Re: #71
Many colleges do have some restrictions on changing major or division. Three of the eight Ivy League schools admit by division, and at least one other has at least one selective major.
However, highly competitive selective majors are most common in engineering and CS at relatively selective state flagships, where more interested students capable of doing the work are enrolled than the departments can teach in those majors.
We can argue all day about the merits of holistic, but holistic is always going to appear unpredictable from the standpoint of the applicants. You don’t know whether the adcoms will love your essay on Papa John’s, Costco, or writing the same sentence 100 times, unless you try. Even after the process is over, the student typically doesn’t get to see the LORs. Most students aren’t aware of how much hooks or the lack thereof, and not just race, affect their admissions odds. That all drives students to apply to more colleges.
Oops, looks like your source is US News and World Report. Probably why everyone says it’s the opposite of true.
@roethlisburger You’re right, it’s not about holistic, it’s all about hooks. You have to have them. Without them, if you are just a great student with high GPA and high SATs, or an ORM with those, you’re SOL.
SOL where? At the HYPS plus several more, sure most likely. Because there are people with high GPAs, high SATs, and hooks. SOL at nearly every other university? Not even… I think my problem with this is who could spend more than an hour or so investigating and not think that tippy-tops were looking for more than just high GPA and SATs. They say it. It is all over college confidential, and everywhere else. I mean if you want to get in based on tests, do great all the way through the national math tests and make the US international math olympiad team. You might not get in everywhere, but I’m pretty sure you will not be SOL.
"How many kids are applying to more than 10 schools now? Outside of this site, I know very few kids who apply to more than 5-8. And a lot of kids apply to 1-3. Is there really a problem?
In a “click through” culture, no one gets reads by saying something works. You get it by saying something is broken. Even if its not. And if its a process that many people find frustrating, you can get them to click even if the supposed problem isn’t applicable to them."
You’re right, the average app per student is around 3-4, the process for them is working fine as you can fill all info online and get a decision quick if you apply to a cc or rolling admissions college.
“I mean if you want to get in based on tests, do great all the way through the national math tests and make the US international math olympiad team. You might not get in everywhere, but I’m pretty sure you will not be SOL.”
You assume that the math olympiad winners are just academic focused when they’re not exclusively. They also play sports, participate in ECs, and volunteer. I do agree that for STEM, most if not all of them will get into MIT, Cal Tech, CMU, Berkeley and I told their parents that grad school is more important than undergrad when it comes to success and there are no hooks for grad school (except b-school).
@Sue22 Ah, the famous old “you youngins have it easy! I trudged through blizzards 10 miles to school and back every day in the second grade!”
Based on the data I have seen and conversations with business professionals I have had, everything is way more competitive today. Getting into college, grad school, and getting recruited by top firms. Way harder. Not to mention we graduate with significantly more debt than you guys did. I don’t buy that old excuse.
That aside, I don’t think your post even really addresses the OP because what happened in the past is a sunk cost that isn’t relevant to policy-making for current HS students.
@Sue22 The other important thing you failed to consider is assuming the type-written unique college application thing is true, then that just means people probably applied to less colleges. With the common app and technology, students are able to apply more easily and therefore complete more applications, which pressures other students to complete even more applications and it’s a vicious circle. I highly doubt students pulled out their typewriter and applied to 20 different colleges in 1975. They do it now, though. It’s no less work today. I think your post is wrong.
@ceilingroofgoat, except that in this case it’s true! 
Most people I knew applied to what is recommended here today-a couple of safeties, 2-3 reaches and 2-4 matches, usually between 5 and 8 schools. There were a few people who applied to a dozen colleges but they were outliers and no one applied to 30 or 40 schools. For one thing it was just too expensive. As I remember it applications then cost $50-$100. College COAs are now triple what they were when I applied but if I applied to the same schools today I would pay less in applications fees than I did then.
Aren’t you contradicting yourself? I grant that the college application process may be more fraught than it used to be.
Actually, I’m not even sure if that’s true. Perhaps the internet just makes public handwringing easier than it used to be. We still freaked out about SATs and waited nervously to get responses in our mailboxes. The mailboxes just happened to be attached to a post in the front yard instead of on our phones.
College debt is more crushing today than it was then and that’s surely a problem, particularly for kids who are attending publics. Back then privates were still crazy expensive (although less crazy expensive) but publics were much, much more reasonable. A kid could pay their way through college at a good state flagship by working part time and summer jobs. Now that’s impossible. That, however, has nothing to do with the college admissions process itself.
I watched my kids apply to college. It was certainly as stressful as it was back in the day, but the process itself was far easier, and that’s what the article’s about. With all of the numerous “Chance me” and “How can I get my scores up?” threads here on CC how often do you see posts by kids struggling with the process itself? Sure, there’s an occasional glitch with the CA but those are rare and usually easy to fix.
I grant that when I applied it was easier for the “average excellent” student to gain admission to a top flight school, that is if they were white and upper middle class. One of the reasons acceptance rates have fallen is that the process has become easier and colleges have become more accessible to a wide swath of students, students who 30 or 40 years ago didn’t have access to the resources to apply to college at all, and certainly would never dream of applying to an Ivy League or NESCAC school. There’s much more competition for those slots, but if anything that speaks to the ease of application these days.
