Anonymous wrote:Applications are up because you get a LOT more students applying from abroad. Look at the growth China has had in their middle class in the last 10-20 years. A lot of those families can afford to send their kids to a US university, and it's extremely prestigious to do so. Universities like foreign applicants because they are not eligible for financial aid (as non-US residents/citizens) so they pay "full fare".

Yes, this is part of the story at some colleges. Some have increased their enrolment in order to accommodate the influx of international students (state universities especially), but most of the elite colleges have not.

Applications are up because you get a LOT more students applying from abroad. Look at the growth China has had in their middle class in the last 10-20 years. A lot of those families can afford to send their kids to a US university, and it's extremely prestigious to do so. Universities like foreign applicants because they are not eligible for financial aid (as non-US residents/citizens) so they pay "full fare".

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It seems more likely to me that the quality of teaching would improve rather than decline. Higher population equals higher competition for slots in PhD programs, which should lead to stronger graduates/future professors. This should be true in pretty much all professions.

Many schools are not hiring based on teaching skills, but on research/publication/potential grant sourcing capabilities. A lot of the work of teaching undergrads has been given to adjunct professors, who are often very good, though underpaid and overworked. The system is really broken.

But this was true 20 years ago, too, at least at most schools. Things can improve within a flawed system.

Yes. Woke.

Anonymous wrote:It seems more likely to me that the quality of teaching would improve rather than decline. Higher population equals higher competition for slots in PhD programs, which should lead to stronger graduates/future professors. This should be true in pretty much all professions.

Colleges are avoiding full professor status to spend less on salary and benefits and hiring lots of adjuncts. It’s just one of the ripple effects of the student-as-consumer trend in higher ed. Dumbing down of America continues.

Anonymous wrote:It seems more likely to me that the quality of teaching would improve rather than decline. Higher population equals higher competition for slots in PhD programs, which should lead to stronger graduates/future professors. This should be true in pretty much all professions.

Many schools are not hiring based on teaching skills, but on research/publication/potential grant sourcing capabilities. A lot of the work of teaching undergrads has been given to adjunct professors, who are often very good, though underpaid and overworked. The system is really broken.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:topic cut off - has quality of professors/instruction in schools with declining acceptance rates improved over the last 20 years

It has probably declined overall. Research is mor important to most schools than undergrad teaching, and many academics view their careers as much more dependent on research and publising than teaching.

How is this different from 20 years ago?

Teaching loads continue to decline.

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure I understand this thread. I can't see any relationship between acceptance rates and quality of instruction/experience.
It is as PP said - huge increase in number of applicants both from here and abroad. Also certain schools getting disproportionate share of applicants. TO and Common App play a big part.
It's not that the quality of the education is notably different.
All of this is slated to change as the pool of applicants is predicted to decline in a few years.
For now, this is the landscape.

There is no connection. OP sounds dumb, and if her kids are like her, they won’t be getting into T20.

It seems more likely to me that the quality of teaching would improve rather than decline. Higher population equals higher competition for slots in PhD programs, which should lead to stronger graduates/future professors. This should be true in pretty much all professions.

“- has quality of professors/instruction in schools with declining acceptance rates improved over the last 20 years” - lol they are probably the same professors now as in the 90s and even the 70s. Pesky Boomers refuse to retire or die!

Yup your point above well taken in terms of enduring popularity of certain schools, so acceptance rates for those will not likely change, despite population decline.
I've got a freshman at a school with a 5% RD acceptance rate, and a HS senior (with better grades than sibling) who was just accepted ED to a target - and could not be happier.
Last year I was struck by how many of my kids friends seemed to apply to the same schools - yet where they all ended up attending was hugely varied.
Many places to be happy and get a great education.

Anonymous wrote:I'm not sure I understand this thread. I can't see any relationship between acceptance rates and quality of instruction/experience.
It is as PP said - huge increase in number of applicants both from here and abroad. Also certain schools getting disproportionate share of applicants. TO and Common App play a big part.
It's not that the quality of the education is notably different.
All of this is slated to change as the pool of applicants is predicted to decline in a few years.
For now, this is the landscape.

don’t think you understand the landscape - applicants will not decline at the T15 schools that DCUM is so obsessed with.. and the point seems to be that these acceptances have become “golden tickets” without a corresponding improvement in educational experience

I'm not sure I understand this thread. I can't see any relationship between acceptance rates and quality of instruction/experience.
It is as PP said - huge increase in number of applicants both from here and abroad. Also certain schools getting disproportionate share of applicants. TO and Common App play a big part.
It's not that the quality of the education is notably different.
All of this is slated to change as the pool of applicants is predicted to decline in a few years.
For now, this is the landscape.

Anonymous wrote:wow vanderbilt scored 95? that’s an absolutely ridiculous score, especially when compared to the peers u mentioned..

how did Vandy achieve that improvement? identify the weak professors and clean house?

I'm not sure "most interesting" means "best." There's a ton of data that student evaluations are strongly biased against women, for instance - they're generally perceived as less charismatic, and having higher standards is held against them in a way it isn't for men. I don't want my kids to be bored in school but using student evaluations to clean house has...issues.

These are three different questions that don't necessarily have causal relationships.

-acceptance rates are a function of competition between students - if more students apply to more schools, there will be fewer accepted to each, this doesn't reflect anything about quality of instruction.

-it is much, much harder to get a tenure track job as a professor because so many have been replaced with adjuncts and there are so many more PhD graduates. Your kid's younger professors probably have publication records at 10 years in the field that rival those of their retiring colleagues with 40 years. So by that measure, professors are "better."

-at highly ranked schools, professors aren't hired for teaching record or ability, they're hired for research, so we still can't make assumptions about quality of instruction. The competition for jobs is more likely to result in selection for teaching ability at lower ranked schools, believe it or not.

-a lot of bigger schools have invested in "teaching and learning centers," dedicated instructional staff to help professors, etc, that they wouldn't have had decades ago. Could this improve quality of teaching? Maybe, but probably not uniformly