what colleges are getting a lot harder to get into (and will continue to get harder)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:99% of colleges are now harder to get into.

That can’t possibly be true. The number of applicants has risen only slightly and the top schools and what used to be safeties for those have become much harder. But pusiste the top 150 or so I doubt much has changed. Many, many still accept 80-90%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Six from our NJ private going to Duke

Wow that is incredible! The school must teach skills Duke is looking for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Six from our NJ private going to Duke

Wow that is incredible! The school must teach skills Duke is looking for.

Several girls from our coed private going. No boys got in.
Not DMV

[Anonymous]

Bing is getting a lot harder. A kid from our school got into Penn and didn't get into Bing

[Anonymous]

Shocked at the difficulty getting into Purdue Engineering and/or CS. Certainly no longer close to a safety for anyone. Son was deferred (later accepted but only bc they added 200 additional seats to the class bc they hired additional faculty for his program)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Michigan got 105K apps this year-all time record. Crazy hard admit!

Everyone in the state applies to their state universities. That's their natural customers. They get huge number of applicants.

Not true for Rutgers. Shame that the campus is so disjointed - great school, but not the best “college experience”.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Shocked at the difficulty getting into Purdue Engineering and/or CS. Certainly no longer close to a safety for anyone. Son was deferred (later accepted but only bc they added 200 additional seats to the class bc they hired additional faculty for his program)

When was Purdue engineering a safety?

[Anonymous]

I think yeah it’s gotten harder but also a lot of parents who are going through this process for the first time w their kids just had no idea how college admissions has changed since they applied to college themselves 30 years ago so they are surprised and then go around saying how much harder it’s gotten “lately” or “recently” when really it’s a change that’s happened gradually over many years and has been very hard for awhile now but parents just didn’t know bc their own kids hadn’t been through it yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UF, Clemson, TN - in fact, I believe all the SEC (plus Florida State) schools saw massive application increases. All Ivies got harder other than Harvard.

Brown also saw a decline. Not exactly sure why Harvard and Brown are the only two schools in the top 30 or so that saw a decline in applications. Definitely against the trend.

It’s still really hard to get in. Against trend was like a whisper.

Harvard
1,245 earned admission in Regular Decision out of a Regular Decision pool of 46,087. Harvard's Regular Decision acceptance rate thus stood at 2.7%, the fourth-lowest in the school's history (eclipsed only by the Classes of 2027 (2.34%), 2026 (2.34%), and 2025 (2.6%
Harvard's acceptance rate for the Class of 2028 was 3.59%, which is slightly higher than the 3.41% acceptance rate for the Class of 2027.

Brown University admitted 1,623 students through the regular decision process for the class of 2028, resulting in an acceptance rate of 3.92%. The overall acceptance rate for the class of 2028 was 5.2%, the third-lowest in Brown's history.

[Anonymous]

But I do think the trend is changing with tests coming back and drop in population. Some Covid kids really got screwed by TO, whereas others benefited.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I expect that schools that remain TO will see increasing application numbers, particularly those that are already perceived as being exclusive.

This will be interesting. The T10s that reinstated tests will have application numbers go down because the dummies will no longer apply to them and the TOS will get even more applicants. I’m guessing USNWR will change rankings because no way the Ivies ate going to tolerate TOs falsely moving up in this numbers game.

And your post, with the stupid gaming of the rankings and colleges' influence, is why this entire thing is such a sham.

+1000
Do wish the apps could add a few Qs:

1) How much did you pay for college consulting and test prep?
2) How much did you pay for club/travel sports?
3) Describe any ways that you compromised your integrity to get your GPA? (I have so much to say about this….but not the right thread)
4) Did your parents force you to stay in an activity, sport, or club (or develop your own nonprofit/club/fill-in-the-blank) even though you derived no joy or sense of your own agency in said endeavor?

Major problems, DCUM. TBH I’m not sure I want my kid competing for a “top” spot. I am concerned about the peer group. 😳

The great thing about these colleges is the wide variance when it comes to the kids. While there are students who had the best of the best resources afforded to them, there are also students who did not avail of them whether by choice or circumstance.

To answer the above for my own who got into 4 out of 6 T10s she applied to:

(1) $0
(2) no club sports. Only high school sports and paid the same minimal sports fee as everyone else.
(3) no - although with the high school being close to a title 1, perhaps grade inflation is an issue. That's what one gets I suppose when over 80% of students do not have any after high school plans
(4) no - she quit a couple of sports before settling on what she liked. And even then, sports was something to keep them busy. No delusions of being a collegiate athlete. LOL
no non-profits - who has time for that?
we valued down time as a family so beyond regular volunteering within the community when it was needed, I cannot say DC was a trailblazer in that arena

I think we incorrectly assume that these top schools are filled with students who are on the brink of negotiating world peace or discovering the cure to cancer when I would confidently say that most kids in these top schools are filled with normal above-average/smart kids who just happened to get lucky when their admissions file was read.

We are talking about completely different caliber high schools. No one walks on teams at top high schools. And rigor cannot be compared to what is offered at a Title 1. It is such an unbalanced playing field. “Normal smart” will not end up at top schools from our area, unfortunately. Hope the fall of TO will help give our kids a chance again, but I won’t hold my breath with all the pricey test prep programs. Glad your kid got to live a balanced h.s. life and gain acceptance to a school of choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shocked at the difficulty getting into Purdue Engineering and/or CS. Certainly no longer close to a safety for anyone. Son was deferred (later accepted but only bc they added 200 additional seats to the class bc they hired additional faculty for his program)

When was Purdue engineering a safety?

It always is safety for most

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:UF, Clemson, TN - in fact, I believe all the SEC (plus Florida State) schools saw massive application increases. All Ivies got harder other than Harvard.

Brown also saw a decline. Not exactly sure why Harvard and Brown are the only two schools in the top 30 or so that saw a decline in applications. Definitely against the trend.

Providence is suboptimal and Rhode Island is the most corrupt state in the country.

[Anonymous]

A lot of the schools listed in this thread were really hard admits 6 years ago. Just because you’re surprised you/your kid didn’t get in doesn’t mean it just became a tough admit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:IME this cycle and last:

Michigan
USC
Middlebury
ND
Villanova
Duke (seems impossible right now)

Lots of private school kids getting into these schools this year. Much more than in the past.

Esp Duke, USC and Michigan…

The Michigan administration perceives that admitting many private school east coasters is what separated them from Wisconsin 30 years ago.