Anonymous
Post 04/20/2025 08:32     Subject: If you graduated college in the 90s/00s which schools shocked you with their change in status/competiveness?
Not me, but I have an older friend who went to Bennington in the 80s. He talks about the "Bennington purge" of 94 as a catastrophe. I wish I could have been at Bennington before that happened: it sounds like such a special place.
Anonymous
Post 04/20/2025 08:31     Subject: Re:If you graduated college in the 90s/00s which schools shocked you with their change in status/competiveness?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:SAT was different in the 80s. Harder. You rarely heard people hitting 1400+ SAT.

I remember 1200-1300 was a solid SAT score in the 80s (put you in play anywhere). So the score report doesn't mean much...BUT--yes it is much more selective everywhere due to common app, number of applicants (not as many people went onto 4-year colleges), holistic approach and test optional.


^ the test was very different. The dumbed parts of it down over time.


No one got perfect scores back in the late 70s - early 89s. 1250 was a good score. It’s crazy now


+1 I got a 1400 or something and it was like 99th percentile.
Anonymous
Post 04/20/2025 08:21     Subject: Re:If you graduated college in the 90s/00s which schools shocked you with their change in status/competiveness?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:SAT was different in the 80s. Harder. You rarely heard people hitting 1400+ SAT.

I remember 1200-1300 was a solid SAT score in the 80s (put you in play anywhere). So the score report doesn't mean much...BUT--yes it is much more selective everywhere due to common app, number of applicants (not as many people went onto 4-year colleges), holistic approach and test optional.


^ the test was very different. The dumbed parts of it down over time.


No one got perfect scores back in the late 70s - early 89s. 1250 was a good score. It’s crazy now
Anonymous
Post 04/20/2025 08:05     Subject: If you graduated college in the 90s/00s which schools shocked you with their change in status/competiveness?
Anonymous wrote:Northwestern and Washington U and Michigan used to be backup or 2nd choice schools for Midwestern Ivy aspirants back then


Michigan always had Ivy League rejects but it's popularity has gotten out of hand. Big sports profile has something to do with it.
Anonymous
Post 04/20/2025 08:01     Subject: If you graduated college in the 90s/00s which schools shocked you with their change in status/competiveness?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Northeastern
Vanderbilt
Any of the SEC schools for OOS kids
NYU
USC (when I took the SATs they were doing the stuff Chicago does now- sending the biggest and most mailings of anyone and generally acting desperate)


Nope. Vanderbilt has been competitive and difficult to get into for a long time.



+1 There's considerable ignorance (and prejudice) showing up in this thread. No surprise, given it's DCUM.


Nope. I was HS class of 1998 and the top kids at my school used Vanderbilt as a safety because it gave a ton of merit aid.


These anecdotes mean nothing but heres one that contradicts yours: I graduated hs 2002 and the valedictorian of my hs who had an amazing profile rejected from Vanderbilt and wound up attending Davidson.


This suggests yield protection considering Vanderbilt at the time accepted around half of all applicants.
Anonymous
Post 04/20/2025 07:03     Subject: Re:If you graduated college in the 90s/00s which schools shocked you with their change in status/competiveness?
Northeastern.

To a lesser degree, NYU and USC.

To an even lesser degree, UChicago.
Anonymous
Post 04/20/2025 01:50     Subject: If you graduated college in the 90s/00s which schools shocked you with their change in status/competiveness?
Vanderbilt. They were recruiting so hard from the NE (NJ/NY/CT) to not be seen as an exclusively Southern school the standards weren't that high and the aid was flowing. Good students but nothing like now.

WashU. Same. Was barely known then (again, NE) and certainly not top or that competitive.
Anonymous
Post 04/20/2025 01:19     Subject: If you graduated college in the 90s/00s which schools shocked you with their change in status/competiveness?
Anonymous wrote:BU and BC transitioned in the mid to late 80’s by John Silber and Doug Flutie. Silber was a dynamic President of BU and Flutie won the Heisman Trophy at BC in mid 80’s. Don’t know what accounts for NEU popularity?


Gradual improvements all around for decades and achieved top level in all of the major metrics including retention rate, graduation rate, student profile, outcomes. Location played a role in that. Smart consumers know the value.

Rome wasn't built in a day.
Anonymous
Post 04/20/2025 01:12     Subject: If you graduated college in the 90s/00s which schools shocked you with their change in status/competiveness?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Northeastern
Vanderbilt
Any of the SEC schools for OOS kids
NYU
USC (when I took the SATs they were doing the stuff Chicago does now- sending the biggest and most mailings of anyone and generally acting desperate)


Nope. Vanderbilt has been competitive and difficult to get into for a long time.



