College admissions: a numbers game

[dre229]

<p>[MyClaySun.com:</a> College admissions: a numbers game](<a href=“http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/110107/nec_213619904.shtml]MyClaySun.com:”>http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/110107/nec_213619904.shtml)
By AMY HOWARD, My Clay Sun</p>

<p>Getting into a preferred college is no longer a simple matter of great academics. For the past few years, colleges nationwide have received far more stellar applications than they can accommodate. As a result, students aren’t just qualifying - they’re competing. Fiercely.</p>

<p>Take, for example, the Freshman Profile of the University of Florida. Rounding to the nearest hundred, in 1999 approximately 14,000 applied to UF. By 2007, that number rose to 24,000. Moreover, a whopping 8,800 of them boasted a grade-point average of 4.0 or above. UF spent a third of its acceptance letters on 7,600 of them, but here’s the kicker: 1,200 A-plus students got the regrets letter. Kids with GPAs between 3.7 and 4.0 fared worse, with only 32 percent accepted, and a mere 16 percent of those in the 3.3 to 3.7 range were accepted. The 3.5 GPA that wins a Florida Bright Futures Scholarship means little.</p>

<p>In a recent parents’ meeting, Ridgeview High School guidance counselor Polly Partridge marveled that UF offered more scholarship incentives to “first time in college” (in one’s household) applicants than the prestigious National Merit scholars. “Before, you could look at the GPA, SAT and class rank to know whether a kid would get in,” Partridge said. “Now there’s no way to know.”</p>

<p>This year, UF will fill its 6,600 freshman seats by weeding through some 26,000 applications. Blinded by brilliance, an orientation speaker in June warned, “They all start looking the same after a while.”</p>

<p>Pam Proctor, president of College Application Consultants, Inc., has watched this evolution transpire through her years of coaching students. While administrators are scratching their heads, she attributes the applicant flood to the stork. The offspring of Baby Boomers have reached college age. Endowed with the Internet, this already swollen population is academically swollen with better educational resources.</p>

<p>The number snowballs through the online Common Application, which allows students to submit a single application to an unlimited number of participating colleges with the click of a button.</p>

<p>Ironically, this saturation may be a blessing in disguise. Teens have to do some soul-searching. Desperate for ways to differentiate among qualified candidates. Now, instead of seeing a student as an impressive GPA or SAT number, college admission officers are digging deeper to find the personality of the applicant, and envision that personality on their campus.</p>

<p>In this light, colleges can see right through students who take easy classes to protect their GPA. Likewise, applicants who bank on the “well-rounded look” by dabbling in a variety of extracurriculars fade into a blur of titles that admissions people call a “laundry list.”</p>

<p>Proctor believes the way to wake up an overworked admissions officer is with a vivid, focused characterization. In her book, The College Hook: Packaging Yourself to Win the College Admissions Game, Proctor walks readers through a process of self-analysis and self-promotion. The goal is to pull together one’s attributes and activities which support his or her own hook.</p>

[FLBoy]

<p>The fact is that determining ones chances of admission should be as easy as knowing how your SAT scores and GPA compare to others who are applying. There are no better measures of your ability to do academic work and your willingness to work hard. While there are other indicators that suggest improved chances of success, no other measures are as reliable.</p>

<p>The main problem is diversity. When it is desired that the in-coming class be a certain percentage, say, black and that group has comparatively low GPAs and SATs, then other aspects of ones records MUST be factored into the admissions process. It’s even given a euphemistic name: the holistic approach. In reality, it’s a way to force a desired result.</p>

<p>What has changed here at UF recently is the hiring of an African American woman as Director of Admissions. Also, interestingly, the majority of members of the Office of Provost are African American. </p>

<p>[University</a> of Florida - Office of the Provost / Academic Affairs](<a href=“http://www.aa.ufl.edu/office/execstaff.htm]University”>http://www.aa.ufl.edu/office/execstaff.htm)</p>

<p>If you are Caucasian, then to get a true gauge of your chances of getting in, don’t look at the 6600 spots in the freshman class as all available to you. Rather, first deduct for athletes, then deduct for the quotas set aside for minorities. What is left will be perhaps 3000 spots or less.</p>

<p>Whether this approach is fair or not is certainly debatable. But what is certain is that it would really help families to plan better if truer picture of reality were painted. The admissions process is just not as random as people think.</p>

[DiGamma23]

<p>what does UF expect the yield rate to be this year? I know uf accepted around 10,200 last admissions season. You should have commented on that, flboy.</p>

[alexithymia]

<p><em>barfs</em>
i hate these articles.</p>

[SSobick]

<p>The yield rate last year was really high at 57%.</p>

<p>This year should be over 60% easily.</p>