NYT: "Peak College Admissions Insanity"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Seems about right to me:

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/01/opinion/college-admissions-applications.html?unlocked_article_code=1.ok0.G9-F.xk2gFRSMz5Td&smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

The answer is simple, there was a spike in birth rate around 2006-2007, so there are more kids competing for approx. the same number of places in college, ie more competition and harder to get in. Based on the graph, it will be less competitive for the 2010-2015 cohort when they reach the college application age....

That small blip, 10% between peak and trough, with 2007 similar to the 1990 peak, is not nearly enough to explain the effect.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/195908/number-of-births-in-the-united-states-since-1990/

That's the birth rate, but you also need number of women of reproductive age, and college participation rate to gauge competition. Enjoy the cliff.

Bloomberg calls the top 50 by US News "elite"... codswallop. Nothing outside the top 20 is elite.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the so-called elite employers think they're doing well recruiting from a certain set of schools, what incentive do they have to spend more time/money looking elsewhere for (in their mind) marginal value?

None which is why the insanity will continue. The name of the school does not matter for some degrees, and I think most people understand it, but the name on the degree is the only thing that matters for certain professions as much as people insist otherwise. For all of the Barista jokes, who has a better shot at a hedge fund job- a lax player with an english degree from Princeton or someone with a 4.0 in business from Towson?

Trick question. They both have low odds. Hedge funds are hiring the lax player's classmate majoring in something more suitable for the job.

My English major investment banker college-roommate disagrees.

You know that is the exception, right? Give me break.

My husband, also an English major, is an MD at one of the biggest investment banks on the planet. Probably the first one that jumped to your mind. So there's another exception.

(Fun fact: he's not the only one.)

[Anonymous]

What percentage of MDs at investment banks are English majors vs. finance/econ/CS/etc.?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^sorry, couldn’t for force a student to attend a college they couldn’t *afford*. Typo.

Before you ED, you run the numbers on their website. If the final offer exceeds what you saw, you can go back to them for adjustment. If not, you are obligated to attend unless of course your situation has changed drastically. BTW, your affordability is determined by them, not you.

+1. This. Y’all have to take loans like everyone else. All y’all who had multiple kids in succession are sol too, btw.

I understand we’ll have to take loans and I’m aware the school determines what they think we can pay and I only have one kid, thank you very much. I was only confused because the article suggested that by applying ED and being accepted you had to immediately withdraw other applications and were obligated to attend before knowing what the FA might include and regardless of whether it matched the calculator.

I appreciate all the other pp’s who reassured me that the article has it wrong and my understanding was correct.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought it was good and covered all bases, except one, that I continue to rant about.

Part of the reason there is so much competition for the top schools is because so-called elite employers only recruit from them. We need companies to see that there are tons of bright students everywhere. Just look at the girl profiled in the article who is clearly smart and likely has a ton of grit. She's going to Hunter College where no investment bank or MBB would ever look to hire from. Until that mindset is broken, things will not change.

What are you talking about? CUNY schools like Hunter, Baruch and CCNY have some incredible programs for finance, particularly quantitative trading. Their MFE program is probably the best in the country. https://www.efinancialcareers.com/news/2023/08/masters-in-financial-engineering-graduate-pay

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I thought it was good and covered all bases, except one, that I continue to rant about.

Part of the reason there is so much competition for the top schools is because so-called elite employers only recruit from them. We need companies to see that there are tons of bright students everywhere. Just look at the girl profiled in the article who is clearly smart and likely has a ton of grit. She's going to Hunter College where no investment bank or MBB would ever look to hire from. Until that mindset is broken, things will not change.

Maybe parents should change their mindsets and realize there is more to life than working for investment banks or consulting firms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What percentage of MDs at investment banks are English majors vs. finance/econ/CS/etc.?

I’d imagine quite a few (or at least humanities)….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I thought it was good and covered all bases, except one, that I continue to rant about.

Part of the reason there is so much competition for the top schools is because so-called elite employers only recruit from them. We need companies to see that there are tons of bright students everywhere. Just look at the girl profiled in the article who is clearly smart and likely has a ton of grit. She's going to Hunter College where no investment bank or MBB would ever look to hire from. Until that mindset is broken, things will not change.

Maybe parents should change their mindsets and realize there is more to life than working for investment banks or consulting firms.

What is it to you or me what other people’s kids do or do not do???

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What percentage of MDs at investment banks are English majors vs. finance/econ/CS/etc.?

I’d imagine quite a few (or at least humanities)….

It really isn’t if we are talking MDs that never received an MBA.

[Anonymous]

The elite schools are basically a harry potter sorting hat for IB, Big Law etc.. and what they really are doing is creating a net work among the already rich/elite kids. Middle class smart kids may get in but very few have the contacts and skills to net work themselves up that high. The richer you are the less relevant your major needs to be

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"It’s been a while since top students could assume they’d get into top schools, but today, they get rejected more often than not."

