To talk about the college admissions process being broken, and then discussing selective schools, means that there is an advantage to attending a highly selective institution. Do you feel this way? If you don’t, then nothing is broken, because 99.99% of applicants can get accepted somewhere.
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I think what this thread has shown me, and in comments I’ve seen elsewhere on the forum, is that the college admissions process is not broken. What is broken, however, is the communication and transparency of information regarding college admissions and financing. There is an asymmetry of information between colleges and the most interested/savvy of families (i.e. most families who post on CC), and most families who post on CC have reams more knowledge and awareness of the college admissions process than most American families.
Information that most CCers know that most non-CCers don’t:
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There are colleges in the U.S. that are need-blind and are very generous in defining need (and which schools those are or how to quickly figure that out).
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Colleges that say they meet need but do not say that they are need-blind are need-aware, meaning that the amount of money a family can pay may impact the admission decision on a student.
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Most applicants to highly selective (rejective) colleges are extremely strong applicants. Thus, even having one of the best GPAs at one’s school with one of the best test scores and good involvement in extracurriculars still means that one is unlikely to gain an acceptance at the most rejective schools, because the applicant pools are that competitive.
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They know that colleges have Net Price Calculators (NPC) that will estimate the amount the family is expected to pay. They know that the more detailed the NPC, the more accurate it is likely to be. They also know that there are circumstances which can render NPC results very inaccurate (like owning a business, being an international student, etc).
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There are colleges that do not provide any merit aid whatsoever, so if your family cannot or will not pay its Student Aid Index (SAI), the school will not be affordable.
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There are some colleges which offer no-loan financial aid packages, and even for those schools that do, most CC-families know how to discern how much of a financial aid package is grant/merit and how much is a loan.
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Students can only take out up to about $28k in loans total for undergrad, starting with $5500/year for the first year.
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Loans beyond the federal amount will depend on the parent qualifying for additional loans (and qualifying throughout the entire period a student is in college). The parent is just as much on the hook for these loans as the student is.
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Numerous schools use merit aid as a discounting technique, so one does not necessarily have to be a top student to receive merit aid.
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Many colleges, particularly public ones, will have charts detailing the requirements to receive merit awards. Additionally and/or alternatively, they will indicate the minimum amount of merit aid a student might expect if the NPC asks for academic stats.
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Some schools expect students to apply by major. Some majors may be significantly more difficult to gain entry to than other majors at the school (like nursing, business, engineering, CS).
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Some colleges have secondary admission requirements to very popular majors (like those mentioned above), and if a student does not meet the requirements, they may not be able to major in that field or will need to transfer in order to do so.
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Students should start asking for letters of recommendation from teachers in the spring of their junior year.
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Only athletes at D1 & D2 schools can receive athletic scholarships, but many D3 schools can offer significant financial aid to its students, so a student need not be dependent on athletic scholarships to pay for a college education.
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How to research different colleges, form a college list, visit colleges (or apply for fly-in programs), write their essays, use Common App (or even the existence of Common App), etc.
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The importance of the PSAT in junior year and how it can result in National Merit status and large automatic scholarships.
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Knowing that significant gains can be made on standardized testing with additional tutoring/practice.
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The importance of having at least one school that is a sure thing for admission, affordability, and student interest.
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Awareness of and access to types of competitions like math/science Olympiads.
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Knowledge of various types of hooks for universities, including geographic diversity, legacy status, majors, etc, as well as schools where certain characteristics (like sex) can have a definite impact on the likelihood of admission.
All of the above is a lot of knowledge that many American families are not aware of when going into the college admissions process. And this is off the top of my head and doesn’t even go into things about when kids get to college like what office hours are and how to use them, asking professors about research/internship opportunities, etc.
So what are some of the things that colleges know that CCers don’t?
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The school’s institutional priorities, including those that vary by year (the need for an oboist or a North Dakota resident etc).
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Likely/minimum size of merit aid available for schools that don’t have charts or include the info in NPCs.
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The degree of selectivity for all majors and the academic background of students accepted to them.
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Percentage of alumni by major of the school who are unemployed or underemployed (i.e. in a position that does not require a college degree).
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For the hundreds of colleges that participate in assessments at the start of the student’s college career and the end, what kind of growth the students had.
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For the colleges that participate in academic engagement surveys, what the results of those surveys show.
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The degree of difficulty to enroll in required courses and/or popular classes.
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Whether a school’s financial aid estimate is for full-time status only, or for a sufficient number of credit hours to graduate in 4 years.
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For students who do not graduate, a sense of what percentage is due to finances, or lack of academic preparation, a lack of institutional support (either academically or with reduced financial aid), poor availability of classes, etc.
