Which colleges were the "hot" colleges several decades ago?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:They haven't changed much. Ivies, seven sisters, little ivies, Grinnell, Carlton, Reed, Oberlin, MIT, Stanford, Claremont Colleges

I grew up out west in the 70's and never heard of the Claremont Schools until more recently. Stanford and Berkeley were the stars out west. The seven sisters? Not so popular anymore. They are still excellent but not many college kids want single sex education anymore.

I never heard of the Claremont schools till I started reading this forum. Still not sure which colleges are included, except for Harvey Mudd, and that's a name you don't forget after hearing it.

If you're still not sure, you could solve that issue by googling and finding out. Not that hard to do.[/quote]

But why would I care enough to do that?

If you want to be willfully ignorant towards some of the best undergraduate schools in the US, you do you! They aren't going to be bothered in the slightest by what you think.

[Anonymous]

Brown was totally hot in 1986 - I didn't get in. As I recall, they had the lowest acceptance rate in the US that year. Maybe, who knows.

I agree Kenyon and Oberlin were hot in the 80s.

I grew up in Maryland - in my area, UVA was considered up and coming as more than just a state school, very hard to get into from a Maryland public school.

The Naval Academy was also pretty hot - lots of kids from my area tried for it (I only know one who made it).

[Anonymous]

Graduated from high school in a medium size town in western NY state and this is what was and remains hot: our community college. Anyone who graduated/s in the top quarter attends for free. And that is where by far the vast majority of my classmates (in a class of 450) went and where most of the students still go for the first two years. Even the valedictorians.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Graduated from high school in a medium size town in western NY state and this is what was and remains hot: our community college. Anyone who graduated/s in the top quarter attends for free. And that is where by far the vast majority of my classmates (in a class of 450) went and where most of the students still go for the first two years. Even the valedictorians.

Love it!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is Columbia the C in HYPSC?

Probably Chicago but that's wishful thinking. MIT is usually the 5th.

Actually I'd say Columbia or MIT. Columbia's acceptance rates are now lower than P or Y, and until WWII Columbia was actually more highly regarded than either of those.

[Anonymous]

Stanford was NOT hot a few decades ago. It was much easier to get in.

[Anonymous]

Yep, people would be shocked to know how easy it was to get in! A letter anecdote from a memo they posted 2 years ago:

"In 1950, the figures were 2,014 applicants, 1,557 admissions, 77% admission rate, 979 matriculated for a yield of 63%. Since then the number of applicants has soared.This year there were 42,167,of which 2,145 were admitted (5% admission rate), and 1,691 matriculated for a yield rate of 79%"

Most west school colleges are rising in prominence. Stanford and Pomona were already considered HYP/WAS level in their respective categories for the last few years, but are now exceeding them in a number of factors. Meanwhile, you're getting schools like USC, UW, Claremont, and Mudd sharply rising. UW was not considered a top 10 or even 20 public school then, but it ranks in the top 20 for most disciplines today. USC has become extremely selective. UCLA and Berkeley are the hardest public schools to get into. The tech industry plays a large role in their rise and popularity.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:University of Chicago was so not hot in the 80s, it was an easy admit. Brown was hot.

Brown was hot precisely because it was the easiest Ivy to get into as long you were full-pay. My college counselor (from a public high school in the NY suburbs) was quoted in the NYT as saying, "If you're daddy can pay and your grades are decent, you're in."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stanford was NOT hot a few decades ago. It was much easier to get in.

+1 -- for top students at CA high schools, the biggest draws were Berkeley and east coast schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would say the biggest movers from then vs now are Vanderbilt, Northeastern, Northwestern, Pomona, Claremont McKenna, Harvey Mudd, Tufts, WashU, and USC. None of these schools were considered "elite"- heck, Mudd wasn't even founded until 1955.

The schools which have fallen in reputation are Oberlin, Kenyon, Reed, the Seven Sisters, Brandeis, Lawrence U, Knox, Beloit, and Occidental. Brandeis used to attract students comparably as strong as UChicago and Stanford. Reed's US News perception seriously affected it- it used to have the highest SATs of any college, period, but now it's ranked about 41 for SAT/ACT averages. The Seven Sisters all became considerably less selective after top universities and elite LACs went co-ed in the 1970s; some have fallen greatly in rankings like Bryn Mawr (top 10 LAC back then, currently ranked 31). Occidental used to be considered the best LAC on the West Coast- now all 5 Claremonts outrank it on the US News list. Note that all these schools are fantastic schools, but they just don't have the glamour they used to.

This is pretty accurate although I'd add Wake to the list of movers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Is Columbia the C in HYPSC?

Probably Chicago but that's wishful thinking. MIT is usually the 5th.

Actually I'd say Columbia or MIT. Columbia's acceptance rates are now lower than P or Y, and until WWII Columbia was actually more highly regarded than either of those.

How are you defining that? Who, exactly, is regarding them?

I'd have thought Harvard and Yale were always the biggest name brands, so to speak. After all, J Press has stores in Cambridge and New Haven, I assume because that's where entrenched classes buy their staid clothes. (The NYC store is nowhere near Columbia)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:University of Chicago was so not hot in the 80s, it was an easy admit. Brown was hot.

Brown was hot precisely because it was the easiest Ivy to get into as long you were full-pay. My college counselor (from a public high school in the NY suburbs) was quoted in the NYT as saying, "If you're daddy can pay and your grades are decent, you're in."

Amy Carter and some other celebrity kids went there in the 80s.....that's why it was hot.

[Anonymous]

I attended NCS/Holton type school in the Philadelphia area in the 90s. Two popular colleges were Trinity (CT) and Hobart William Smith.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:University of Chicago was so not hot in the 80s, it was an easy admit. Brown was hot.

Brown was hot precisely because it was the easiest Ivy to get into as long you were full-pay. My college counselor (from a public high school in the NY suburbs) was quoted in the NYT as saying, "If you're daddy can pay and your grades are decent, you're in."

Amy Carter and some other celebrity kids went there in the 80s.....that's why it was hot.

"After her father's presidency, Amy Carter moved to Atlanta and attended her senior year of high school at Woodward Academy in College Park. She attended Brown University but was academically dismissed in 1987."

Is she a complete idiot?

[Anonymous]

John Kennedy Jr. was THE celebrity at Brown in the early 1980's