<p>I was talking to my husband tonight in changes we have seen in some colleges since my son applied in 2005-6. I remember vividly for instance, his GC giving a college application talk and showing UConn vs a private college. UConn's average SAT at that time was 960 and he said the branches were lower. The honors college was about 1300 and some of his peers got in with great scholarships. Today it is 1200 average with 1400 for the honors college.</p>
<p>Has anyone else noticed a big difference in competitiveness among colleges they are looking at now vs a few years back?</p>
<p>Sometimes a college is labeled, good or bad, and it takes time to have people see it differently and that is true with public or private colleges.</p>
<p>A lot of the bog standard 'reputations' of many schools are no longer applicable today. In large part, this is due to the fact that these reputations are often built by notable alumni... but of course those alumni generally attended such schools decades ago when the American higher education system was much different. </p>
<p>Many people are still of the engraved mindset that the Ivy League and a few other schools are still in a league of their own above everyone else. However, the truth is that in many subject areas like science many such schools have fallen quite a bit behind a pack of other schools in attracting the top students for those subjects (with the exception of Harvard, which is still very strong in science).</p>
<p>Changing economic times have also caused a lot of people to reassess what they're really spending their money on. There was equally an earlier mindset among many that unless you paid out the nose for your education it must not be any good. That theory has since thoroughly been debunked and many find that they can often get a better education at a much lower cost.</p>
<p>All these things have significantly changed the cross section of 'average' students at most schools.</p>
