College Application Inflation — Marketing Meets Admissions

gollum123 sends this quote from the Chronicle of Higher Education: "The numbers keep rising, the superlatives keep glowing. Each year, selective colleges promote their application totals, along with the virtues of their applicants. For this fall's freshman class, the statistics reached remarkable levels. Stanford received a record 32,022 applications from students it called 'simply amazing,' and accepted 7 percent of them. Brown saw an unprecedented 30,135 applicants, who left the admissions staff 'deeply impressed and at times awed.' Nine percent were admitted. Such announcements tell a story in which colleges get better — and students get more amazing — every year. In reality, the narrative is far more complex, and the implications far less sunny for students as well as colleges caught up in the cruel cycle of selectivity. To some degree, the increases are inevitable: the college-bound population has grown, and so, too, has the number of applications students file, thanks in part to online technology. But wherever it is raining applications, colleges have helped seed the clouds — by recruiting widely and aggressively for ever more applicants. Many colleges have made applying as simple as updating a Facebook page. Some deans and guidance counselors complain that it's too easy. They question the ethics of intense recruitment by colleges that reject the overwhelming majority of applicants. Today's application inflation is a cause and symptom of the uncertainty in admissions."

Comments

Vocational Schools

[BJ_Covert_Action]

Maybe high schools should start advertising the merits of vocational and tech schools a little bit more. I remember my high school councilor advocating four year college to a lot of students that, quite frankly, just weren't going to do well in four year college (disinterested in abstract concepts, prefer working on something tangible, rather than developing math problems or theses, far too lazy to put more than an hour-a-day on homework, etc.). We have this obsession in the States with four year degrees, acting like employees without one are incompetent and useless. We have students that don't want to attend college attending college because they are told there's no other way to succeed in the world. And, simultaneously, it seems like fewer and fewer college kids I know are actually prepared for the world that they are put into. Few know how to maintain a car. Most don't understand the first thing about taxes. The concept of fiscal responsibility is lost on many of them. Hell, most kids I know didn't even know how to cook before heading off to college.

So maybe this increase in college applications is indicative of the trend that, when a society obsesses over a college degree in all walks of life, then that is one thing that most coming-of-age adults value.

Not to mention the fact that

[Glarimore]

Colleges get $50 (sometimes $100) from each applicant. That means that if Brown or Stanford increase their applicant pool by 5,000 people in a year, thats an extra quarter million they are making, minimum.

What's easier than making money from overpriced tuition? Convincing underqualified people to apply, taking their application fee, and instantly throwing out their application in a GPA/SAT filter.

Where you go matters -- for grad school

[spiffmastercow]

Undergrads at prestigious universities are just the suckers that pay for all the R&D the grad students do. Do yourself a favor and research the undergrad programs in your state. There's a good chance you'll find an excellent program at a fraction of the cost. Of course you won't get the brand name recognition.. But you also won't be in debt the rest of your life.