<p>OP- you remind me of a poster a few years ago who came on this board to lament (and hopefully get support, and a counter- strategy) for her son who had been admitted to his first choice large State U- but not in the program he wanted. It took us a while to tease out… but it turned out her son had not take the "recommended " HS curriculum to be admitted to this program. Then we got her rantings about how arbitrary it all is- which of course is true- but many of the experienced posters pointed out that if you have 11 applicants for 10 spots, you are likely going to admit the 10 who have actually fulfilled the requirements, and eliminate the 1 who has not. How much more so in a truly competitive situation where you are looking at 20,000 applications for 10,000 seats? or however the math works out.</p>
<p>You can post all you want about how bad, stupid, etc. the requirements are- but once your son gets to college and decides he wants to study urban planning or econ; or even once he starts marketing and decides he’s more interested in a career path as a media buyer or in decision support vs. the kind of marketing you do, or even that he learns that he hates marketing but can’t take a finance track or study supply chain management in the business school because he’s never taken Calc… then what???</p>
<p>So yes, it’s all stupid and arbitrary. Ceterus Paribus, colleges are going to admit the kids who meet or exceed the stupid and arbitrary pre-req’s in favor of those who do not.</p>