admissions "hot spots" spread

[ariesathena]

Tufts. I have an engineering degree, but took a few required courses. I really liked a poetry class, and my prof pointed out that I got a very classical education and could see the influences. They forced me to take a history course (had to take social science, not just humanities) and I LOVED it. I had some great profs - foreign language, literature, and history were all awesome. I really enjoyed it and learned a ton - I thought I was doing it to get through requirements!

Tufts does have a big focus on integrating the engineering college with the liberal arts college. So there's no "math for engineers" v. "math for liberal artists." Likewise, we did have distribution requirements in liberal arts and they really encourage you to explore. We also have two free electives, that we were strongly encouraged to use in a frivolous manner.

[cptofthehouse]

I agree pretty much with Carolyn. The hype is truly a focus on the super select schools both on the highschool and college levels. However, I have also notice that many highschools' focus is on getting the kid into the state flagship school which has become a challenge lately with the stellar academic profiles that applicants to these schools have been showing. Many of such schools are becoming an obsession for parents. And many of those parents whose budgets will be stretched even sending their kids to the state uni, have kids without good options if those kids cannot get into that state uni. My husband's cousins live in Delaware, and when their kids cannot get into U of D, they have to go to community college since the cost of going away for college is too high for them unless they can get that in state tuition. None of the kids got enough aid to go to the catholic colleges where they also applied in hopes of enough money to go away.

As to most of the less selective schools not being worth the experience, I beg to differ with that view. There are many, many, many schools that take most of their applicants and can give anyone who is looking for a good education what need. Many of these schools can offer kids who would not get such opportunities at more selective schools special experiences. I know kids who have had difficulties getting the widely advertised internships and research opportunities at some of the top school. Kids at schools not as well know, can have better chances at some of such programs. I would hate to send a kid as a premed at Hopkins, Cornell or other such school unless that kid is truly the top of the top. Better he goes to a small LAC that can nurture him through the gauntlet rather than try to be gatekeepers as such selective schools do.

Also, it has been a recent phenomonon that kids get to visit colleges that they are considering, then when they apply to them and then again when they get in. The visiting scene has been further fueled by this "demonstrated interest" busines that was fueled by so many kids applying to so many schools that the schools were getting beset with phantom applicants since you can only go to one school. Yes, if you are applying to a dozen schools that require or recommend visits and interviews, you are going to stressed out with the process.

[katonahmom]

cptofthehouse: good point about the demonstrated interest factor and college visits.

Irishmom, I agree with you completely about the stereotyping. Just the same, the tri-state metro area (Westchester Cty., Long Island, as well as Fairfield Cty) and the Boston area have always been super competitive regions - even 20 years ago - when it comes to higher education whether it be for undergraduate admission or competition for graduate fellowships. These days, the number of kids who not only want to go to college but want to aim for the elites are up and, as a result, parents and families from these areas are caught smack in the center of the college admission maelstrom these days.

Anyway, here have the first installment of another series of articles, this time in Newsday, that will follow seven seniors as they go through the admissions process:


"A generation ago, Daniel Bianculli could have counted on an admissions letter from an Ivy League university. His SAT scores are in the top 99th percentile, he plays the trumpet in the band and starts on three varsity teams at Oyster Bay High. He wants to study physics and engineering at a place like Cornell so that one day he can join the CIA and thwart terrorists.

But this year, the most competitive for college admissions in decades, he faces staggering odds. Cornell accepted just one of Oyster Bay's 11 applicants from the class of 2006. Bianculli can't even count on a spot at his other favorites, including Carnegie Mellon and Vanderbilt.

Bianculli lacks what colleges call a "hook." He's not a recruited athlete, a legacy or a member of an underrepresented minority group. He doesn't come from a family that can donate a campus building, either.

"This kind of kid would have been a slam dunk for all the great colleges fifteen years ago, but now it's going to be hard," said Gwyeth Smith Jr., Oyster Bay's guidance director. "We have to be nervous, especially because he's coming off Long Island, where there are a lot of Dan Biancullis in the applicant pool."

As they cram for next Saturday's SATs and sweat over essays to meet Wednesday's deadline to apply early to elite colleges, Long Island students confront a demographic mountain. Nationwide, the high school class of 2012 -- this year's seventh-graders -- will be 11 percent larger than the class of 2000. The growth is even more dramatic on Long Island, where the class of 2012 will swell by 35 percent.

And the best scholars are better prepared than ever. The number of American high school students taking college-level Advanced Placement exams has increased by 143 percent in the past 10 years. On Long Island, nearly 30 percent of last year's seniors scored at least a 3 out of a possible 4 on one or more AP exams during their high school careers. That's almost double the rate of seniors nationwide.

"We're turning away students who are number one and two in their class not because we're arrogant but because we don't have room," said Lee Stetson, dean of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania, which rejected 62 percent of the 1,035 high school valedictorians who applied this year. Penn isn't alone. Duke rebuffed 58 percent of valedictorians, and Harvard said no to one out of every four applicants with perfect SAT scores.