+1 There's considerable ignorance (and prejudice) showing up in this thread. No surprise, given it's DCUM.


Nope. I was HS class of 1998 and the top kids at my school used Vanderbilt as a safety because it gave a ton of merit aid.


Same -- HS class of 1993. Add NYU to that list too. Lots of merit. And U Miami.

In terms of change in competitiveness, BU, Northeastern, UF off the top of my head.


Things changed a lot between early 90s and early 00s even.
Anonymous
Post 04/20/2025 01:12     Subject: If you graduated college in the 90s/00s which schools shocked you with their change in status/competiveness?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Northeastern
Vanderbilt
Any of the SEC schools for OOS kids
NYU
USC (when I took the SATs they were doing the stuff Chicago does now- sending the biggest and most mailings of anyone and generally acting desperate)


Nope. Vanderbilt has been competitive and difficult to get into for a long time.



+1 There's considerable ignorance (and prejudice) showing up in this thread. No surprise, given it's DCUM.


Nope. I was HS class of 1998 and the top kids at my school used Vanderbilt as a safety because it gave a ton of merit aid.


These anecdotes mean nothing but heres one that contradicts yours: I graduated hs 2002 and the valedictorian of my hs who had an amazing profile rejected from Vanderbilt and wound up attending Davidson.
Anonymous
Post 04/20/2025 01:04     Subject: If you graduated college in the 90s/00s which schools shocked you with their change in status/competiveness?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Northeastern
Vanderbilt
Any of the SEC schools for OOS kids
NYU
USC (when I took the SATs they were doing the stuff Chicago does now- sending the biggest and most mailings of anyone and generally acting desperate)


Nope. Vanderbilt has been competitive and difficult to get into for a long time.



One of the ditziest girls in my class went there because her daddy donated was an alum who donated a lot of money to the school. It was more like a finishing school back then.

While Vanderbilt was known as a "good school," it definitely wasn't as hard to get into in the 90s.


In the 90s vanderbilts acceptance rate was around 65% and then by the 00s the acceptance rate was around 25% so it really got more competitive quickly.
Anonymous
Post 04/10/2025 09:36     Subject: If you graduated college in the 90s/00s which schools shocked you with their change in status/competiveness?
Anonymous wrote:BU and BC transitioned in the mid to late 80’s by John Silber and Doug Flutie. Silber was a dynamic President of BU and Flutie won the Heisman Trophy at BC in mid 80’s. Don’t know what accounts for NEU popularity?


This is how NEU grew in popularity: https://www.bostonmagazine.com/2014/08/26/how...he-college-rankings/
Anonymous
Post 04/10/2025 09:35     Subject: If you graduated college in the 90s/00s which schools shocked you with their change in status/competiveness?
Anonymous wrote:BU and BC transitioned in the mid to late 80’s by John Silber and Doug Flutie. Silber was a dynamic President of BU and Flutie won the Heisman Trophy at BC in mid 80’s. Don’t know what accounts for NEU popularity?[/quote]

This is how NEU grew in popularity: https://www.bostonmagazine.com/2014/08/26/how-northeastern-gamed-the-college-rankings/
Anonymous
Post 04/10/2025 09:34     Subject: If you graduated college in the 90s/00s which schools shocked you with their change in status/competiveness?
BU and BC transitioned in the mid to late 80’s by John Silber and Doug Flutie. Silber was a dynamic President of BU and Flutie won the Heisman Trophy at BC in mid 80’s. Don’t know what accounts for NEU popularity?
Anonymous
Post 04/10/2025 09:30     Subject: If you graduated college in the 90s/00s which schools shocked you with their change in status/competiveness?
Anonymous wrote:HS class of 1987. In VA, W&M was a harder admit than UVA among my classmates from a public Central VA school.

That year, JMU was more competitive than VA Tech but that has now changed.

Mary Washington was much more selective than now.

Christopher Newport was a commuter school and one step above a community college.

Hardly anyone went OOS.

I'm of a similar timeframe but one state further south.

Carolina and State were the go-tos for any in-state student and I generally mean "any" -- if you had a pulse, had an SAT >500 (when 400 was the minimum for merely signing your name), and could pay the paltry $400/semester tuition -- you were "admitted." They made zero effort to retain anyone.

ECU was the JMU. Super big party school and the semi-mainstream alternate to UNC/NCSU.

App State was barely heard of.

A&T was the local choice but mostly as a commuter/PT option. Most of my classmates had to work.

High Point didn't exist.

Not a single kid of our class of 325 went OOS. But then again, when only 9 or 10 of us even attempted a 4-yr institution....

To answer OP's question, though, I'm most shocked at UNC, especially for OOS (I think it's still relative "easy" as in-state). And definitely most of the SEC.