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Record
applicants and fewer openings
The cellphone
message from her grandmother brought the bad news: a rejection
from California State Polytechnic University, one of her safety
schools. Next came another safety, the University of California-San
Diego. But when Alexis Guy, a high school senior in San Anselmo,
Calif., started getting letters from schools she cared about,
it got worse: She opened Berkeley's slender envelope herself,
then Stanford's, then New York University's. The final blow
came from Northwestern–her first choice. Commiserating with
friends, Guy–who works 30 hours a week, has a 3.9 grade-point
average, and edits her high school newspaper–had a hunch:
"It seems like there are less spaces at colleges this year."
It's not
a bad guess. Yes, the number of students vying for spots continues
to rise, with some schools reporting as much as a tripling
of applications over the past decade. But it's also true that
a slew of selective colleges across the country have fewer
spots to fill than they did last year. No, it's not a nefarious
plot to drive teenagers (and their parents) to the brink of
madness. It is just a matter of numbers. For several years,
more students than expected have taken up these schools' offers
of admission, creating a space crunch on campus. Brandeis
University in Massachusetts had 60 extra students matriculate
last year; next year, it will have 85 fewer spots. The College
of William and Mary in Virginia will have 60 fewer, Wisconsin's
Lawrence University, 25 fewer. That might seem like a minor
difference, but at smaller schools the change can be significant.
At Reed College in Oregon, the 47 fewer spaces meant that
1,731 applicants were vying for only 315 spots.
Cutbacks.
Even colleges with the same number of spots are accepting
fewer students. The University of Pennsylvania sent out 4,124
acceptance letters this year–199 fewer than last year. That's
because, over the past five years, Penn's yield–the number
of accepted students who decide to enroll–has risen from 48
percent to 56 percent.
Several
factors have made selective colleges even more selective.
Foremost is the "echo baby boom": The number of college-age
kids nationwide continues to swell. It has also become increasingly
easy (and popular) for students to apply to several colleges,
as more schools embrace online applications. At the same time,
admissions officers are seeing an increase in high-scoring
students from all parts of the country. Stanford's rejection
letter informed students that the school received more than
19,000 applications for 2,200 places; of them, 5,000 exceeded
a 4.0 GPA, and 3,000 scored over 1500 on their SATs. Finally,
as more students compete to get into top colleges, more highly
qualified applicants are left vying for spaces in the next
tier of schools, and the next one.
On top
of all that, record numbers of students applied for early
decision this year. Tufts University filled 45 percent of
its freshman class early, compared with 26 percent 10 years
ago. The same goes for dozens of other colleges, like the
University of Richmond in Virginia and Hamilton in New York.
That means that by the time regular-admission students apply,
the doors have already begun to close. "It's heartbreaking
when they don't get in," says Michael Thorp, admissions director
of Lawrence, where applications are reviewed so carefully
that the staff ends up knowing applicants' hobbies by heart.
The good
news–and yes, there is some–is that there are still lots of
fine schools out there with reasonable admission rates. Dickinson
College in Pennsylvania accepted 64 percent of 3,850 applicants;
Earlham College in Indiana admitted 77 percent. But try consoling
17-year-old Alexis Guy, an aspiring writer who is considering
admission offers from five backup colleges, including George
Washington University. Even her acceptances were tinged with
bad news: She was admitted to Boston University but not to
its prestigious school of communications. "In the admissions
process you start out optimistic," says Guy, "and you end
up despondent."
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