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College admission statistics
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Anonymous
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I know it's treated as gospel on DCUM that college admission has gotten much harder in the past decade. I tried looking for statistics to support/refute that claim. Here is some historic data I found:
http://www.yale.edu/oir/pierson_update.htm#D http://www.yale.edu/oir/book_numbers_updated/D7_Summary_YC_Admissions_1979_2001.pdf http://www.yale.edu/oir/book_numbers_updated/D4%20_YC_Legacies_1976_99.pdf http://www.theivycoach.com/ivy-stats-by-college.html (I'm not sure I can accept as true the IvyCoach statistics, since the seem to differ pretty significantly from what Yale itself puts out - http://www.yale.edu/admit/visit/facts.html). For what it's worth, it does look like admission percentages are dropping fairly substantially and uniformly (at least at these schools where I could find data). For Yale at least (since that's the one with the most complete data), it seems like that drop in admission percentage is driven mostly by a huge increase in the number of applicants (approx 12,000 in 1997 and most of prior decade, but jumped up to 23,000 in 2009). It also seems that Yale is slightly shrinking the admit pool, perhaps to avoid oversubscribing the freshman class. I don't know if that means that more highly qualified kids are applying, or just more applicants in general. For all those who like to track and complain about legacy admits, you may be happy to see that the legacy enrollments (for Yale at least) seem to be dropping steadily. While many will no doubt see 14-15% as too high, I suppose that leaves 85% of the class available for non-legacy students. If others know of useful admissions statistics, please post them. Also, I know DCUM people love to argue, but at could people please leave your knives in your belts for just a little while? I can't stop you from fighting, but let's at least gather some more statistics on this thread before people start in with any controversial opinions and insults. Thanks for your consideration. |
Anonymous
| Check out US News & World Report National College Rankings and Liberal Arts College Rankings online for free. Admission percentages are listed for every university. Example - Princeton is 9.9% (tied for #1 with Harvard) for top-ranked National University |
Anonymous
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Thanks for all the leg-work on the links. My guess is that the number of applications is driven by a somewhat higher number of kids (the boomlet) applying to many more schools. Back in the day, my peers and I applied to 4-5 schools max. I hear that now it's 8 schools, or more.
This strikes me as being similar to a bidding war. The problem perhaps, for some kids, is that if the top 1% of kids are now applying to a number of great schools, they will get accepted at all of those schools but only choose one. |
Anonymous
| Hasn't the common application increased the number of colleges a kid applies to? It's also a great financial deal for the colleges to increase their applications. Doesn't each one cost $45 or so to submit? If Yale is getting 10,000 applications or so, that's a nice chunk of change. |
Anonymous
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Below are links to a few articles that I found very interesting. Maybe others will enjoy them. None are how-to guides on college admissions, but instead they study the impact of various factors and preferences on admission decisions. Most are fairly heavy on the statistics, but they're well-written enough that a non-statistician like me can understand them if I read the hard parts really slowly. I listed below each a few of the points I found most interesting, but most have lots of other good insights that I did not list.
