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

[Anonymous]

Northeastern for sure. I graduated in ‘93 and SATs were about 1000 and GPA was in 3.0 range. No one ever heard of the school and confused it with Northwestern. Everyone got in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.)

Our class of 365 kids had kids in the top 20 or so go to UVA, VT, W&M and JMU in pretty equal amounts. Plus Richmond and GT. 1992.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Title pretty much sums it up, but when you first started paying attention to college rankings as a parent did you have any moments of shock when once a safety (for many) is now a reach (for many)…off the top of my head Northeastern and UofF come to mind.

Any others?

Husband went to NEU and I went to UF in the 90s, so both of those were top of mind for us as DC sent out applications.

[Anonymous]

SAT was different in the 80s. Harder. You rarely heard people hitting 1400+ SAT.

I remember 1200-1300 was a solid SAT score in the 80s (put you in play anywhere). So the score report doesn't mean much...BUT--yes it is much more selective everywhere due to common app, number of applicants (not as many people went onto 4-year colleges), holistic approach and test optional.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SAT was different in the 80s. Harder. You rarely heard people hitting 1400+ SAT.

I remember 1200-1300 was a solid SAT score in the 80s (put you in play anywhere). So the score report doesn't mean much...BUT--yes it is much more selective everywhere due to common app, number of applicants (not as many people went onto 4-year colleges), holistic approach and test optional.

^ the test was very different. The dumbed parts of it down over time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SAT was different in the 80s. Harder. You rarely heard people hitting 1400+ SAT.

I remember 1200-1300 was a solid SAT score in the 80s (put you in play anywhere). So the score report doesn't mean much...BUT--yes it is much more selective everywhere due to common app, number of applicants (not as many people went onto 4-year colleges), holistic approach and test optional.

^ the test was very different. The dumbed parts of it down over time.

Not as many test preppers. We were middle class, at a good HS and my parents just bought a Barron's guide for me to self study--which even that was 'a lot' compared to most (early mid80s)

[Anonymous]

UMCP
UMBC
Elon
Northeastern
Villanova
Va Tech
Rutgers

[Anonymous]

Northwestern and Washington U and Michigan used to be backup or 2nd choice schools for Midwestern Ivy aspirants back then

[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.

+1 There's considerable ignorance (and prejudice) showing up in this thread. No surprise, given it's DCUM.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SAT was different in the 80s. Harder. You rarely heard people hitting 1400+ SAT.

I remember 1200-1300 was a solid SAT score in the 80s (put you in play anywhere). So the score report doesn't mean much...BUT--yes it is much more selective everywhere due to common app, number of applicants (not as many people went onto 4-year colleges), holistic approach and test optional.

^ the test was very different. The dumbed parts of it down over time.

Not as many test preppers. We were middle class, at a good HS and my parents just bought a Barron's guide for me to self study--which even that was 'a lot' compared to most (early mid80s)

Oh yes, I remember the Big Fat SAT Book. That was all the SAT prep I did. Not even sure I did all the tests in the book.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SAT was different in the 80s. Harder. You rarely heard people hitting 1400+ SAT.

I remember 1200-1300 was a solid SAT score in the 80s (put you in play anywhere). So the score report doesn't mean much...BUT--yes it is much more selective everywhere due to common app, number of applicants (not as many people went onto 4-year colleges), holistic approach and test optional.

^ the test was very different. The dumbed parts of it down over time.

+1 Reportedly, they made it easier to get a high score to be more inclusive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I graduated college in the 90s. USNWR rankings existed but I don't know anyone who was really aware of them. This was pre-internet so you would need to buy the magazine or go to the library. Pretty much everybody went to a public college except one who went to West Point and one to Princeton.

https://www.insidehighered.com/opinion/views/2023/10/09/vanderbilts-criticism-us-news-tone-deaf-opinion

"Vanderbilt is in some ways a victim of its own success. It is among a group of nouveau riche institutions that have become dramatically more selective over the past 30 years. In the 1990s, Vanderbilt admitted 65 percent of its applicants (per, ironically, the 1993 edition of the U.S. News ranking), whereas today that number is under 10 percent. Is Vanderbilt that much better today? Probably not. Has that success led to institutional hubris? Perhaps."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Northeastern for sure. I graduated in ‘93 and SATs were about 1000 and GPA was in 3.0 range. No one ever heard of the school and confused it with Northwestern. Everyone got in.

I think they were really helped by location. They wouldn't be where they are if they were in Worcester. Same with NYU.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:SAT was different in the 80s. Harder. You rarely heard people hitting 1400+ SAT.

I remember 1200-1300 was a solid SAT score in the 80s (put you in play anywhere). So the score report doesn't mean much...BUT--yes it is much more selective everywhere due to common app, number of applicants (not as many people went onto 4-year colleges), holistic approach and test optional.

1200+ was a very good score back then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:SAT was different in the 80s. Harder. You rarely heard people hitting 1400+ SAT.

I remember 1200-1300 was a solid SAT score in the 80s (put you in play anywhere). So the score report doesn't mean much...BUT--yes it is much more selective everywhere due to common app, number of applicants (not as many people went onto 4-year colleges), holistic approach and test optional.

^ the test was very different. The dumbed parts of it down over time.

+1 Reportedly, they made it easier to get a high score to be more inclusive.

My kid took the recent digital SAT

No you aren't correct. It did have fewer questions than the paper one.

But he said he had to think deeper to answer some of the questions at the end.