Let's quibble over semantics: what do we really mean by "highly selective" (Ex: Pitzer v Williams)?

Sue22
Fri, 22 Apr 2016 18:22:45 +0000

Your problem isn’t the word “selective” because in your scenario of school w/12% admit rate vs. another with 17%, the first school IS more selective by definition.

Just a point of order…this isn’t necessarily true as it says nothing about the qualifications of the applicants or the method of selection. Not going to dig into the relative merits of Williams and Pitzer, but if we were to find that the incoming class at Williams had higher GPA’s and standardized test scores and more impressive extracurricular activities would it not be safe to say that Williams would be considered more selective despite its higher acceptance rate?

I think why this matters is that it’s easy to increase the number of applicants to a school. Just drop the application fee and any supplemental essays. Heck, I could probably double my school’s application numbers by creating a lottery among applicants. Apply to my school free and without any additional essays and you’ll be entered into the Sue22 $100,000 lottery. I’m sure I’d get a ton of applications. I’d just weed out the students who’d shown no real interest beyond my lottery and revel in my single digit acceptance rate.

To be clear, I am not claiming any particular reason for the relative acceptance rates of Williams and Pitzer. Just making the point that the qualifications of the incoming class are much more important than the raw numbers of applicants.

And as to selectivity vs. quality, this still doesn’t tell us anything about what students will get out of a school, i.e., the quality of the school itself. It simply tells us about the quality of the incoming class, a factor which contributes to but does not equal the quality of the institution.