An Ivy League hot spot

Admissions officers point out that Long Island still manages to send an enviable number of students to top colleges. They credit rigorous high schools located in small districts that offer individualized attention. Jericho, for example, sent a remarkable 9 percent of its Class of 2006 to the Ivies (25 of 264).

Yet the competition intensifies -- here, in Boston's suburbs, in Marin County, Calif. -- anywhere with pockets of wealth and distinguished private and public schools. Said Rachel Korn, who worked in admissions at Brandeis, Wellesley and Penn before editing a book of tips for applicants: "Long Island has so many highly talented students from ultra-competitive schools that it's tough to make the cut."...

"Driven by the growing demand as well as students who want to hedge their bets, applications have soared at places such as Reed College in Oregon (up 15 percent from last year) and College of the Holy Cross, outside Boston (up 41 percent). And, suddenly the "safety schools" aren't so safe: The University of Miami, once derisively known as a "Suntan U," received 19,100 applications this year for 2,000 openings.

Local guidance counselors assure parents there are scores of hidden gems among the nation's 2,533 colleges. Outstanding schools such as Grinnell, Davidson, Carleton, the Claremont colleges, Emory, Oberlin don't yet have window-decal cachet. It's the three dozen bigger-name campuses that continue to mesmerize brand-conscious parents who were satisfied with SUNY schools for themselves." "



http://www.newsday.com/news/local/lo...ny-main-bigpix

[thumper1]

>>Bill Dingledine, an educational consultant in Greenville, S.C. "It's not quite like that here. But it's moving in that direction.">>

I personally know a number of New Englanders who have been relocated to Greenville because their business relocated there. I wonder if some of what this fellow sees is because folks from other regions are now moving in. My understanding is the Greenville area is one of the fastest growing in the country...and my guess is there are a lot of "transplants" there.

[par72]

Good to see schools like Davidson, Holy Cross and Reed getting more popular. All 3 are very good LAC'S with strong alumni networks.

[asteriskea]

Thumper, I think you are right about the "transplants" - I got the same impression from the article. In any case, I do think that many parents and students from these "Ivy League Hot spot" areas do know about Oberlin, Middlebury, Davidson, Grinnell etc. and I certainly know families who proudly sport these college's decals on their cars to prove it.

[katonahmom]

With so many media articles harping on the spread admissions stress these days, it is fascinating to read this 1996 feature article on (former Dean and Director of Undergraduate Admissions) Margit Dahl, who was asked to reflect on what was clearly seen, ten years ago, to be a disturbing change that heightened demand on the Yale admissions department. Of course, Richard Shaw is currently at work to attract ever-increasing numbers of "world-class students" to Stanford.


" "There's a lot more interest today in packaging, in image," says Dahl. "We as a society are more packaged than we were 20 years ago, and that affects admissions too."

"In her two decades of visiting schools, reading applications, and interviewing students, she's seen the stakes rise on both sides. "In the past, the admissions office here didn't have to work so hard at recruiting," she says. "We could rely on the Yale name to attract the best students." The University still fills its classes with top-notch scholars, says Dahl; it just has to seek them out more deliberately. That means reaching out to more students, in more places. In addition to visiting three or four high schools a day on their recruiting rounds, as admissions officers have done for years, they now hold evening meetings to which every promising high school student within a prescribed area receives an invitation. "It's not just a matter of keeping up with the Joneses," says Dahl of her office's stepped-up recruiting efforts. "It's about talking to kids from different parts of the country that we've never reached before."

Dahl says that she and Richard Shaw, Yale's dean of undergraduate admissions and financial aid, take the task of recruiting world-class students quite literally. In the four years since he succeeded Worth David, who had served as dean since 1972, Shaw has gone abroad four times, scouting Asia, Europe, and the Middle East for qualified students. "We realized that for a place of Yale's stature, we weren't attracting as many international students as we should," says Dahl, pointing out that Shaw also initiated a major redesign of Yale's "viewbook," the brochure that provides some prospective students with their only glimpse of the campus."

http://www.yalealumnimagazine.com/is...dmissions.html

[katonahmom]

Here is a update link to the second installment of the Newday article on the seven seniors:

"Daniel Bianculli

Oyster Bay High School

Visited Cornell, liked it. Flew to Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh last weekend; found it "decent, but not a top choice." Applied to SUNY Binghamton. Applying to Rice University by December 1. Then applying to Cornell, Carnegie Mellon, Vanderbilt, Villanova and Lafayette.

Kristin and Lauren Mobyed

Mineola High School

Recruited to play lacrosse at George Washington University, the twin sisters were "smitten" by students, coach and campus, Lauren said. By end of weekend visit this month, both had committed to attend.



Trinh Nguyen

Copiague High School

Visited Cornell. Awaiting word on early applications to University of Chicago and Georgetown. Finishing applications to Yale, Duke, Cornell, Washington University, SUNY Geneseo, and others.

Matthew Rojano

Bridgehampton High

Took the SAT for the second time earlier this month. Applied to SUNY schools at New Paltz, Oneonta, Old Westbury, Binghamton and Albany."

