Is The College Admissions Process Broken?

Parents Forum
985

I got behind on this thread and was intimidated by its length, but I’ve finally caught up. In short, my answer to @Roycroftmom’s question is, no, the college application process is not broken. Can it be improved, however? Absolutely.

The first thing I want to point out is that most of the 963 posts so far have been talking about top students and college admissions…whether that’s getting into their state flagships or into uber-competitive (for admissions) colleges. So already, most of this thread is really only talking about the top 1-2% of high school students, so definitely talking about one tail of our high school senior population. For a topic so broad (cost, transparency, outcomes, etc), it’s dispiriting, but not entirely surprising considering the way this forum’s posters tend to skew.

As has been pointed out repeatedly by @Mwfan1921, MOST colleges accept MOST students. Thus, the process doesn’t seem broken. I’m going to take a page out of @fiftyfifty1’s book and list some areas for improvement:

  1. Improved education and outcomes for birth-age 18…fixing things here fixes so much else, far beyond college admissions and remediation.

  2. Improved affordability for public postsecondary education. States can set standards for their residents as to how to qualify for admission at different tiers of schools (community college, 4-year schools, flagship), and that education is affordable for the families. If a family lives further than commuting distance, then there might be subsidized housing. Or if studens don’t qualify for federal work-study, then there can be state work-study awards as well. If they’re charging higher prices for out-of-state students, those additional funds can be used to help defray the costs for the in-state students. If a field isn’t offered in-state, then there should be a voucher/exchange program for the resident to study at an out-of-state institution at the same cost as it would have been in-state.

  3. Students and families of means (which commonly ties to those who are seeking acceptances to the “top” colleges) have in-depth, in-person visits at at least two in-state publics (including the honors college, special opportunities, etc). Additionally, they have similarly in-depth visits to schools that have more approachable admissions rates.

    I’ve read articles about racial integration (or the lack thereof) in many of our nation’s public schools, and one request is that people just visit at least two schools that are not what they thought they wanted and then share at least two positive things about the visits. Through that exercise, people ended up finding out there were misconceptions about the “types” of students or the quality of teaching or other factors that they had been prejudging, and that some (though certainly not all) the schools were worth far more serious consideration.

  4. Schools with smaller marketing budgets become eligible for private grants to better advertise. If Regional State U was highlighting its successful alums, then that can paint a different picture for “top” students of what kinds of students and results can be expected from Non-Flagship U. Ditto for schools with more approachable admissions rates than the “elite” schools.

  5. Students and families who become interested in more “under the radar” schools would be loud and proud of the neat things that are happening at those schools (@sbinaz is particularly great at this). The “elite” schools already have cachet and big sports schools have lots of name recognition, but the majority of colleges don’t fit into either of those buckets. Whether it’s social media, peer pressure, or something else, people seem to feel ashamed (…not sure this is the best word, but can’t think of a better one at present) that they’re considering (or selected) schools that not everyone has heard of. I think the more society normalizes and respects students and families who are investigating schools that are “off the beaten path”, the better it will be for everyone, whether they’re a “top” student or not. Because if people are excited if someone goes to Harvard, or Fairfield, or Centre, or U. of Idaho, or State University – Branch Campus, then that decreases the stress at all levels of the college admissions process.

  6. And with respect to “merit” aid…yes, it would be great if the net price for different income levels was more prominently displayed for families to know and if all schools included a table (or in a calculator within the NPC) the minimum amount of merit aid a student could expect. Financial transparency can definitely be improved within the system.

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986

. . . Drops the mic

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987

You are spending a lot of other people’s money here with your suggestions

988

Do you feel that outcomes (of all kinds) are the same from these “under the radar” schools as they are from the IvyPlus schools?

That is the key issue in determining if the status quo of college admissions is acceptable.

989

There have been dozens of threads on CC where that has been discussed. Lots of data and studies out there for anyone to read. I personally don’t want this thread to turn into that discussion.

This group likely wouldn’t agree which is the best outcome to measure or how to measure it. Regardless, someone has likely done that work already.

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990

Maybe if you just posted what it’s OK to talk about then… Want to make sure I’m towing the company line here and staying within the guidelines of acceptable speech topics

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991

Obviously I don’t make the rules about what we discuss.

It is true that we have beat the outcomes issue to death, in many threads that go nowhere. I am sure some posters will engage if you started another thread about outcomes.

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992

Got it… So it’s OK to talk about fields of employment post graduation, but not OK to talk about other outcomes of success in a topic about whether or not, the college admissions process is broken….clear as mud

993

No…did you see a mod told us to stop talking about that because it’s off-topic?

