<p>I graduated HS in 1970, perfect 4.0 GPA, near-1600 CR + M SAT (on the old scale, before re-centering), strong ECs, valedictorian. I think in retrospect I could have pretty much written my own ticket in college admissions in those days, but there was only one school I ever wanted to attend, and that was the University of Michigan. My HS GC made a feeble attempt to get me to consider other options. He showed me some information about a special scholarship the University of Chicago was offering to graduates of rural and small-town Midwestern high schools (of whom they likely were getting few), but even with the scholarship it still would have been more expensive than Michigan–need-based FA was not what it is today, even at the fanciest privates, and tuition at Michigan, although high in comparison to other in-state public options, was less than $1,000/year. My GC also had me fill out a complicated questionnaire by a for-profit college matching service; he was given the opportunity to test it out for free with one student. It came up with a pretty random list of colleges, some of which I had never heard of: Wesleyan, RPI, Vassar (which had just gone coed), Illinois Institute of Technology, and others more forgettable. The list was so random and so varied in quality that I suspected these were schools that had paid the matching service to be promoted, and the service was looking to collect fees on both ends. I filed it in the circular file, and I don’t think the matching service lasted long. That was the best my GC could come up with; as the graduate of a relatively undistinguished in-state public university (one of the “directional” Michigans), his horizons were somewhat limited.</p>
<p>I’d estimate about 40% of my HS class went to college, all but a handful to in-state publics. One guy, a math whiz who was with us just in our senior year, went to Stanford—but he had been living in California until his senior year and was a Stanford legacy, so that was “going home” for him. About half of those attending college went to our closest state university, another quarter to our next-closest state university, 5 or 6 to Michigan State, 2 of us to Michigan, the rest mostly scattered at other in-state publics, except for a handful who went to a local private 2-year college from which they planned to transfer to a state university for their last two years. Going to Michigan was regarded as pretty much the pinnacle of success. In my class, the valedictorian and salutatorian went to Michigan; the next bunch split between Michigan State and Michigan Tech; and the rest went to less selective and by reputation “easier” state schools." </p>
<p>That wasn’t the case in every town, though. We, too, had moved between my sophomore and junior years in HS. I didn’t keep close tabs on all my old friends from my first HS, but I do know that one of my closest friends went to Dartmouth, and another went to Colgate. But their families had Northeast ties. Someone from an earlier class from that school had gone to Northwestern, but that was also very unusual. The general feeling was, why pay exorbitant private college tuition when we have a great in-state public option like the University of Michigan, one of the world’s top universities?</p>
<p>Like everyone else who had ambitions (or mere thoughts) of attending college, I took the ACT once without prep. Like a smaller number, I also took the SAT once without prep. If memory serves, Michigan required the SAT in those days; all the other publics in the state used the ACT, so it kind of set you apart as academically ambitious if you took the SAT. I had heard of test prep books, but I didn’t know anyone who used them, and it smelled vaguely of “gaming” the test to resort to that. </p>
<p>I applied to one school–you guessed it, the University of Michigan. I got my application in by sometime in September, was admitted under their rolling admission process by sometime in October, was offered and accepted a place in the honors program, and never looked back. There was never any doubt in my mind, or my GC’s mind, or my parents’ minds that I would be admitted. The director of admissions at Michigan State had personally assured me that if I applied there, I would be admitted to their honors college and given a big 4-year merit scholarship; my mother found that tempting, I didn’t, and I won the argument. Michigan did offer a one-year merit scholarship that covered most of my first year’s tuition.</p>
<p>Easier? You bet. Saner, too, in my opinion, than today’s long, drawn-out, high-stress competitive process. I felt I got an outstanding undergraduate education–honors, B.A. in philosophy with the opportunity to interact daily and face-to-face with top faculty in one of those most highly regarded philosophy departments in the world. My only educational aspiration for my daughters has been to give them comparable undergraduate opportunities to those I had. I’m confident we’re doing that now with D1, and we’re well on our way toward achieving that with D2 who is a HS junior with credentials that are shaping up nicely. The only downsides are that it’s costing me $50K+ per child per year, or realistically probably closer to $500K total for the two of them by the time all is said and done; and they need to endure a much more stressful and fraught path to get to the promised land.</p>