So then all these top students are going to "second-rate" schools. But the thing that makes schools top-rate is mostly the students, which makes those second-rate schools ... top.

The teaching at most colleges is going to be good, because there's a surplus of good academics. So if you go to a school with many classmates who are smart, engaged, and motivated, you're probably going to end up with a good education, whether that's a top 10 school or a top 50 or even top 100 school.

Poor use of the transitive property.
There are second tier students at second tier schools. Plenty of them. I’m not saying they are underperformers or unintelligent by any means. But the average kid at Villanova is not the average kid at Princeton. No way.

Sure, but
1) if you didn't get into Princeton and did get into Villanova, you're probably more similar to Villanova students than Princeton students.
2) if you just missed getting into Princeton, you're more likely to end up at someplace more selective than Villanova but less selective than Princeton, and
3) even if you are a Princeton-type who ended up at Villanova, and are more academic/driven/accomplished than your average classmate, you will have a good number of highly academic/driven/accomplished peers.

Students are usually not picking between Harvard and Podunk State, but between slightly more selective University and slightly less selective University.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"It’s been a while since top students could assume they’d get into top schools, but today, they get rejected more often than not."

So then all these top students are going to "second-rate" schools. But the thing that makes schools top-rate is mostly the students, which makes those second-rate schools ... top.

The teaching at most colleges is going to be good, because there's a surplus of good academics. So if you go to a school with many classmates who are smart, engaged, and motivated, you're probably going to end up with a good education, whether that's a top 10 school or a top 50 or even top 100 school.

Poor use of the transitive property.
There are second tier students at second tier schools. Plenty of them. I’m not saying they are underperformers or unintelligent by any means. But the average kid at Villanova is not the average kid at Princeton. No way.

Sure, but
1) if you didn't get into Princeton and did get into Villanova, you're probably more similar to Villanova students than Princeton students.
2) if you just missed getting into Princeton, you're more likely to end up at someplace more selective than Villanova but less selective than Princeton, and
3) even if you are a Princeton-type who ended up at Villanova, and are more academic/driven/accomplished than your average classmate, you will have a good number of highly academic/driven/accomplished peers.

Students are usually not picking between Harvard and Podunk State, but between slightly more selective University and slightly less selective University.

I don’t disagree. But the PP asserted that the Princeton reject accompanied by a handful of other ivy rejects going to second tier school (like Villanova), simply by virtue of their attendance makes a second tier school “top”. And it doesn’t.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If the so-called elite employers think they're doing well recruiting from a certain set of schools, what incentive do they have to spend more time/money looking elsewhere for (in their mind) marginal value?

None which is why the insanity will continue. The name of the school does not matter for some degrees, and I think most people understand it, but the name on the degree is the only thing that matters for certain professions as much as people insist otherwise. For all of the Barista jokes, who has a better shot at a hedge fund job- a lax player with an english degree from Princeton or someone with a 4.0 in business from Towson?

Trick question. They both have low odds. Hedge funds are hiring the lax player's classmate majoring in something more suitable for the job.

My English major investment banker college-roommate disagrees.

You know that is the exception, right? Give me break.

My husband, also an English major, is an MD at one of the biggest investment banks on the planet. Probably the first one that jumped to your mind. So there's another exception.

(Fun fact: he's not the only one.)

does he have a graduate degree?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:"It’s been a while since top students could assume they’d get into top schools, but today, they get rejected more often than not."

So then all these top students are going to "second-rate" schools. But the thing that makes schools top-rate is mostly the students, which makes those second-rate schools ... top.

The teaching at most colleges is going to be good, because there's a surplus of good academics. So if you go to a school with many classmates who are smart, engaged, and motivated, you're probably going to end up with a good education, whether that's a top 10 school or a top 50 or even top 100 school.

Poor use of the transitive property.
There are second tier students at second tier schools. Plenty of them. I’m not saying they are underperformers or unintelligent by any means. But the average kid at Villanova is not the average kid at Princeton. No way.

Sure, but
1) if you didn't get into Princeton and did get into Villanova, you're probably more similar to Villanova students than Princeton students.
2) if you just missed getting into Princeton, you're more likely to end up at someplace more selective than Villanova but less selective than Princeton, and
3) even if you are a Princeton-type who ended up at Villanova, and are more academic/driven/accomplished than your average classmate, you will have a good number of highly academic/driven/accomplished peers.

Students are usually not picking between Harvard and Podunk State, but between slightly more selective University and slightly less selective University.

I don’t disagree. But the PP asserted that the Princeton reject accompanied by a handful of other ivy rejects going to second tier school (like Villanova), simply by virtue of their attendance makes a second tier school “top”. And it doesn’t.

The smart hungry kid will succeed no matter where they attend college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Regarding the ED finance calculators, if it is just suggesting merit b/c you don't qualify for need-based aid, if they don't give merit, are you still on the hook? If merit is shown on the calculator, is it pretty definite that you will get that?

Where are you finding merit on a calculator? The schools we looked at do not show it on the NPC.