Just 'cause this is all making me reminisce about the process when I went through it, here are a few memories…
I had to lend a friend my typewriter because his broke and he had terrible handwriting. He also apparently had terrible typing skills because he went through my entire roll of correction tape.
I had to write a peer recommendation for two friends and convince one to write a recommendation for me. I hated writing recommendations and had no examples for how to do it so I just did my best. I found a major mistake in the rec. my friend had done for me so she had to retype the entire letter. Thankfully when my kids applied to that school they had done away with peer recs.
Because I was running up against the deadline for a couple of colleges I had to drive my applications to the post office to get them postmarked. I met a couple of friends there so we had an impromptu party outside the PO to mark the passing of the deadline. A girl I didn’t know showed up with a bundle of applications a few minutes after the post office closed and left sobbing.
A college counselor told a friend she couldn’t be going to the school to which she’d been accepted ED because it was men only. The school was Williams, which had at that time been coed for 10 years.
No haters please, but when my student applied to 19 colleges (there is a limit to the common app - and its not 40), and the UC schools and a couple others like Gtown that doesn’t take Common App, I counted up about 72 unique essays including all supplementals (and maybe short answer). That doesn’t sound like the process is “much easier.”
My point is that the process is still unwieldy if you are applying to many great colleges to hopefully gain admission to just one good one. This many essays isn’t necessary. I applaud those like Colby who did away with the supplementals. If you can’t say what you need to with one good essay or be heard in one good essay, more is just more and is redundant. The colleges don’t need to require multiple essays. You only need 3 little words, to say “I love you.”
Regarding post #86, I didn’t mean STEM national team members, etc. wouldn’t have anything else. I knew one back in the day, and he was a great guy. I just meant there are paths by testing alone, in multiple stem areas, that will get you a key hook for admissions into a tippy-top. I remember explaining it to my oldest as, you might be the best math person at your school, but how many math majors does harvard want, maybe 10, so are you one of the best 10-50 math students in the country? And you can distinguish yourself as one of the best of the best in math and physical sciences, both through the testing for national teams, and through the various research competitions.
I do wonder how many people here applied to top schools in the typewriter days. My experience wasn’t that different that Sue22. To my old eyes, the biggest difference is the view now that if one doesn’t get into a top school, one is condemned for life to mediocrity. It may actually be true that the effect of where one goes for undergrad is stronger now, I don’t know. But my view is if the process is more stressful now (but I really don’t miss typewriters), it has more to do with a currently much stronger take on the importance of undergrad institution for future success than anything about the application process. Really, in my day I felt sorry for the person I knew who decided to go to MIT…
I will agree about supplementals. My guess is this is partly for universities to judge interest.
So I acknowledge a lot of colleges forgo the supplementals or keep the # down to encourage applicants and therefore increase their denominator and lower their admit rates. yes, there is some gamesmanship, and other colleges like to add to supplementals believing if you are willing to complete a lot of supplementals in a thoughtful way, you must be interested, like Chicago.
I’m for anything that makes it easier for students. The process can be streamlined. A gazillion essays is not needed to get to know the student or demonstrate interest.
@preppedparent, Which applications had a huge number of essays? If your child applied to 25 schools (far too many IMO but that’s not my business) and most had no, one or two supplements that means some had to have a crazy number for your student to have to write 72 essays. I’m not doubting what you say, I’m just thinking that the first step would be to cut out any school that requires you to write more on more than 3 or 4 topics.
Both students applied to ivies and elite LACs and top UCs. In the end, they both got into top colleges, but in my humble opinion, there were too many supplementals.
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Colleges are big businesses. They will do what they think will be best for them on a long term perspective. If there is a benefit to them with making the application process easier, I expect they will do just that. Many schools already do that. My kids got emails every day from schools that they never contacted with links to completed apps that just needed to be accepted to apply. No essays at all.
Other schools take the common app. Some with no additional essays/info. Others with such additional requirements. Some schools do not require the common app.
If the schools your kid wants to apply to require essays and your kid wants to apply to a huge number of them, that is your kid’s choice. The schools will take the approach they believe best serves them. If you or your kid disagrees, apply somewhere else.
But as already noted, I think the number of kids who fall into that situation is very small. Thus I don’t agree with the statement that the college admissions process is broken.
You’re right. It’s not broken for the student who applies to their state’s public college, but for those who are applying to elite colleges for a chance to go to a great college esp if they are unhooked (and need to apply to many), it’s an arduous process for the most part. True, they could just apply to University of State college and be done with it. But that’s not the end goal.
Precisely! Applying to college has always been difficult for those who applied widely, simple (maybe a little simpler now than then, in fact) for those who are one-and-done. The main difference is that we hear horror stories (which have always existed, they just didn’t get spread as widely), and given that our brains seem pre-wired to mistake anecdotes for data, we think that where it’s all broken is (a) the norm and (b) new.
Except that it isn’t either of those.