<p>@fireandrain: You didn’t say when you were applying. For a lot of us, it was over 30 years ago. When did you apply? It would be intesting to try to determine the tipping point–when did this process start getting to be the Olympian effort it is today?</p>
<p>Graduated in 1976. Applied to one school UCSC and got in. The counselor who reviewed my app didn’t even suggest I check off any other UCs, real guidance there. And people wonder with the crazy application scene today why our kids need help in the process.</p>
<p>It wasn’t streesful for me until I got a rejection. Although nothing like today the accepatance rate at Harvard was still low in the 70s- around 16 to 18 percent. But nobody knew that where I went to school, and there was no internet to find out. So when stacks of mail started rolling in inviting me to apply, and I had local Ivy alums calling me to implore me to apply i assumed it was no big deal and I’d get in. I didn’t get stressed until I got summarily rejected from the big H.</p>
<p>Interesting thread. Many here are talking about the 1970s, and maybe that’s why I feel like a bit of an outlier. I don’t think it was easier way back in 1966. For one thing, women’s options did not include many of what are now considered top-tier schools, which were not coed. Single-sex schools didn’t start disappearing until 1970 or so ([Years</a> that Men’s Colleges Became Co-ed | InsideCollege.com](<a href=“The Best College Rankings and Lists | Inside College | CollegeXpress”>The Best College Rankings and Lists | Inside College | CollegeXpress)). I couldn’t have applied to an Ivy League school, or Williams, or Haverford, or Duke, or UVa, and so on. Now I’m curious about the impact of coeducation on admissions in the 1970s.</p>
<p>In my HS, many students applied to top schools, and not everyone could win the lottery–much like today. At my Seven Sisters college, our class was told that we had the highest SAT scores in the school’s history, so it must have been a competitive year. (We turned out to be an extremely feisty group–the classic uppity women uniting–and so they might have been sorry they wanted us.)</p>
<p>ChoatieMom – I went to college in the 1970s. Back in the dark ages. </p>
<p>I think it was a function of my uber competitive high school. We were ahead of the times, I guess. It was a predominantly Jewish population, and I wonder if that has something to do with it. Although, I had no pressure from my parents to apply or go to Ivies; if anything, I had the opposite – they wanted me to commute to CUNY.</p>
<p>^^^Right! Like so many others in my class I applied to one or more of the CUNY schools as well as two of the more competitive SUNY schools. Had I gone to Barnard I would have had to commute, otherwise the total expense would have been unaffordable even with a Regents Scholarship (the only good thing to come out of the annual Regents test nightmare).</p>
<p>Fun thread, my first post was pages ago. A wide range of parent ages which determines different college application experiences. My 40th HS reunion was last summer, but saw a true “geezer” posting who’s 5 years ahead of me. Then there are those who had their kids in their 20’s instead of mid 30’s- quite an age range when a lot happened. I looked at the coed reference- no wonder I never considered many schools.</p>
<p>Watershed years back then. Womens Lib movement meant a lot- title 9 means girls can do sports… Tuition- $54 per semester for my mom in the late 1940’s, $254 for me circa 1971, more than 10x that for son in recent years, all at UW.</p>
<p>eastcoascrazy- I’ll bet you were from Marinette, WI. I grew up in the Madison area where most from my HS went to college (meaning a 4 year one, not a “tech” college) and later found that blue collar Green Bay students of the same era typically would not go to college- they would join fathers and uncles in good paying paper mill jobs. I’m sure some of my HS clasmates shouldn’t have chosen college while the converse was true in GB.</p>
<p>fireandrain: I think many of my classmates had a lot more stress than I did. But a big part of our experience was effectively being slotted by the school into places that would accept us, based in part on an ongoing relationship between the school and the colleges (something that existed back then – heck, our headmaster got hired out of the Harvard admissions office). So I had friends who got turned down at Harvard or Yale . . . so they went to Brown, Cornell, or Penn. No one thought those were bad schools at all, so no one got that stressed about the differences. At least I think they didn’t. The prevailing ideal was for rural colleges, so Cornell and Dartmouth (and lots of rural LACs) had high status and were often preferred over the urban Ivies. And so on down the line. Everyone had a pretty accurate idea of what was in range.</p>
<p>In the late 80s in rural Indiana we had a fair share go military, many went to work on parent’s farms and most went to at least a two-year college. In a graduating class of 82 we had about 10 go to private schools, 5 went to Purdue (I was the lone IU) and not one person went out of state. When I transferred to a small womens college in CA the following year, everyone thought I was crazy. It was easier to get into college-heck, I got into Notre Dame with an A- average and a 30 ACT. </p>
