Still a lot more applying to MIT than pre covid even if significantly lower than the TO period.
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Perhaps this is due to the overall increased uncertainty resulting in increased apps in general? Spiraling.
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Maybe, but I’d expect to see that manifest more at low reaches and targets than MIT!
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I’ve summarized points of the thread in the original post. Any other ideas to share?
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- I’m beginning to wonder if teacher recs are carrying more weight - especially at T20 schools where multiple kids from a high school are applying. This is just conjecture as I try to evaluate the “why” for some ED decisions.
- Legacy means even less.
- The gender gap is real. Girls have it harder to get accepted almost everywhere, and some schools are so skewed that it has to impact every kid’s experience. If I put these in order, this would be #1 IMO.
- Essays matter. Most essays are polished, but in the WHY this specific school essays, the ones that shine show real research about the schools, experiences you would like to have, and contributions you would make.
- Tests matter more and more. Test option doesn’t mean test blind, especially if you’re from a more privilged background and all your fellow applicants from your school are submitting scores. I know this isn’t a universal take.
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It’s somewhat similar to the point about Ivies and free tuition, but in general, more well-resourced schools have made an intentional effort to increase need-based aid for students with family incomes in the 100k-200k bracket. Colby is the headliner, with its Colby Commitment capping family contribution at 20k for families with incomes <200k. Several other schools have done similar kinds of things, if not quite so transparently - running NPCs for various selective colleges finds that students who would qualify for 20k contribution at Colby might actually pay even less at schools like Williams and Smith. The recent initiatives from Penn/MIT/Harvard to raise the family income threshold for full-tuition to 200k are specific examples of this larger trend, in my view.
Also, I believe it was mentioned already, but the gap between more popular majors and less popular majors seems to have grown significantly for admissions purposes. Even at schools that technically do not admit by major, they can’t have 90% of the freshman class majoring in CS and Engg - there aren’t enough professors to keep class sizes manageable, and someone has to take classes from professors of English and history and art and religion. Small sample, but I’ve personally seen several instances of kids with good-but-not-great stats punching above their weight in selective-school admissions due to their genuine, documented interest in things like Classics.
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In addition to the examples that @AustenNut mentioned, another example would be enrolling your kid in any of the many different summer programs at big name universities…specifically summer programs which have a high cost to them.
For example:
“Oh, we’re so excited! My child will be taking classes at Harvard this summer! That will surely give him/her an edge on admissions when he/she applies this fall to Harvard!”
Guess what? Pretty much anybody can sign up to take a class at Harvard during the summer. And doing so does NOT give you a leg up on admissions at Harvard or anywhere else.
Same thing for doing research while in high school using a company like Polygence (https://www.polygence.org/) to get your kid connected up with a PhD person at a 4-year college/university. That’s a ‘pay to play’ service.
None of that stuff really holds huge influence anymore because admissions offices KNOW that a student would only be able to participate in something like that if their family had sufficient financial means to afford it.
I’m not sure that you can make a blanket statement about all universities’ summer programs, especially the high cost ones. My S23 attended a summer program through Tisch at NYU and almost half of the students in his program later received acceptances. He also had 6 NYU credits that counted toward his major even before he started there. Because NYU had enhanced requirements for admission to the Tisch summer programs, it was almost like a pre-read for their applications. The caveat is that you have to do well in the classes or else it doesn’t help!
I was also told by an AO at another very competitive university this past summer that summer programs at that school in particular were a great way to demonstrate interest in the school and they took participation into account when making decisions. We’ll have to wait and see if it makes a difference for my S25. So, it may not work for every school, but it actually still holds some weight in the process if you use the experience wisely.
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I think it is important to have a test but I also believe that once you have passed a certain threshold, a test score isn’t determinative. It isn’t a case of rack and stack.
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That’s great if a family can afford that, but for a student whose family doesn’t have the money for thousands of $$ to attend a summer college program while in high school, they end up having to demonstrate interest in other ways.
Whether or not attending a “high school student pays for it” summer college program helps the student get admitted to a Fancy School could certainly vary a lot from 1 school to another.
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If that is true, it’s too bad. Kids from well resourced households already have so many advantages it doesn’t seem right that the ability to spend thousands on a summer program should increase their chances of admission.
