| It is likely to keep hitting new lows unless these colleges drastically increase the number of seats that they have on offer (which is unlikely if they want to maintain the aurora of attracting and educating the best and brightest). More students want to attend college than ever. The ease of the common app takes the pain out of requesting "paper applications" from colleges individually and college ranking lists are available for all to see. Most students have colleges segregated into: 1.) top choices; 2.) middle of the pile; 3.) safety schools and it is mostly always the case that a lot of students are qualified enough to be at these institutions, so it is likely that this group will apply to the top 5 or 10 colleges because he fits the profile of the student most likely to attend these institutions. Almost 30% of applicants are applying to 7 or more colleges and these low acceptance rates will only perpetuate the increase in this ~30% figure because students are afraid that they won't get into the top two college categories. From the article: > Students applying to seven or more colleges made up just 9 percent of the applicant pool in 1990, but accounted for 29 percent in 2011. > ..students send more applications than they once did, abetted by the electronic forms that have become nearly universal, and uniform applications that can make adding one more college to the list just a matter of a mouse click. On another note I was recently talking with a CS professor and he mentioned that rankings are highly correlated with the years that an institution has been in existence which is worth thinking about. |
aura