<p>In the early 80s I applied to one school, sat for the SAT one time, with no prep, took 1 AP class (only 2 were offered at my school) and had tons of ECs that I probably didn’t even have to list on my application. I do remember that it was much more time consuming to fill out all the paperwork for sorority rush then it was to get into my college!!!</p>
<p>Here’s the table for the recentering of SATs. Basically in the upper ranges, your verbal scores would now be better, and your math is probably about the same. [SAT</a> I Individual Score Equivalents](<a href=“http://professionals.collegeboard.com/data-reports-research/sat/equivalence-tables/sat-score]SAT”>http://professionals.collegeboard.com/data-reports-research/sat/equivalence-tables/sat-score)</p>
<p>I dont remember my SAT scores. 
They must not have been that great.</p>
<p>I remember my phone number from when I was a kid, though. :)</p>
<p>Due to a story not appropriate for this board, during the summer just prior to college, my parents threatened to not let me go to Northwestern (because my boyfriend, whom they didn’t like, was already there) and to make me go to WashU (hometown school) instead. It says something about the times that it likely would have been feasible to have called a school in August, said, “I know I turned you down a few months ago but I’d still like to go” and they would have likely been able to accommodate.</p>
<p>There really weren’t sources for finding out about schools - my own list / college visits were very skewed to having grown up in the east and having parents who grew up in the east. We visited what we knew / had heard of … Princeton, Penn, Gtown, UVa, Wm & Mary, UNC/Chapel Hill. We didn’t even think about Boston, or going out west.</p>
<p>Overall, easier, except for Yale. I (female and legacy) applied to Yale the year it went coed. I think they took one girl from my whole state that year.</p>
<p>Hows this for easier. I was in beauty school in 1976 and my best friend, who was a freshman at UMich, was losing her roommate after first semester. If she couldnt find a replacement on her own, university housing was going to move a girl she didnt like out of a triple and into her room the following semester. She begged me to come to school for just one semester until she had enough seniority in the dorm lottery to get her choice of roommate for sophomore year. She filled out every part of the application that was administrative in nature; I only had to supply a couple of essays and personal info that she didnt know. (I had taken AP classes and SAT when we were in high school just for fun, but I dont even remember my scores now.) Anyway, I was accepted starting in January, earned a full scholarship later that semester that paid the rest of the way, and graduated Phi Beta Kappa (first one in my family to go to college). Oh, and three weeks into that first term, I met a boy in our co-ed dorm that Ive been happily married to for 30 years. Happy story, but I ended up in college only because a friend needed a roommate. Im sure that doesnt happen at U-M today.</p>
<p>Great stories here! I swear I only took the PSAT and that was good enough for the one college where I applied. Three generations of my family went to the same college. No one ever looked at any other schools. My kids have broken the chain.</p>
<p>Gosh, no wonder people are intimidated by CC kids and parents!</p>
<p>My SAT scores would have gotten me into community college, which is where I went back in 1980. I transferred to another school after 2 years on a dance scholarship-the only school I applied to and got the second highest level of scholarship. After I ran out of money, I transferred to the local state univ. and graduated with a GPA of under 3.0 after working mostly full time for my 3 years there. I applied to, and was accepted into, the same school’s grad school. Did much better there. Finished with a 3.75 GPA but never finished. Dropped out about 4 courses short of my masters-had to work full time + as a deaf ed teacher.</p>
<p>Let’s just say that having a kid apply to highly selective schools is 100% off my radar screen but so many of you are from that world. Kuddos to you!</p>
<p>Grateful for College Confidential, though.</p>
<p>Waaaayyy easier in the past! I took the SAT/ACT once each, NO preparation at all, just showed up with a pencil. I think I took at least one on a weekend we had a show, cast parties, etc., and just got up and went.</p>
<p>Applied to state flagship and one safety backup because some friends were going there. I knew MAYBE 5 people (class of 800) who were applying Ivy and/or out of state. </p>
<p>And when we got there, they sort of helped you get a schedule together (no assistance with changes where 5000 kids were trying to change in one big room at the armory LOL) and then said, Welcome to the U, good luck, bye! </p>
<p>Fortunately my D is much smarter than I was. ;-)</p>
<p>I went to a top BS in New England- the acceptance rate was about 14%. I graduated from that BS a little more than 30 years ago.