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/lo...chools-archive

[bethievt]

katonahmom

That "small college in Middlebury Vermont" you mentioned earlier accepted only 20% of applicants last year. Hardly a stat to calm admissioins anxiety.

[StickerShock]

thumper, I have relatives in Greenville. They tell me it is the highest ranked district in the state. Loaded with transplants. In fact, their neighborhood (a development) has far more transplants than native southerners. Lots of northeasterners & midwesterners. BMW has brought in a decent number of Germans, as well.

[vienna man]

The reality of $50,000 per year will deflate this bubble rather quickly. In reality there are only about 20 schools that will produce the vast majority of all the Rhodes, Marshalls, foreign Service officers, investment bankers, top 25 big firm lawyers, cia agents, NIH grant winners, doctors etc. These 20 schools have an important function in developing our national leadership and identifying true talent and are actually worth the price.

Beyond those 20, college becomes a commodity where one could substitute any of one hundred fifty names for any other 150. It is here that the bubble will hit since it is pure hype that is inflating the applications to this group. Amazingly, the key to the hype seems to be raising tuition to near the level of the top 20 so that anxiety prone parents think the commodity schools are worth the exhorbitant price. The extra tuition is used for a relatively small amount of merit aid which is pursued by many that further fuels the fire. Well, people are seeing thtough this now and in an era where defined benefit pensions are being eliminated and health care is going to Mars, parents, particularly the ones paying the full $45,000 freight, will just say no. This will actually be to the benefit of the public college and community college systems as they are on the cusp of an era of vast improvement.

[katonahmom]

While most Rhodes Scholars do come out of the same schools year after year, that does not necessarily mean that other colleges and universities do not offer quality education. FYI, 2007 U.S. Rhodes Scholars came from:
* Harvard University – 6
* Yale University – 4
* Stanford University – 3
* Washington University in St. Louis – 2 (1 from WUSL School of Medicine)
* Brown University – 1
* Case Western Reserve University – 1
* Cornell University – 1
* Duke University – 1
* Emory University – 1
* Georgetown University – 1
* Montana State University (Bozeman) – 1
* New York University (NYU) – 1
* Princeton University – 1
* University of Minnesota – 1
* University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill – 1
* University of Oregon – 1
* University of Pittsburgh – 1
* Wake Forest University – 1

As well as from each of the 3 U.S. Military Service Academies:

* U.S. Naval Academy – 1
* U.S. Military Academy – 1
* U.S. Air Force Academy – 1


Bethie, no doubt about it Middlebury is highly selective and falls into the "most competitive" category so of course competition for admission is tough. It would be unrealistic to think otherwise. With about 2,350 undergraduate students Midd is famous for language instruction and international studies and, I may add, its strict honor code. There is a 9:1 student-faculty ratio and most classes are small with about 16 students. Since it is a small LAC, another point that many students (and parents) prize is that all courses are taught by faculty members rather than graduate assistants. Just because the admit rate is about 20% is no reason to fuel the fire of admission anxiety.

[vienna man]

Making my point in spades -80% from the Ivys, Geogretowns and Military acadamies of the world.

[katonahmom]

Not really, although it may appear to be so. If you do want to think of educational bang for the buck in terms of prestigious accolades and awards, then it would be only fair to cast the net wider to give a more realistic context to judge this type of pragmatic evaluation of educational rigor and competitiveness. By that, I mean it would be necessary to look at the colleges and universities that produced nominees for these presitigious awards. Because as in the case of the Rhodes scholars, they "were selected from 896 applicants endorsed by 340 colleges and universities, and will join scholars selected from 13 other jurisdictions around the world. Approximately 85 are selected each year. The scholarships provide two or three years of study, with the total value averaging about $45,000 per year." Yes, the award winners are selected "on the basis of high academic achievement, personal integrity, leadership potential and physical vigor, among other attributes" but so are the nominees.


"Varied backgrounds lead to Rhodes honor"
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061119/...hodes_scholars

[vienna man]

Go to the Harvard Law School Website for 2005-2006.You will see that Cornell($45K tuition) has 40 grads enrolled. Lets come up with a random list of 20 schools from the second 150 interchangeable schools, all of which have $40-45K tuition and fees-Boston College (3), Carleton(1), Colorado College (1), Claremont Mckenna(4). Colgate(1), Holy Cross (1), Knox (1) Haverford(2), Mount Holyoke(0), Johns Hopkins (4) ,Oberlin(2), Reed (2), Smith(1), Dickinson(0), Gettysburg(0), Denison (1), Fordham(0), Vassar(2), Brandeis(11), and Hillsdale (4). Are people really going to pay $45k tuition when they know their kids will not have the type of high paying careers that will offset the expense? I don't think so in today's world. They will do so for a true Ivy, but not for solid, good institutions that consign the 2010 or 2011 graduate to a life of debt.

Multiple Marshall winners for 2007 are from Princeton (4), West Point (3) and Georgetown (2).