<p>We never talked about “ECs.” I was involved in yearbook, newspaper, SGA, various clubs, but not because I thought it had anything to do with college admissions.</p>
<p>The only thing that my college application process had in common with my children’s was that we all got a lot of mail from schools we had never heard of. Today, of course, students get e-mails from colleges in addition to traditional mail. </p>
<p>My memory is fuzzy, but I believe I applied to 2 in-state schools and 2-out-of-state schools. One was solely so my dad could see how smart I was. I did get into all 4 (no HYP for me), but may not have today. I believe only one required a very short, generic essay, which I hand wrote (along with the applications).</p>
<p>I don’t think I had a class ranking, but have a vague recollection of my GPA. I don’t remember ever meeting with a counselor, requesting transcripts or letters of recommendation.</p>
<p>I took the SAT once, as did everyone else in my cohort, then also took the ACT, which was pretty avant garde at the time.</p>
<p>I took an AP test without having had the corresponding class, and managed to place out of Freshman Comp. </p>
<p>This bears no resemblance to today’s college application process!</p>
<p>Definitely easier. I needed money and with my parents help/advice put Michigan State as my first choice as they offered many more NMS scholarships than Wisconsin in the early 1970’s- I’ll never know if I would have gotten one of the 4 year UW ones (instead of a onetime one from a corporation) like a few people I knew later, sigh… Back then the attitude at UW was a “sink or swim” one- you got in but no guarantees of handling the rigors there. Now there is more emphasis on being able to graduate- retention rates are expected to be high. This was also just before the backlash against “New York radicals” and OOS tuition increases- the Vietnam war protests had closed the campus during my HS time and the Sterling Hall bombing was August before my HS senior year (I had a medical school classmate from a small town whose parents wouldn’t let her apply to UW because of that).</p>
<p>It was a time of taking the ACT (the test required for instate schools), only a few like myself took the SAT also (for scholarship apps), once. Scores were lower- they rescored both tests in the '90’s. No comparing mine to son’s… Never studied, people here don’t take review courses now either, although the school district has a Saturday ACT review day each fall. No AP courses at all. Therefore no credits for HS work available- they had Honors college lit courses you placed into. Your HS record could include honors courses, when available. More HS grades on a curve instead of set percentages being a grade.</p>
<p>Also a time of mailing a request for a college catalog, then receiving it by mail. Filling out applications with a typewriter or by hand, mailed with parent’s check. Most people didn’t even have credit cards. No wonder we applied to only a few schools- typing the essays once or twice without mistakes alone took a lot of time- especially for those of us with access to only a manual typewriter and “whiteout”. Still no “common app” here.</p>
<p>Also before “need blind” admissions. No thought of applying to private schools. Also- I recall thinking there was no way I would apply to the girl’s school Radcliffe instead of the males only (so I thought- I heard decades later they were admittting women by 1971) Harvard. I also recall feeling it would be such a poor fit- I would never be able to afford travel, clothes or activites like the rest of the students. Without students like me applying the academic caliber of even Harvard applicants was lowered (or at least the numbers of top applicants)- while now the financial means of applicants is.</p>
<p>Another change- back in my day many more men than women were in college, the ratio has tipped in favor of women now. It would have been a much different experience to have more women in sciences, to actually have science mentors who were women… Medical schools were increasing their numbers of women- my class had 20 of 120, the class before 10 of 120- now around 50% in a larger class- how different an experience (and we had enough women to form a group, far less lonely). Still just as difficult- 1 in 3- to get in, however.</p>
<p>Final thought- middle of the baby boomer generation, the before oral contraceptive babies when more women had more kids regardless of intentions. Women’s Lib era- girls thinking about college more than in the past, mix of forces affecting college apps.</p>
<p>I broke all the rules - applied to one school, EA. I have no idea what I would have done had I not been admitted.</p>
<p>applied again to a few more the next year after you worked. I mean, nobody cared, then. Or, your homeroom teacher would have called some school or other. I say homeroom teacher intentionally.</p>
<p>things were so different.</p>
<p>Decades ago, much easier in general to get admitted to (though certain impacted majors at Berkeley were surprisingly (for the time) very difficult to get admitted to), and much less expensive to attend ([UC</a> Davis has historic catalogs back to 1946](<a href=“http://registrar.ucdavis.edu/ucdwebcatalog/pdf.html]UC”>General Catalog - Welcome), some of which list costs of attendance, but don’t forget to adjust for inflation).</p>