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I think that’s a fair point. Some of these programs do offer scholarships but I imagine they are hugely competitive. Some of them offer online versions which are “cheaper” but still seem pretty pricy.
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Fascinating. Any chance you have data for UMich?
As @txfriendly notes, these “free below $X income” programs have been a thing for a while. My alma mater announced them a few years back. What’s changed/changing are the income levels for the various thresholds (free tuition, 100% full-ride). The new arms race is raising those thresholds.
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Another big thing that’s changed from 5 years ago:
The looming ‘demographic cliff’.
…Basically, reduced birth rates starting in 2007 due to a recession resulting in what will be reduced #s of students graduating from high school. And, because of that, fewer students attending college.
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Do you know what these numbers were last year (before the announcement about no tuition for household incomes between 100K and 200K)? For example, what did the typical student from a 150K or 200K family pay before this announcement? I am just wondering because I imagine that a solid chunk of families in that range were already receiving at least some financial aid at Harvard even before the announcement so it is unclear to me what the impact of the new cap will be. It sounds likely that more families will receive aid than previously, but will the grants be much bigger especially given the “typical asset” definition has changed.
This is actually a really great point. Enrollment has been declining since around 2010. I am betting, sadly, that a lot more colleges will be joining the Rest in Peace thread.
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I’ve got a good friend who is in administration at a sizable university and he’s been telling me for a few years that many schools are struggling to put butts in seats. That reality is subsumed by the hyper competitiveness of admissions at a handful of schools.
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This varies dramatically by college. I expect at the vast majority of colleges, gender has little influence in admissions. A comparison of admit rate by gender is below. I included coed 4-year colleges with at least 100 applicants in both 2019 and 2023.
Across all 2000 colleges, the median admit rate is >70%. Typical US colleges are admitting whoever meets basic qualifications regardless of gender, and I expect female applicants are more likely to meet those basic qualifications. Females have a higher median GPA and graduation rate than males at all levels of education. I suspect this is the primary reason why women have a slightly higher admit rate than men – female applicants are more likely to be adequately qualified.
At highly selective colleges, there is a different pattern. Female applicants do not have a higher admit rate overall. Instead there is a wide variation from college to college. Many selective colleges try to keep a balanced gender ratio and may favor whatever genders are required to make that happen. At colleges with a lot of tech majors, this can mean favoring female applicants. At colleges with relatively fewer tech majors, this can mean favoring male applicants.
Median Ratio Between Female Admit Rate and Male Admit Rate
2019: 1.035 to 1
2023: 1.025 to 1
Median Ratio Between Female Admit Rate and Male Admit Rate at Selective Colleges with <25% Overall Admit Rate
2019: 0.99 to 1
2023: 1.00 to 1
Selective Colleges with Higher Female Admit Rate than Male (2023)
Olin: 42% admit rate women, 13% admit rate men
Harvey Mudd: 21% admit rate women, 9% admit rate men
GeorgiaTech: 23% admit rate women, 13% admit rate men
MIT: 7% admit rate women, 4% admit rate men
CMU: 15% admit rate women, 9% admit rate men
Selective Colleges with Higher Male Admit Rate than Female (2023)
Brown: 4% admit rate women, 7% admit rate men
West Point: 10% admit rate women, 16% admit rate men
Chicago: 4% admit rate women, 6% admit rate men
Julliard: 8% admit rate women, 11% admit rate men
Vassar: 16% admit rate women, 22% admit rate men
At some colleges, the numbers vary substantially depending on what school or major the student applies to within the college. For example.
Cornell Engineering: Men = 4% Admit Rate, Women = 10% Admit Rate
Cornell A&S: Men = 6% Admit Rate, Women = 5% Admit Rate
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I can give you one data point, as I ran the NPC for Harvard fairly recently (but before this new announcement) for family income of 160k with 30k assets excluding 401k/home equity, and the result was net cost of 28k. So based on Data10’s chart, the new result for that same applicant would likely be around 16-18k, meaning an additional 10-12k in new aid.
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Do most colleges and universities take gender into account when admitting students? I naively assumed that most were gender blind, but maybe I assumed that because our state universities are gender blind.