So yes, there are strides that can be made to improve the transparency of the information for families to make a more balanced relationship between colleges and families, but on the whole, CC families are generally much more knowledgeable than the average family of a high school junior or senior.
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I don’t think our whole system needs an overhaul (and it would never happen anyway) but it would be great if there were more resources to help needy kids identify financially feasible options (that don’t include unaffordable loans) and understand the system (your insurance example is right on point).
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Wow! Just….wow!
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The chart works on the premise of if cost is $90K but, we give you $60K, we are most generous. How about a charge which shows % of total cost covered by aid? Aren’t those schools most generous?
Agree 100%. There is social capital involved in knowing that you can challenge an invoice, push back on authority figures in a way that gets them to want to help you, etc. Kids whose families don’t have this have to navigate the system themselves.
The scholarship organization I was affiliated with got a lot of criticism because it would only pay directly to the institution (accredited non-profits- so community college for a welding certificate? yes. For-profit college for BS in Legal Studies? No.) We got challenged frequently. But the old-timers had seen enough- parents taking the check and using it pay the phone bill, back rent, car payment, even gambling debts. It is sad-- but the organization was targeting one problem and one problem only- bridging the gap for college for kids who had already tapped out every other source of funds. And making dad’s car payment so he could get to work- as necessary as that is- was not part of the mission.
Assuming you meant chart?
In that case how about you finding a chart that supports your unsubstantiated and often repeated accusations?
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All my kids have gone or will go to one of top schools in North America and it was super affordable because of where we live. We are fortunate because of those options. You are example treats university like a “luxury” item and is a bit “tone” challenged as to what the vast majority of US high schoolers have to go through for their education.
I’ve stated that I’ve worked with kids whose parents can’t afford a Greyhound ticket to get to college even when they’ve gotten scholarships to cover everything else, so I think the “tone deaf” might be projection.
I don’t believe a college education is a luxury. I think that a family who believes that the system is broken because the kid ends up at Rutgers because they didn’t get enough money from Bucknell or Lehigh (the luxury version of Rutgers engineering) might need a touch of perspective.
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If you read between the lines, this is the crux of many CC posts.
In the US, there are (approximately) 2,800 4 Year Universities, 1,400 Junior Colleges, and 1,400 Community colleges, a myriad of funding sources both private and public, fee waivers for testing and applications, and a wealth of free online educational material. The simple truth is that in the US, higher education is available to those who seek it and are willing to work for it.
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Our high school hosted an interesting event. It raised a whole host of concerns for me.
They invited 6 admissions counselors from 6 colleges and they reviewed “admissions packets” for hypothetical students. Parent and students were given this information as well. The admissions packets gave test scores, grades, essays, and biographical information for the hypothetical students. The admissions counselors took us through their thinking and then gave us “go/no-go” decisions for each student.
The first thing that concerned me was that we were told that the average amount of review time that an application gets is about 3 minutes. I understand that this is an average (some applications might get 20 minutes of review and others 1 minute) and that admissions people can probably get really good at analyzing an application quickly. However, 3 minutes struck me as just not enough time.
Sure enough, the admissions counselors on stage drew some conclusions that I thought were absurd. Condemning students as “self-centered” or “arrogant” based on questionable evidence. In other cases, lavishing praise on things that seemed ho-hum to me.
The funny thing was…the admissions counselors tended to disagree with one another. The parents were FAR more consistent in how they viewed applicants. Having said that…the admissions counselors tended to like DIFFERENT applicants than the parents.
The conclusion that I drew was that schools have institutional biases and individual admissions counselors have their individual biases. These come together to create an incredibly chaotic process that almost turns admissions into a crap shoot.
It feels like “insider information” is critical which is what drew me to the CC forums. But processes that rely on insider information are, by definition, broken.
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Did they say what they looked at in those critical first 3 minutes?
Google searched who the kid was and who the parents are!
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The AOs said they did this for every applicant?
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Earnings after graduation? There are more variables at play including “affluence” to begin with.
AO at Duke told us no fewer than 4 sets of eyes read an application (plus full committee review) before an acceptance letter is sent. Oddly no mention of the usage of google😀
I suspect 3 minutes is a first cut if it’s a hard no.
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But still no chart or data from you?
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No. A person in the audience asked how long the average review time per application was. An AO responded “3 minutes on average” and the other AOs nodded. Lots of gasps and chuckles came from the audience and then we just moved on.
I easily spent 15 minutes on each of the 3 or 4 applications. And I still felt like I was skimming.
And did they indicate that only one person reviews the application? I know some universities claim at least two readers look at each application and give a score. I am not sure if that is common or not, however.
Very curious to know these details, if you happen to recall.