<p>Even Berkeley back then was placing the majority of entering freshmen into remedial English composition courses, and graduation in 8 semesters back then was much less common than it is now (though higher cost now may also have to do with increasing the incentive for on-time graduation these days).</p>
<p>However, if you believe [University</a> of California: StatFinder](<a href=“http://statfinder.ucop.edu%5DUniversity”>http://statfinder.ucop.edu) , the selectivity (based on high school GPA and SAT scores) of UC schools only increased slightly since about 2000.</p>
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<p>What are now called SAT Subject Tests used to be called Achievement Tests, although there was an English Achivement Test that was apparently moved to become the SAT Reasoning Writing Test.</p>
<p>My GC accused me of going for an “MRS” degree because there were more boys than girls at my school. I can’t believe she thought it was okay to tell me that. 5 girls from my HS applied to the same school EA that year. She told us to be prepared for rejection because there was no way we would all get in. All got in and all attended. What a witch she was.</p>
<p>I applied to three schools Harvard, Brown and U Penn. U Penn was my safety. I took the SAT twice. I didn’t really study for them, but we had a lot of vocabulary tests junior year involving analogies. (Remember them?) Recentered I’d have a CR of 800, Math 740 - so not too shabby. I took five AP courses all senior year. (Calc BC, Euro, French, Art, English). I only had two sciences. I took History, Writing and Math for my subjects tests and I think my average for them was high 700s. I had the then equivalent of a Girl Scout gold award (our troop organized clean up of the C and O canal in DC with all of the local Boy and Girl Scout troops), did “varsity” modern dance, was in a music group, had interned on capital hill for a senator. Summer and Saturday art programs. My school didn’t rank. It was a well-known boarding prep school then (well known now more for a scandal). I think my GPA was around an A-, and I assume my grades good compared to my classmates, but we never talked about grades.</p>
<p>Got accepted everywhere. I was a legacy at Harvard. I think I’d have a reasonable chance getting in to the same schools today, but obviously I’d apply to more schools with a different safety! I remember being cross with Brown, because they required you to handwrite your essay. I didn’t apply to Yale because they asked weird U of Chicago style questions and I couldn’t use my essay about the Girl Scout project.</p>
<p>I went to a girl’s school and Yale and Princeton had only recently gone coed. From my class of 80, six went to Harvard, four to Yale, and two to Princeton. They don’t have numbers like that any more, but that may be partly because in the meantime Andover, Exeter etc all went coed too.</p>
<p>I had an overnight at Harvard. Visited Harvard, Tufts, Barnard. Never saw Brown or Penn. What was I thinking?</p>
<p>“Back then” obviously means different things to different people. </p>
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<p>Things started to tighten up at Cal around the mid eighties. Nothing like today of course.</p>
<p>[Freshman</a> Admissions at Berkeley: A Policy for the 1990s and Beyond | UC Berkeley Academic Senate](<a href=“http://academic-senate.berkeley.edu/committees/aepe/freshman-admissions-berkeley-policy-1990s-and-beyond]Freshman”>http://academic-senate.berkeley.edu/committees/aepe/freshman-admissions-berkeley-policy-1990s-and-beyond)</p>
<p>Perhaps the true answer is that it was easier for those who knew to apply. It is so much tougher now because the pool is huge and so many kids are so well prepared. Few kids were that well prepared back in the day. At my school if you went to college, you mostly went to the nearby CSU, there was no real guidance, no real push, it was just nothing, no big deal. When you think about how many kids are applying widely now and how they have improved the pool, that is the big change. Personally, I think they ought to go back to one sitting, no prep on the SAT, all the scores would be lower and things would still be even, but College Board would be out all that extra money.</p>
<p>If we’re even just talking 10-15 years, yes. Noticed that even at my NYC specialized high school where the already high average SAT scores have risen in proportion and students feeling required to participate more in ECs than when I attended. </p>
<p>Was also shocked one neighbor who attended the rival school was turned down for many schools that she’d be a shoo-in for back in my day despite the fact she’s Top 5%. Ended up going to UCSD…a UC that was nowhere nearly as highly regarded as it is nowadays. </p>
<p>I’m shocked Oberlin has recently been turning down 4.0 kids with near-perfect SATs considering my GPA would be the stuff of CC parents’ worst nightmares and everyone in my graduating class who applied was admitted. </p>