994

Threads are expected to stay on topic. We’ve given a lot of leeway on this one but there are countless other threads discussing outcomes, IB, ROI, etc…

Please move back to the original topic.

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995

Over 40% of those who enroll in college do not graduate. That suggests to me that colleges are admitting many who are not a financial or academic fit; students who would have been far better off elsewhere, as many of them took on loans before dropping out.

For more average students, that is a big problem with the admissions process.

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996

This. There is nothing worse than being in college debt with no degree to boost your earnings power.

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997

It’s difficult for me to solely blame colleges for admitting students who can’t afford the school. We see it here on CC and I’ve seen it IRL with parents who will take out large loans. Generally not a good decision, and if the student doesn’t finish college these loans are a huge burden. IMO it’s good that students have the $27K undergrad loan limit, although at the margin that limit may impact a student’s ability to ultimately graduate too.

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998

There is a lot of variation from one family to another in terms of what they consider the most important decision factors when selecting a college.

When we’ve been on tours and visits to the “under the radar” colleges on D24’s list, we’ve asked about outcomes. And have paid attention to more detailed things like what sorts of internships and research opportunities are available at the schools. Out of the schools that D24 got accepted to, honestly, the 3 CTCL schools have been far superior to the public universities in this area.

D24 has specific things she’s looking for in a college and they’re different factors than what her younger sister will be looking for in 2 yr when we go through this process again.

But guess what? 2 of the 3 CTCL schools that D24 applied to have had their undergrads go into Harvard Law School in the most recent incoming law school class. Is D24 a pre-law kid? No. She’s pre-health…pre-PA, not med school. I’m just mentioning the Harvard thing as an example though. I really don’t give a rip about Harvard. :slightly_smiling_face:

Do I feel the outcomes are the same as Ivy+ schools? I don’t think that’s the relevant question for OUR family. Are we satisfied with the outcomes of these specific “under the radar” schools that OUR kid got accepted to?

Absolutely yes. In fact, I really hope that D24 picks 1 of them because the CTCL colleges she got accepted to are all pretty awesome places.

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999

I have not read all 972 posts, but I think broken needs to be defined. What is a properly functioning system? I’m guessing that a big part of what people have identified as evidence of dysfunction are characteristics of US society and not solely the college admissions process. For example, the US has an economic and political system with significant economic inequality and that affords significant political and social influence to the very wealthy. Our college admissions process reflects this. One can argue that it is dysfunction of our political economy overall. College admissions is just a part.

Many other countries have admissions just based upon grades and/or test scores. In those countries, there has not been grade inflation and one knows, I believe, what a 95 means and what a 75 means – perhaps there are national or provincial curricula and standards.

The elite schools in the US switched from grades/board scores as a more politically palatable way to keep Jewish enrollments down when having Jewish quotas became embarrassing. Geographic distribution requirements (limit the number of kids from NY, Boston, Chicago, LA, etc.) and you keep the percentage of Jews down. Extracurricular activities (poorer Jewish families could not invest resources there) and sports (this showed “Christian vigor”). Over time, the initial motivation has morphed to selecting a class that has particular characteristics or style and more recently to include diversity as a key component (which, incidentally, also has reduced the percentage of Jews at these schools).

When you have holistic admissions processes and you communicate (or parents infer) that you are looking for particular characteristics / activities from applicants, you create an incentive for kids/parents to invest (and if you recall Mike Spence’s work on signaling probably to over-invest) in whatever they think schools are looking for. There was a period when doing certain kinds of extensive service was unusual and kids who went abroad and worked for a month or two doing service projects looked interesting to schools and they did very well in admissions. Once parents cottoned to this, a much higher percentage of kids started investing in that kind of service project no longer helped because it was no longer novel (although it is possible that not doing so could hurt.).

In the dark ages when I went to college, being well-rounded was what the Ivies generally were looking for. Now, they may want well-rounded classes of angular students. If so, it pays to invest in becoming angular – become fabulous (best in region, country, world in an interesting niche area). Could be squash or curating art shows or research in some scientific area at a very high level. And so parents will invest in this.

I don’t have the citation but there was a study done by or summarized by the NYT looking at how college admissions prospects varied by parental income. If I recall, controlling for grades and board scores, the probability of admission shot way up in part because the ratings of their extracurricular activities were much more positive. Billionaire’s (or multi-multi millionaire’s) kids can afford to undertake really interesting (and expensive) activities that pique the interest of adcoms.

