Since a generation or few ago, the population as grown, as has the percentage of high school graduates going to college to study for a bachelor’s degree. Meanwhile, the top N (even with N up to a few hundred) colleges have not grown enrollment by as much, so is it a surprise that they have become more selective since a generation or few ago?
I think Michigan has evolved from being selective to very selective for OOS applicants
"just now in this post I learned that U. Rochester is elite. " Great school! Rochester is a great school independent of ratings.
Some schools have gamed the ratings more than others. I’d say GW is one of those schools. In fact there were a bunch of article delineating just how GW gamed the ratings. Schools that focus on gaming ratings instead of improving the experience for students have poor values. I don’t know if GW improved anything beyond the ratings. I’m not saying that they didn’t but that they did not need to in order to climb the ratings game.
Cal Poly SLO surprised me too. IT being part of the Cal State system is deceptive.
Something that lots of people don’t “realize” about the admissions process is the selectivity of specific colleges or majors at a given university. Where the university-wide acceptance rate may be 50% or higher but for a specific college or major that rate could be in the teens or lower.
Can’t think of any examples off the top of my head, but I know they are out there and this could catch many people by surprise.
Some other CSUs can be more selective than people assume for specific majors.
http://info.sjsu.edu/static/admission/impaction.html (compare animation to all other art majors, or accounting to all other business majors, for example)
@STEM2017 We’ve seen this a few times when looking at undergrad biz programs, such as getting into the bi school at Umass or BostonU. Tougher to get in. I know that computer science at a lot of schools is more difficult.
CMU has become very selective, even outside of the computer science school. I know someone who was accepted to multiple Ivy League schools who was rejected by the engineering school, and waitlisted in the school of science at CMU.
Regarding universities in the Cal State System, I didn’t realize that San Diego State University only has a 34% acceptance rate, and the rate for nursing is much lower. I thought the rate would be more like University of Arizona’s. Luckily, helpful parents on this site such such as @Gumbymom were clear that SDSU isn’t really a safety for many.
Northeastern. Yeah…that’s an interesting one. My kid applied (got into) it (among others) and the reaction even among my well-mannered friends was “she has better choices than that, right?” If you grew up in the boston/nyc area and don’t currently have teenagers, then the memory is of a commuter school for nontraditional students and a last chance for many.
On the other hand, when I was growing up, GW meant “Georgetown Waitlisted” and Bucknell was for “kids who can’t get into the Ivy League but still want to pay Ivy League tuition.”
So there you go.
Grinnell is the surprise for me. Growing up in Iowa, I didn’t know anyone who went to or wanted to go to school there. I vaguely knew there was a college in Grinnell but I never really separated it from the community. Imagine my surprise to keep reading it as a recommendation on here.
Pitzer – we had briefly considered it for one kid, and in the years since then, its acceptance rate keeps dropping as apparently more families saw it, perhaps, as the back door to the consortium.
Non-legacy at Notre Dame.
New Englander as well - I’ve already posted one place on CC that I never knew Notre Dame was more than a football powerhouse - I was shocked to see it up there in the top 20. UCLA was another school I thought was good for film and for fun but had no inkling it was so selective and highly rated.
Always knew UChicago was great, but never even heard of Cal Tech or poly (still not sure if they are the same school or not) until Alex on Modern Family goes to it.
Friend of my daughter is going to Claremont McKenna and was talking to his mom - no one around here has heard of it and she gets blank stares when she tells people, but I now know its one of the top schools in the US…
CC has taught me so much 
Grinnell benefited greatly from having Warren Buffett as a trustee and investment manager for over 40 years. It is solidly top-10 among all US colleges and universities in endowment per student, roughly at the level of Amherst, Williams, and Stanford. That wasn’t true a generation or two ago. It has a proud history, of course, that goes back a lot farther than that.
There were a ton of schools I didn’t realize were so selective until my daughter was a junior and started doing some research. Some schools I just wasn’t that familiar with (Rice, Wash U); others I knew well but had no idea they had gotten so selective. The big one was USC. I am from Los Angeles and I think USC accepted like 70% of applicants in the '80s when I was in high school. It was a school for rich kids who couldn’t get into UCs. Now it accepts around 18%. UCLA has always been considered a good school but when I was in high school literally everyone with a B average or above got in. No more. I knew the UCs had gotten more selective, but I hadn’t realized some Cal States, like Cal Poly SLO and SDSU, had also gotten much more selective, especially for some majors. Conversely, because our state flagship (Berkeley) is so competitive, I didn’t realize that so many state flagships weren’t competitive. Oregon, for example, accepts about 70% of applicants and is still accepting applications. Same for flagships in Idaho, AZ and maybe elsewhere. I had assumed most state flagships were super selective, but I now realize that CA, VA, MI are actually outliers in that regard.
<i am="" from="" los="" angeles="" and="" i="" think="" usc="" accepted="" like="" 70%="" of="" applicants="" in="" the="" '80s="" …="" it="" was="" a="" school="" for="" rich="" kids="" who="" couldn’t="" get="" into="" ucs.=""><i am="" from="" los="" angeles="" and="" i="" think="" usc="" accepted="" like="" 70%="" of="" applicants="" in="" the="" '80s="" …="" it="" was="" a="" school="" for="" rich="" kids="" who="" couldn’t="" get="" into="" ucs.="">
Still is…
When I applied to NYU and was accepted, it was no big deal back then. To my surprise to learn the past year or two that it’s now an elite institution. Back then it was mostly a commuter school for kids who didn’t want to go to the local state universities.
My dad is a professor at UCSD, so I’ve heard my fair share of complaints about the administration/department squabbles/etc. When I found out about a year ago that it was largely considered to be one of the best UCs, I was floored. I had heard so many bad things about it that I didn’t realize how good a school it was!
I was also surprised when I heard saw that the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras accepts only 24% of applicants. (Google says 24%, CollegeData says 36%. Either way, it’s pretty selective.)
Agree with Ga Tech and Wash U. Ga Tech is very difficult to get in to especially instate. Top engineering & their biomedical ranked #2/3. Large number of tech companies moving to Atlanta- many from Ca (my Husband works for one) The Hope/Miller scholarship “free ride” is trying to keep the strongest Ga students in Ga for college. It’s working. Making it harder for out of state students to get in.
Gave up a full scholarship to Wash U 20 years ago bc I felt like no one had every heard of them. What was I thinking. My poor parents!