<p>I’ve always wondered if the college process was as difficult as it is now if you go back 50-100 years.</p>
<p>I mean, the SAT’s and other exams weren’t much a universal thing back then, so do you think it was much easier to attend Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, etc, way back in history than it is now?</p>
<p>Just curious on what you all have to say.</p>
<p>Well, back when Hahvahd was founded in 1636, anyone who wanted to be a minister of God and preach the “truth” could come on in, if that’s what you mean.</p>
<p>It probably was a lot, lot easier to get into schools like Columbia and UPenn twenty or thirty years ago. They were still selective, but, like, 33% admit rate selective.</p>
<p>Of course it was easier. Most people back then didn’t even graduate from high school. In fact, most people in the U.S. didn’t graduate from h.s. until after WW II.</p>
<p>More than likely, if a white man (note that words “white” and “man”) had a high school education and the money for college, he could get accepted.</p>
<p>Of course, women couldn’t go to most universities in the country. Asians, Native Americans and African Americans also were discriminated against.</p>
<p>And if you were poor, unless you could get something like a church to sponsor you, college was out of the question. In most cases, high school also was out of the question.</p>
<p>Yes. But not as many people wanted to do it. College degrees weren’t as “necessary” back then.</p>
<p>Probably only the wealthy got into college. But idk.</p>
<p>I attended high school in Alabama from 1953-1956. Those who went to the Ivy League took the SAT then, but I don’t remember there being an ACT (although by 1960 everyone I knew who planned to go to college - and some who didn’t - took the ACT). I attended a southern private school whose admission standards were a little higher than those of the University of Alabama. I didn’t have a 3.0 and they balked a little at that, although in those days, C was the standard grade. I graduated from a good high school in the top 10% of my class with a 2.8 and satisfied my college by bettering a 3.0 for the last three semesters of high school.</p>
<p>The cost of an Ivy League education was expensive, but not nearly so expensive in relation to other schools as it is now.</p>
<p>In 1958, one could attend Troy State Teachers’ College (now Troy University), tuition, room, and board for less than $600 per academic year.</p>
<p>Wow, that’s pretty different from now huh Granny? (I don’t mean to use that with as a mixed pun…-__-)</p>
<p>But (and here comes my curiosity again), if you read a book by a person who is in his/her late 60’s-70’s, and his/her mini-biography in that book says he/she attended a top tier university (by today’s standards) for his/her education, it’s not as impressive as a person who wrote a book recently and went to the same university a few years to a decade ago?</p>
<p>(Just wondering again…>__<)</p>
<p>It’s interesting though, as a side note, how the college process is so much more competitive now, and high school graduation rates have spiked up, but America still lacks behind in education from other nations around the world…</p>
<p>Hopefully education will get more funding in the future =.</p>