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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Today more students apply to these schools today than have ever applied to these schools before, that is why the admissions rate is so low. [/quote]

Easy way to fix this:

1) End the Common Application.
2) Require all applications to be completed using paper forms and typewriters (including essays which had to be typed first on a blank sheet to test whether they would fit on the page).

Suddenly students would start applying to many fewer schools, like a generation ago, when this is how one had to apply to college.[/quote]

I wonder how many of those who are blaming the Common App have had children apply to college since its inception.  As a previous poster noted, it's simply incorrect to say that students just need to enter a credit card number and click.  Every selective school has at least one supplemental essay in addition to the Common App essay, and AdComms give much greater weight to these supplemental essays.  True, the Common App -- and, not incidentally, the computer -- relieve students of the clerical drudgery we went through (yes, I typed my college applications on an IBM Selectric), but that's not a bad thing.  It frees students up to focus on presenting themselves in a thoughtful and honest way.

Here's the reality:  there actually are many more qualified students applying to all these schools.  Much of this is attributable to the greater connectedness in our world today.  I'm a native Californian and Stanford grad of the '80s, and back then relatively few of my classmates cames from outside California.  Those who did were predominantly from the Western states.  My New Jersey roommate was exotic!  Today, of course, students from all over the country and all over the world are competing for entrance into a Stanford freshman class that's not much bigger than mine was.

And, yes, most of these students are very strong candidates.  At my last reunion, when I attended an admissions session, another alum cited the admissions rate and then asked -- in a clubby and rhetorical tone --"But how many of these applicants are really qualified?"  The subtext here was obviously "well, my kid is qualified and therefore is going to breeze into this place".  The admissions staffer immediately responded, "Easily 90%."  There was a collective gasp loud enough that for a second I thought there had been an earthquake.     [/quote]

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