Anonymous wrote:I am staying positive for DC who wants to apply to some of these schools.

You should. DS just got into a couple of Ivies -- some kids have to be admitted. My advice is just have DD pick out a couple of safety schools she'd be happy with too. We did that and it was comforting to know there was a backup plan. Good luck to your daughter!

On Dartmouth's decline in apps:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-10/dartmouth-freshman-applications-drop-14-prompting-scrutiny.html

Note that even Harvard had a drop in apps this year.

Do you ever wonder if the Ivies collude on admissions? If a 2 qualified students apply to Yale and Penn, wouldn't it make sense for Yale and Penn to agree that one of them will accept one of them and one the other? That could improve yield for both schools.

Maybe in the future, admission to the Ivy League will be more like residency match, where you list your preferences and the schools sort the candidates.

Anonymous wrote:All these low admit rates are the result of more applications thanks to they common app and schools begging for more applicants. I know one kid who applied to 34 colleges this year. At $50-75 a pop, that's a lot of dough for dear old alma mater. UCLA got almost 100,000 apps last year. You do the math.

Wow, that's mind boggling. I wonder what the common app record is?

I am staying positive for DC who wants to apply to some of these schools.

All these low admit rates are the result of more applications thanks to they common app and schools begging for more applicants. I know one kid who applied to 34 colleges this year. At $50-75 a pop, that's a lot of dough for dear old alma mater. UCLA got almost 100,000 apps last year. You do the math.

The admit rate this year for Duke was 9%, down from the previous year of 10%.

Eh, who cares?

Seriously, why does anyone care? Apply if you want, but recognize that admission is unlikely, so focus your attention and interest elsewhere. If you get in, great. If not, whatever.

I fail to understand why these admission rates generate outrage, nor why any teen is overly "affected" by this. Just disengage.

Yes, kids have to ignore this admission noise, and instead find some academic pursuit that excites them and go with it.

I think this educational bubble/"emperor wearing no clothes" as pp put it, will burst someday, but not for the next several years. Insert earplugs.

Also, some of these schools had much higher admit rates for Early Decision, effectively making the RD admit rate even lower.

At some point, we will realize the emperor has no clothes. The Ivies are so selective because they are so selective, not for any valid pedagogical reason. It's all perception and a few schools, and a huge testing and prep industry, have been cashing in on it.

The actual combined admit rate actually is lower than that because there are many cross-admits in this group.

Why did Penn get so popular in the last 20 years?

Was it Wharton?

It's stupid that for Dartmouth the school needs to 'figure out' why apps dropped...we all know why.

Ridiculous! My DS is a senior who was affected by this. It is crazy what it takes to get into the Ivies and similarly elite schools at this point in time. I'm Ivy educated but know with certainty I would never have been admitted in today's uber-competitive environment.

FWIW...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/the-ivy-league-admission-rate-8-point-something-something-percent/2014/03/28/558400de-b67e-11e3-8cc3-d4bf596577eb_story.html?hpid=z5