http://professorreed.com/Attewell_-E-_the_winner-t...educational_stratification.pdf http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A12627-2001Nov11?language=printer Attewell article and Washington Post summary. Main claim is that because of the relatively heavy weight colleges give to class rank in their admissions decisions, applicants who come from highly selective high schools are disadvantaged (at least in this one narrow aspect). This occurs because high school students who might graduate in the top 5% of many less-selective high schools will instead graduate with a much lower class rank from highly-selective high schools. Article discusses the many ways different high schools try to improve their students' chances of admission to college, and the counter-reactions from college admissions people. http://www.princeton.edu/~tje/files/Frog%20Pond%20Revisited%20Espenshade%20Hale%20Chung%20Oct%202005.pdf Espenshade article repeats much of the Attewell analysis, but with a much more complete and complex set of data, which allows some deeper assessments and more detailed conclusions. Primary conclusion is essentially the same: students from highly-selective high schools are penalized in college admissions as compared to students from less-selective schools, because of class rank. The reputation of highly-selective high schools helps lessen this penalty, but does not completely offset it. (Of course, students at highly-selective high schools are far more likely to have other advantages in terms of socioeconomic status and educational benefits.) Ultimate conclusion is that highly selective colleges are quite meritocratic in admissions, even though various preferences and penalties abound. http://www.princeton.edu/~tje/files/webAdmission%20Preferences%20Espenshade%20Chung%20Walling%20Dec%202004.pdf Another Espenshade article with excellent data. Focus is on the role of admission preferences for such groups as minorities, athletes, and legacies at top universities. Conclusion is that several groups definitely receive admissions preferences relative to their SAT scores. Applicants who are AA, Hispanic, athletes, and legacies all are admitted more often than their raw SAT scores would suggest (and in that order of magnitude). Asian applicants are actually disadvantaged relative to their SAT scores. Female applicants are advantaged over male applicants. Also, students with particularly high SAT scores get an extra advantage. When GPA statistics are included in analysis, the admissions preference for AA, Hispanic, and athlete applicants is even higher, the admissions preference for legacies is lesser, and the penalty for Asian applicants is even greater (page 1432-33). Also, the legacy advantage is further dissipated when you take into account the fact that most people apply to several schools and legacy benefit can grow from only 1-2 of those (page 1433-35). An applicant with multiple factors (for example, an AA legacy athlete) gets some combination benefit of all those elements, but less than a simple addition of all benefits (page 1441). The significance of many factors changes over the years, with the AA, Hispanic, and legacy benefits decreasing, while the athlete benefits are increasing (page 1442-44). http://opr.princeton.edu/faculty/Tje/EspenshadeSSQPtII.pdf Yet another Espenshade article based on the same data. This one examines what would happen if top universities were to eliminate many of the admissions preferences previously studied. Espenshade makes the point that many applicants grow frustrated with preferences available to other groups, and rejected applicants often assume that if those preferences were eliminated, the rejected applicant may have been admitted instead. However, Espenshade's research suggests otherwise. Athlete and legacy preferences are real, but they actually benefit only a very small number of students, so eliminating them would not open up admissions for many other people (page 298 & 301). Ending AA and Hispanic preferences would cause substantial decreases in the admissions of AA and Hispanic students, but because of the relatively small number of AA and Hispanic students at these schools, any additional admissions spots would not really result in many other white student admits (page 298). The one group that would see a major benefit from the elimination of admission preferences would be Asian applicants (page 298). Very interesting is footnote 5, which examines the impact if a top university chose its class solely based on SAT scores. http://www.wfu.edu/provost/rethinkingadmissions/docs/Dan_Golden_speech.pdf This is a recent speech from Dan Golden, the guy who wrote Price of Admission. I read that book a while ago, but ought to re-read it now. The articles above seem relatively consistent with many of Golden's conclusions, although it seems like Golden really sensationalizes and perhaps exaggerates the legacy effect. I suppose that makes sense, since sensationalism sells. However, to me at least, the articles seem to paint a more accurate picture. Anyway, I hope others enjoy the articles. If you find other similar studies, please post them, since I'd be interested to read them. Also, I recognize how controversial some of the issues in these articles can be. Mixing race, socioeconomic status, and school admissions seems certain to rouse some strong feelings. However, I am not trying to start a conflict, and I hope this forum can remain as friendly and helpful as it has been so far. If you disagree with my interpretation of the articles or with the articles themselves, do not hesitate to let me know why. But please let's leave any insults and hard feelings at the door. Thanks. |
Anonymous
| Just want to say thanks for sharing these links and your summary. I find them very interesting. |
Anonymous
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Here is an article about Thomas Jefferson high school trying to reform its grading system, and by extension the grading systems of other Fairfax County public schools: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/10/20/AR2009102004066.html?wprss=rss_education
The concerns/issues discussed are exactly the sort of gamesmanship that the Attewell academic article described above discusses. TJ is trying to overcome the competitive disadvantage its students face in college admissions by boosting its students' GPAs across the board. Other Fairfax County schools are expressing concerns about that. It's all part of the nationwide arms race that Attewell described. Interesting stuff. |
Anonymous
| Another thanks for the summaries of the articles, PP. Very interesting. |
Anonymous
| Article about Espenshade book that draws on many of the articles/themes above: http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/11/03/elite |
SAM2
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The snippet below arose in the private schools forum, but I am copying it here to the college forum, since it fits the topic better and ties into the earlier posts in this thread. It's also a topic that comes up regularly on DCUM, so this will make it easier to find later.