After visiting 5 Ivies, the top LAC and the top 2 southern flagships, I applied to 3 Ivies and the top LAC. I had excellent test scores (they are amazing after adjusting for re-centering) and above average grades in very advanced courses compared to my classmates at this very demanding BS. My EC’s at school were nil, but I had had a variety of summer jobs since the age of 12, and I also worked jobs at BS.
I got into 2 Ivies, and was wait-listed at the other Ivy, and the top LAC. I ended up at the Ivy where I was wait-listed.
My sense is that it was MUCH easier to get in than it is now!!! Strangely, I cannot remember the acceptance rates for any colleges back then…</p>
<p>sbjdorlo</p>
<p>You are not alone. There many of us but we are just not as vocal.</p>
<p>I graduated hs in 1993. Applied to one school. All my friends got into the schools they applied to. Back then, in our area, it was very rare to apply to top schools. There was one boy in my class who went to Lehigh and one to Drexel and you would have thought they were going to Harvard. My best friend with a C+/B- gpa went to College of Wooster with a scholarship.</p>
<p>So that was 18 years ago and so many changes!</p>
<p>I’m not so sure it was easier for me, but I’m not talking about grades and test scores. I got an inordinate amount of pressure from my father to go to a Seven Sisters school. This was before coeducation in Ivy League and similar schools. He definitely wanted the decal and the bragging rights. I went because it was expected of me, and I don’t exactly regret it–but still I wonder what the alternatives might have been if I hadn’t been trying to please someone else besides myself.</p>
<p>Choatiemom, that’s an amazing story.</p>
<p>geezermom, my mother left Bryn Mawr after one term, so attending a Seven Sister was thankfully not encouraged by her at all.</p>
<p>Interesting stories!</p>
<p>I believe it was absolutely easier, but maybe I was just ignorant. I just applied to the state school (go Ducks!) and always assumed I would go there. Didn’t apply anywhere else. Only took the SAT once and probably didn’t even study. I didn’t know anyone that took ‘coaching’ courses and I had never heard of AP. However, to be honest, I was one of those high potential, under achieving students, just doing enough to get by. </p>
<p>My husband and I always joke that he would not get into his alma mater, UCD, because his HS GPA was slightly less than 4.0. It’s a true jungle out there, and I feel very sorry for my kids today.</p>
<p>I also never heard the term ‘EC’, and did not participate in activities because I thought it would get me into college. I did things because I wanted to do them.</p>
<p>I agree completely that we need to limit the number of times a person can take the SAT, etc. However, that will not work as long as schools require 4.0 and above, with near perfect SAT scores to get in.</p>
<p>Why should we not share our experiences, whatever they may have been?
The topic of the thread asked for that. </p>
<p>I am interested in the experiences of all others, in fact, always have been, whatever my circumstances, which have varied a great deal over my life. I hope to keep learning, and hope to see the multi-facted reality, and also the perspectives of those around me.
I am grateful for CC for all the points of view. A lot of bias-busting stuff is available here.
I am not sorry for who I am, because that is a waste of time. And I am not an elitist, just fortunate and a hard-worker, who took advantage of opportunities that came my way, but also had plenty of failures. I am always amazed at how resentful and presumptuous people are about some things. It comes across in a way that reflects on the commenters.</p>
<p>I would like to say that I was a member of a large family that did have financial issues. Only one of my siblings went to a highly selective college. The others did not graduate from college; two barely graduated from HS.
I was just a really academic kid- it was my comfort zone.</p>
<p>I doubt I would have been able to get into an Ivy or a top LAC today. But, as an academic kid, I would have reached for the best fit with excellent academics and affordability, as many do here on CC.</p>
<p>Might also be interesting to add, “was it cheaper?” Ha! One semester tuition at UMich in 1977 was less than $800! I also earned all my own spending money by cutting hair in the dorm ($5/haircut, but movies at the coop were only .75, so I felt pretty “rich”). This is making me feel old…</p>
<p>Yuh, Choatiemom, we were so lucky back then, and we did not even know it!!!</p>
<p>
Could you imagine a student today with that as their complete list of schools? 99% of the CC community would be blasting them with messages saying how unrealistic a list like that is.</p>
<p>I went to a mediocre college and likely I would get in today 
But DH went to Yale in the 70s when I think the admit rate was around 27%. He does alumni interviewing and says the same thing every year after meeting with the current crop of potentials: “I’d never get in today!”</p>
<p>My mom got into UGA with a 990 on the SAT and 3.6 GPA in 1979. Even in pharmacy school $3,000 a year covered her entire cost of attendance.</p>