale: 17% (~ 3.3x)

Why were Penn and Northwestern unpopular in 1990 but very popular today?

It's not that they were unpopular, they had about the same admit rate as MIT. Back in the day things were less competitive.

People also applied to fewer schools, imagine filling out a paper application for every school. Also, the SAT wasn't as compressed and there wasn't as much grade inflation, so it was easier to tell who was an outlier, as opposed to now where the stats are obfuscated so there are legions of high stats kids.

And also there wasn’t the financial aid or huge international applicants numbers. The pool was smaller. If you were UMC and lived in a high school district that had an SAT prep class in town, the world was your oyster.