02

Yesterday's most active thread was again the college protests thread which, again, had several times the number of posts of the next most active thread. But, since I've already discussed that thread I'll skip it today and move to the next most active thread which was titled, "NYT: ‘Peak College Admissions Insanity’" and posted in the "College and University Discussion" forum. The original poster linked to a New York Times article with the same title as the thread. The author of the article, a former official in the US Department of Education, describes a number of developments that led to admissions for the 2023-2024 school year at selective universities becoming a chaotic and unpredictable experience. As the author wrote, "even the gatekeepers seemed not to know what the new rules were." I was about halfway through this article when I decided that it was clearly written for the express purpose of trolling DCUM. The article hit on all of the hot button DCUM college forum topics including the obvious ones such test optional admissions, early decision, and financial aid. But it also hit some of the deep cuts such as when the author name-checked Northeastern University. When he brought up "yield protection", I imagined the forum's yield protection obsessives setting off fireworks in celebration. In many ways, the article is the culmination and distillation of all of the most active college forum topics that I have discussed in this blog. The article emphasizes the impact of early decision applications and how they have changed the admissions calendar. It discusses the importance of colleges making standardized tests optional and the huge growth in the number of applications the top universities receive. The decision by the US Supreme Court prohibiting the use of race in college admissions received only a cursory mention, putting the article somewhat at odds with DCUM's college forum where the topic is heavily discussed. DCUM posters quickly caught on to an error in the author's understanding of when applicants accepted in the early decision round must pull applications from other colleges. However, financial aid decisions this year were delayed due to changes in the FAFSA application that postponed its availability. So for this year, the author may have been correct. In addition, posters pointed out additional factors that the author did not appear to consider. Generally, however, posters agree that the current college admissions process is filled with unknowns and that there appear to be few rules. As one poster summarized things, "High school seniors think this is checkers, but the schools know it’s chess. This has all become frankly terrifying for students, who are first-time players in a game their opponents invented."