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Anonymous
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Always glad to see more stat-based discussion of college admissions.
That said, the use of "percent admitted" stats for historical comparisons re how difficult it is to get into various schools always strikes me as really problematic because applicant pools change historically. And, of course, it's not random selection. So the question really is for whom is it harder to get admitted? What's more, we know that there's been grade inflation and that the SAT has been re-normed (twice, I think, since I took it) in ways that also make today's scores inflated compared to earlier ones. Basically, to answer the "is it harder to get in today?" question, you'd have to define specific applicant pools and then look not at absolute numbers but percentiles. Even then, the test scores comparison is still somewhat iffy to the extent that changes in who takes SAT/ACT and what prep they have for it has also changed. One of the most recent changes in applicant pools has been the increasing tendency for (upper middle class?) kids with no chance in hell of getting into HYP type schools applying, something I've noticed as an alumn interviewer and that friends who interview for other schools agree that they've seen that phenomenon as well. It's also been commented on in the context of the Common Application. In that sense, I don't see lower admissions rates as signs of higher standards. Just of less accurate self-selection on the part of applicants. OTOH, another wave of increased applications to HYP may (hopefully will) reflect dramatic changes in financial aid. If many really smart/talented/ambitious kids self-selected out of these applicant pools in the past for financial reasons, then this is an expansion in the applicant pools that really could raise standards. (As equal access admissions for women probably did historically.) At any rate, I'm not sure where the historical comparison gets us anyway. And the data is useful and interesting on its own terms. I just don't think it supports or refutes claims about the comparative difficulty of getting in now vs. then. |
SAM2
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Fair enough on all these points. But the data I was posting above was really limited to the question of how much advantage legacies have. I understand (and agree) that the admissions bar for highly-selective schools seem to have gotten higher in the past 20 years, but I have not seen anything suggesting that the relative proportions of legacy applicants to non-legacy applicants has changed too much. Sure the average scores of college admittees have increased, but so have the scores of applicants -- the numbers should remain relatively proportional. The NSCE data that underlies the articles seems to come from a broad span of years (1983-1997), so it's got a pretty broad temporal scope to begin with. Actually, after reading closer, I think you're really responding to the original post in the thread, and not to the most recent post. If so, then what you're saying makes more sense to me.
I'm not sure I totally understand you here. I'm pretty sure that upper-middle-class kids with no chance in hell of admissions have been applying to "reach" schools for decades -- at least my friends and I all were doing that 25+ years ago! Whatever the reason though, the applicant pool certainly has increased for many schools. |
Anonymous
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Yes, I was responding to the OP. I understood/didn't take issue with your point re legacies.
Maybe it's an East Coast -- West Coast distinction (re how far a reach people have been making for how long). Or maybe you haven't seen the depths of mediocrity in the current applicant pools, LOL! But the comment about increased applications with lots more duds was based on experiences over the past 5-10 years in this area, so I think it's Common Application driven. Maybe kids who had no interest in the past (but whose parents wanted to spend the admissions season boasting about where DC was applying) were better able to resist the pressure to apply by just dragging their heels at the app stage. Now that it's just extra $$ involved, parents may be more able to call the shots. I think that 25+ years ago, the kids who had a long reach probably presented better (they were likely to be more ambitious, more determined to sell themselves). Now it's just expected. Then again, as I said I wasn't raised on the East Coast (or upper middle class, for that matter). More West Coast X-people so Ivies were a less conventional/expected choice. |
Anonymous
| Before the mid-1980s, each application (and teacher recommendation) had to be typed individually, and the applications often required different essays. Compared to then, computers and the common app have certainly made it easier to apply to many schools. Academics may also have mattered more back then, which would also have made it easier for students to accurately select themselves in or out of the pool. Finally and purely speculatively, I wonder whether the increased emphasis on self-esteem has made long-shot candidates more likely to apply to schools that would once have been seen as clearly beyond their reach. |
Anonymous
| That is a funny thought pp. |