We hear this argument a lot: “Private colleges are private businesses. Therefore, they can do whatever they want as private businesses”.
Private colleges, with a few exceptions, don’t operate as private for-profit businesses (which have to answer to their shareholders). They provide a product, or more accurately, a service that is critical to the society. They’re tax-exempt. They don’t answer to any regulators. Lack of transparency hides biases, discrimination, patronage, and yes, even corruptions (as shown by the recent scandals). Where else is the lack of transparency considered a virtue?
Most private companies don't have shareholders only a few really do, and they are privately held so subject to different rules then publicly held companies.
The rules for non profit universities are the same as they are for all other non profits, and there are MANY non profits that provide a critical service to society. You would have to carve out non profit universities for special rules.
Private unlisted for-profit companies have owners, which function the same way as shareholders. Colleges perform a much different, and more critical, role than other non-profits. That’s why even governments (all the state/provincial governments and most foreign central governments) are involved in that business.
I agree with much of what my friend @roycroftmom is advocating.
My only additional thought is to perhaps reframe or rethink the way we view the tax breaks universities enjoy.
These institutions provide more to the overall health and welfare of a community and country than the sum of its graduates.
It’s the cultural framework and access to dialogue and debate. Scholarship and research that provides important discourse and specific discoveries that benefit all.
Science and medicine alone.
There also the artistic, athletic and cultural options available to the citizens beyond the student body.
It’s also employment opportunities for thousands and thousands of citizens.
The multitude of small businesses that spout up to support the community.
It all adds extra tax revenue and important answers to some really big problems a complex culture needs to survive.
@Sue22 “I’m wondering what you see the end goal in more transparency as. So that families can tailor their kids’ application to what the schools want? How would, or should, more accurate information on colleges’ acceptance rates change the admissions experience for families?”
Here’s one example how more transparency and more accurate information could help families make an informed decision.
Last month we toured Duke. They absolutely said that if Duke is your #1 college choice you should apply Early Decision (ED) as the acceptance rate is around 20% versus 7% regular decision. What they didn’t say and which is NOT in any marketing materials or CDS is that if you are the “average excellent student who is unhooked”, the acceptance rate is actually LOWER than regular decision (by all accounts and estimates) but we don’t have those definitive numbers so we have to rely upon what the adcoms tells us during the college tour, apply ED!
Let that sink in…it’s counter intuitive but: applying ED to Duke actually HURTS the “average excellent applicant w/ no hooks”.
As a parent of a D20, all I ask is tell me what are the rules of the game so we can attempt to comply (or chose not to play). It’s really not that much to ask when we parents and students are making such an important decision as where to spend our college savings and/or take out loans to help our kids get a good education.
“If nothing told you the avg exc kid’s chances are lower, how do you know?”
That’s my point and the point of this thread, I can only GUESS about what percent of the ED class is athletes, legacy, development cases, exceptional talent, URM, faculty kids, Questbridge or …???
IMO, to encourage the average kid to apply to Duke (or any other college) ED without giving them accurate and honest information and putting it into context is doing the applicant and their parents a disservice. They are absolutely hiding the ball and not sharing information to help their own agenda.
So you don’t really know, but are annoyed at false or misleading info? How’s that work?
“Last year, the Class of 2022 saw an acceptance rate of 21 percent out of 4,090 students in its early decision round.”
Are you investing as much concern in the link above? How she matches? That’s where it happens. The stats for Early reflect kids they want. Not any raw apps, just for applying sooner.
It is not unethical for a college to not share every detail of how they make decisions. It is not unethical for Coca Cola to keep their recipe in a safe, and it’s not unethical for fraternities and sororities to choose who they want to accept as pledges. You don’t have to like it, but that doesn’t make it unethical.
Getting your kid into college isn’t a democratic process.
^^ then don’t tell kids it’s much easier to get in to their college and encourage them to apply ED when it in fact hurts their changes for admission for the vast majority of unhooked excellent applicants. You don’t have to tell us the secret sauce of admissions, only advocating showing us the raw numbers, not how they got to the numbers.
Lookingforward, focusing on/criticizing deceptive statistics touted by a business and being able to properly judge other factors about that business and act on them (determine if a school has a good personality fit and therefore choose to apply to it and write an essay which highlights the fit) are not mutually exclusive events. If fact, I would say they are often coincident.
One can accurately see through a college’s attempt to puff its stats and also see that the physics department has exactly what you’d do great in. Purchase decisions are complex. So are teenagers. Many decide post facto that they really don’t want to apply to a college after they have begun an application. Perhaps that is a reflection of more they have learned about a school, perhaps it is just laziness. But for my older children, one or two acceptances came in that they had completely forgotten about. Those schools turned them off with THEIR poor performance during the application process. They failed to properly assess what was obviously true about my kids if they had only bothered to pay attention. So, weak effort and poor execution is all over the place in this messy process.
The percent is not what gets a kid in. It’s not a lottery. Is that a source of confusion? They apply thinking, “Oh, hit Submit, spin the wheel, and it’s a 1 in 5 chance?”
Not.
I’m surprised at the apparent misconceptions on this thread. They dont pick any old “every 5th kid.”
The ones with a lower chance are those who do not match.
The Duke link offers a huge view of “what we look for.”
@Lindagaf - You’re correct that colleges don’t have to provide expansive detail, but the ethical challenge I suspect most feel is the potential for schools (and primarily their personnel) to overstate possibilities and understate risks. It’s human nature, and these folks have a job to do, but the drive for what feels like “an application at any cost” is “dirty”. What hurts, even more, is the feeling that you’ve been tricked…that you didn’t see the warning signs or didn’t understand the details of your commitments. The options lost.
The vast majority of admissions details are propaganda. Sure, there are details behind the propaganda, but I think you would agree it’s not readily accessible by the vast majority of students and their parents. Noting that the vast majority don’t engage in this conversation (it’s only for those looking at more selective options), It feels like another game tilted in favor of those with the time to sit around their computer on a Wednesday morning and do research.
@EyeVeee , with respect, again, no one is forcing kids to apply to highly selective colleges. We can say exactly the same about any company that is trying to get us to buy something. You can always get a better deal on a new car somewhere else, or maybe you have to settle for a lower quality car, or a car that’s farther away, or a used car, or an entirely different car than you originally wanted, or maybe even the luxury car at the bargain price, of which there are precious few. You need a car, but no one is forcing you to buy the expensive one.
@Lindagaf - you’re right…and I generally agree with your statements, but education needs to be better than that. If you buy the wrong car, you get another one in a few years.
I’m no bleeding heart…and I played the game with my kids…but what others are asking for is already there, it’s just hidden. I agree with them that institutions should be as transparent as possible. It won’t make a difference for 95%+(?) of the kids…but shouldn’t we do what we can for all of them?
Car dealers are not pretending they are engaged in some noble not for profit mission to educate and gather the best and brightest. They are upfront that they exist to sell, and everything is marketing material. Colleges could do the same. Stop telling us to look at the CDS in one post but noting the CDS is unpoliced in another post, so really the numbers in there may be meaningless.if the colleges really want to keep the info secret, that stop releasing partial, often misleading, info-No more press releases on SAT scores or applications or admission rates.
Those doubting the value of accurate information in decision making are referred to today’s NYT, which details the government’s mandated reporting in outcome by major and institution and debt level of students. Yes, much of this information was available in the aggregate before, but now detailed this way, it is likely to change decision making.