<p>Most went to a small regional state school or community college. Most didn’t graduate, and they continued to live in the area. Their kids are following the same pattern, with 50% of the graduating class going to non-flagship schools, even with the grades to try for more.</p>
<p>
So not true. When my son was in high school looking to take something locally since he did AP Comp Sci as a freshman we looked at half a dozen near-by colleges none of which had any computer science to speak of. I was really surprised at how slim the pickings were.</p>
<p>fireanddrain, I remember it being stressful too, but nevertheless I had U Penn as a safety and only applied to three schools. One of my best friends was rejected from Yale where she was a legacy and accepted at Swarthmore where she really wanted to go. I had one friend who desperately wanted to go to Harvard, but had to settle for Princeton. We spent a lot of time between December and April stewing. And every year there would be one girl who didn’t get in anywhere, and there would be some phone calls and she would go to Vassar most of the time. (Our founding and current headmistress both attended Vassar.)</p>
<p>I don’t recall it being stressful for me, per se. But, I knew my father wasn’t going to pay and I knew where I would end up going. I really only filled out the other apps because it was expected of us.</p>
<p>I was at a “feeder” school. So, those of us at the “top” of the class, though I don’t remember thinking of it in that particular way, more like those of us geeky enough to have been in AP’s and four level classes all four years, were going to go to these schools. Even back then, everyone from our public school went to college. Even the burn outs went to college.</p>
<p>But, two of my closest friends were both completely set on Harvard, and one “only” got into Yale, and it ruined their friendship. It wss actually very hard on our group after graduation cuz it split us up in a lot of ways. Even at our high school reunion, even though the one who “only” got to go to Yale was wildly successful. You’ve heard of her. We still couldn’t say anything about it. Up to that point, the two of them had been the very best friends in the world.</p>
<p>I was just kind of lucky because my father, a dyslexic, had dropped out of high school at 16 and was a very successful entrepenuer. He thought I could “waste” my own “time and money” in school if I wanted to, but he wasn’t getting involved. </p>
<p>So, I was very free.</p>
<p>Not to dis bclintock’s choice but I just sit in utter amazement that 40,000 yes they say maybe 40,000 kids will apply to UofM this year. Who are these kids and do they all really want to go to UofM? (I turned down UofM because it was ‘too big’ back in the early seventies.) Now I have a son who would no doubt do anything in the world to get into UofM…but 40,000 that can afford to go and want to go…system is broken. 10,000 - 20,000 kids maybe with all the UofM alum running around the world, but 40,000, seems alittle strange. I had two other kids who said “no way I’m not going to a school so big that I have to ride a bus to class” so I know kids have an opinion and a budget and all that.</p>
<p>I didn’t go to a “feeder” school, and our guidance counselors could not pick up the phone and call admissions at Yale or Princeton and have a conversation. None of us were “slotted by the school into places that would accept us.” We were all unhooked. I don’t think any of us thought that our acceptance into a top school was a given.</p>
<p>I went to Homestead High a couple years around the time Jobs went there. I remember we were all under the impression it was harder to get in than Harvard, which I don’t think was even remotely true in '74.</p>
<p>I mean we thought Stanford was harder to get in than Harvard. :)</p>
<p>I can promise you I was in a “feeder” school by accident. It just happened to be the local high school to the house my dad bought and fixed up when he returned from the time he served in the military (he was drafted.) </p>
<p>It’s not like that anymore anyway, and I’m glad. What I am NOT glad about, however, is that the cost of a good solid state education has become so prohibitive.</p>
<p>Heck, we ought to start a thread, “Was it easier for us to pay for college…”</p>
<p>cuz it was.</p>
<p>@poetgirl,</p>
<p>“Was it easier for us to pay for college…”</p>
<p>You & I know it was, because it’s a fact that the cost college has been rising as a multiply of the cost of inflation…</p>
<p>At UCSC I paid about $250 a quarter and at SF State Univ I paid $125 a semester. I’d say it was a bit cheaper then.</p>
<p>Haven’t read all the threads but – absolutely, was easier back in the late '70s when the world was smaller it seemed. I went to an East Coast private school (scholarship kid) and applied to 3 schools, Princeton, Brown and women’s college as a financial and admissions safety. Rejected at Princeton, accepted at Brown and at LAC. Could not afford Brown and went to LAC where I had a superb education and went on to law school. In high school, I was an A/A- student, with typical ECs and good but not amazing scores. I think I took the SAT twice, mostly because my math score was so low I had to bring it up. Not like I prepared in between, just retook it and it did come up to a respectable level. </p>
<p>Back then, I could afford to pay for college myself – it was about $6k, which I paid for with summer job, plus some state grant money and small loans. Of course, the all-loan approach to law school was a shocker, and I spent 10 years paying off the “mortgage on my brain.”</p>