<p>Another difference is the difference in perceptions of NYU today vs when my high school classmates and I applied there. Back then, it was regarded as a school for mediocre -B/B students with low SAT scores(If you broke 1000/1600 back then, you were practically golden for CAS). Not surprisingly, over 1/3 of my graduating class of around 700 were admitted…mostly those around the bottom 70% of our graduating class. </p>
<p>Almost no one with Ivy-level stats (Top 25%) would even consider applying there back then because of the stigma of being associated with the -B/B students with subpar SAT scores was that strong among many of them. This was especially the case after they found the Ivies often provided far better FA than NYU…and the Ivies were less generous with FA back then.</p>
<p>My mother went to college in the 70s. The college she went to was not doing well at the time and struggled to get applicants, so it was not hard to get in. Now admission is competitive there. In her case, it definitely was easier to get into her college then compared to now. </p>
<p>She studied for the SAT (and insisted I should, to my refusal).She was advised to take the two match, two reach, two safety route for application, but I don’t think I know exactly how many applications she sent.</p>
<p>She also went to a high school that had, and still has, a strong reputation, so that probably helped with advising and admissions.</p>
<p>Definitely easier when I went (early 70’s). Applied to 4, more than most of my classmates; got into all. I remember going in to the GC to talk about applying, said I did NOT want to go to the local state flagship, even though I would get money for tuition (Regent’s scholarship). Asked if she knew anything about ANY out of state schools. Her response: “My daughter went to Northwestern…did you want to go there instead?” Our HS was the poorest of the suburban districts; don’t recall any college reps visiting, ever.</p>
<p>DH ended up going to a small LAC because his dad’s boss (alum) told him to. Definitely wouldn’t get in there now.</p>
<p>I graduated from high school in 80. Took the SATs once. NMSF. We had no APs at my HS but we did have one biology class from Syracuse University that we were able to take for college credit. I was in NHS but my GPA was not stellar. I worked part time, did a little volunteering and spent a lot of time partying. (The drinking age was 18!) I applied to one Ivy and one small LAC and got into both.</p>
<p>When I review what my DD went through the past four years to prepare for college there is no comparison.</p>
<p>I had never looked at recentering until it was mentioned below. My recentered verbal is 800 but math is still below 600 so, no, I would not have been admitted. Of course, had I spent 10 minutes studying for the SAT, I may have been able to significantly bring up that math score so who know what I would do today.</p>
<p>Yes, I think easier. I only applied to two schools (USC and Cal Poly SLO). Accepted to both with a 3.6ish GPA and 1260 SAT. Got decent grant money at USC, but not enough. Was an alternate for a full NROTC scholarship, which I ended up being offered after I had already decided to go to Cal Poly (would have used it at USC). Other than being an Eagle Scout, little in the way of ECs.</p>
<p>How does the “recentering” work for the SATs?</p>
<p>I don’t know. I just looked it up and found tables on the College Board site.</p>
<p>While it was not easy back in the day, it was much easier. Thirty plus years ago, every school that I applied to admitted me: Yale, Princeton, UVA, Duke, Stanford, and Pomona. I had good grades, decent but not spectacular SAT’s (weak in math by today’s standards), good athletics, geographical diversity, a compelling story of adversity overcome (military dependent and multiple eye surgeries), and excellent references. I thought I heard something about a re-centering of the SAT’s a while back that might have impacted the scores of old timers, but I don’t know whether that would cause any difference in translating them to today’s SAT.</p>
<p>However, if nothing changed, I suspect that these days I would have been looking at UVA, Colgate, Whitman, Sewanee, Kenyon, Bates, UC Davis, etc. - good schools but not the elite - schools that my kids have considered. Of course, it is possible that if my high school had offered the post AP classes, SAT practice courses, etc. available now, I might have risen to the occasion, but maybe not. I was well-rounded, well-liked, and well-spoken, but not especially well prepared, so today I would likely have been saying “oh well” about Yale, Princeton, Duke, and Pomona unless the athletics carried the day. Unfortunately, well-rounded has started to take a different connotation for me in my fifties. :)</p>
<p>Applied to one school and was accepted. To tell the truth it never crossed my mind that I wouldn’t be accepted. I think I had my bags packed before the actual acceptance arrived.
It is true that with no internet available research on different colleges was very difficult.
I got a lot of info in the mail but unless it was a name you’d already heard of it didn’t mean much.</p>