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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]But this is a distraction to the point of this thread.  So, yes, I get the basic math that if all applications were independent and there were no other distorting changes in the system, fewer total people applying to colleges due to demographics means it's easier to get in.  That's obvious. I just don't think that matters at all when discussing top 20 schools as other factors are more at play.  If each country that used to rarely send any student to a top 20 school starts regularly doing so, applicants are competing with perhaps the best student in the whole country's cohort of possible students.  Likewise in states that used to just send top students to their flagship--aid policies and decreasing state support change where top students want to apply now--they may get a better deal at an Ivy than at their flagship.  This wasn't always the case even 5 years ago.  [/quote]

Ok, your argument is that because all students are now applying to all schools, the case where a school admitted an otherwise too low ranked students is less likely to occur, so the chance of long shot admissions has gone down. Or could have - in reality, however, top-20 schools have had low admissions rates that make this unlikely for a long time and besides, it doesn't seem rational to hope to get in because too few students apply or your competition applies elsewhere.

That leaves you with the international theory, for which there's little evidence.  For instance, at Yale, the [url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/surge-in-foreign-students-might-be-crowding-americans-out-of-elite-colleges/2016/12/21/78d4b65c-b59d-11e6-a677-b608fbb3aaf6_story.html?utm_term=.84a2eea5ce82]number of domestic admits has not declined[/url] since 2004 as additional international applicants do not account for total enrollment growth. Nationwide, the number of international applicants is down.

Lastly, what evidence do we have that state flagships no longer attract top students. In the spirit of picking facts as they suit one's argument I will throw in the fact that VT has had 42% more full pay admits this year than last. Maybe they're all wealthy underachievers. In any event, more applicants at top schools just means the chance to (undeservedly) win the anomaly lottery has decreased, as you yourself acknowledged.[/quote]

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