Is this broken? It reflects the broader system we currently live in. We could get rid of it by returning to non-holistic admissions. My daughter was troubled by holistic admissions and as a dual Canadian/American citizen, applied only to schools in Canada. When we visited schools there, each told her if she would be admitted because of her grades and ACT score.
The only uncertainty would be the amount of merit aid (they call it scholarship) she would receive (and told her she could increase the scholarship by improving her ACT score. No uncertainty in admissions. Would that be less broken system?

Note that there would still be issues of inequality if we switched to a grade/board score system because the US tends to fund education with local property taxes and hence schools in poor neighborhoods tend to be weaker. Kids in poor neighborhoods are less likely to be able to afford expensive coaching in how to improve SAT/ACT scores. (I know that many schools made these optional during the Pandemic, but I suspect that they are coming back). Again, we have an unequal society no matter how you cut it, but would a non-holistic system be less broken as it would limit the number of different ways parents could spend money to game the system in favor of their kids?

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1000

Your statement has two points that I want to address.

If outcomes at other schools are not the same as those among the top 1% (and it is a fraction of 1% we’re talking about), then you think that the current state of college admissions is unacceptable. I’m having a very had time thinking of any other field/area where an issue among a fraction of a percent is enough for people to think that a system is unacceptable. Perhaps something along the lines of bombing accuracy or nuclear materials safety? I’m not even sure about that. Can you provide any examples?

I’m not going to go too far down the outcomes rabbit hole. But I will say that at IvyPlus (and I’m not sure it’s even all Ivy, and definitely not all of the schools that have sub 10 or 20% acceptance rates), there are schools where some of the students will receive greater advantages of attending there. Those are primarily those who are either from lower socioeconomic groups or URMs, or those who end up successfully entering IB or similar.

Outside of that population, I think that a student who ends up at Fairfield instead of Harvard will have similar outcomes. Or the student who goes to U. of Nebraska instead of U. Michigan. So there’s a handful or two of schools where matriculation and graduation from there will definitely influence outcomes for some of their students. But then we’re talking a fraction of a fraction of a percent. To think that a whole system is off because of such a small percentage is taking it a bit far, in my opinion.

On the other hand, @roycroftmom brings up an excellent point about students who end up with college loans but no degree. I’ll take her word that it’s 40%, and 40% is definitely a percentage that should cause concern. But most comments in this thread have been more worried about less than 1% of the college-entering population than a pool more than 40x greater.

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1001

Here are the most recent college graduation rates. These data include two year schools too, which is helpful. Most recent data is for the cohort entering college in Fall 2017…national 6 yr grad rate is 62.2%.

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1002

I don’t believe this is true at all…. as an example in January 2022, Chicago Public Schools’ per-student spending was higher than the state average in Illinois and that in no way equated to better results in my opinion

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Also of note is of those who do graduate (60ish percent), nearly half end up in jobs for which a degree was not required. By that is off topic, I suppose.

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I think that it would be fantastic if more colleges were transparent about their net price. I found the net price calculators (for needs based aid) matched the eventual aid packages for D22 quite well. But at most colleges that offered merit aid, it was more difficult to figure out what the merit aid could potentially be or even if she was likely to get merit aid at all. Even some calculators that asked for her GPA & scores did not seem to change their net prices no matter what I entered for stats. I don’t get why form had me enter the stats if it didn’t make any difference in the estimate (maybe at those schools with NPCs that asked for grades, merit is only given to families not eligible for need based aid? No idea). On that note, it also took more research to figure out whether merit aid would stack on top of need based aid or just reduce it at any given college --sometimes the websites did not address this topic at all.

That said, I recall reading somewhere that some colleges that offer merit aid use really sophisticated models to figure out what level of merit scholarship will yield a particular student and that number varies not just with the student’s high school performance but with various other factors. Thus at some places, the merit scholarship amount is not only based on a student’s stats or even holistic factors; the amount offered just reflects the discount that the model predicts is likely to yield a student with that exact set of characteristics (stats + family income + type of high school + home town + other details). If this is correct such a system would make it impossible to publish a transparent table because a kid with say a 3.8 and a 1450 who wants to major in economics and is from a family making 250K per year in a suburban midwest town can be enticed with a different net price than a kid with a 3.8 and a 1450 who wants to major in music and is from a family making 250K per year in a urban mid-atlantic city. And each kid gets a different package based on what is predicted necessary to yield them not based on their “merit” the way that parents tend to think of it.

I guess my question is whether my foggy memory about this article is correct. Is that how merit actually works at many schools? I understand it is a discount, but is it a targeted discount based on individualized predictions of yield? And if that is how it works, how could colleges make this system of awarding scholarships more transparent? I could see why they might not want to do so, but assuming they do want to be more transparent, what might that look like for families who want a better understanding of their net price?

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