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Is Getting in Getting Harder? Perception versus Reality

As if the holiday season weren’t stressful enough, for many American families this time of the year also marks the height of the annual college application sweepstakes.

Contestants deposit their assiduously assembled applications and hope that their ping-pong ball pops to the top. Tensions endemic to this yearly ritual are often keenly exacerbated by a widespread perception that gaining entrance to an elite college program is now harder than ever.  In fact, the opposite is true.

Contrary to popular wisdom, today’s qualified high school graduate enjoys a better opportunity to attend a top-tier university than did his or her predecessors over the past several decades. Why is that?  And what accounts for such a pervasive disconnect?

Both questions can be explained by a confluence of factors, some more obvious than others.  These include demographic considerations, expanded college class sizes, and the emergence of numerous large universities as leading academic institutions. Changes in the admissions processes, such as greater reliance on early decision applicants and widespread adoption of the Common Application, also play a role in these phenomena, as does the laser-like focus among academic institutions on clawing their way up this or that national ranking – on PR, essentially.

Since 1980, the number of U.S. high school graduates has held relatively flat. Though the applicant pool is more diverse – due to a welcome increase in college attendance by women and minorities, for example – this expansion has skewed disproportionately toward less-selective institutions.

Have we witnessed a “brightification” of our student population? To some, it seems that today’s high schoolers are considerably smarter than their predecessors, contributing to the perception of fiercer competition for placements at preeminent academic institutions.  Statistics, however, belie this view and suggest a modest ten to fifteen percent increase in the number of qualified high school students applying to such institutions. From a demand perspective, then, we’ve witnessed only an incremental overall increase in the pool of qualified applicants seeking admission to top-tier programs.

Meanwhile the supply of available undergraduate slots among such institutions has quietly ballooned. All elite schools have added considerable capacity. Since 1980, the average freshman class at the top 100 ranked schools has expanded by about twenty five percent.  Moreover, during the same period, numerous large universities have either joined or moved up the ranks of the nation’s elite academic institutions. These include prominent state schools such as the University of Virginia and the University of Michigan to name just a few, as well as a handful of urban giants like NYU and USC, whose fortunes and reputations have skyrocketed in recent years with numerous programs ranked among the very best in the nation. The soaring prominence and popularity of schools in this category – each with enrollment in the tens of thousands – affords boatloads of additional spaces within top-ranked institutions.

Coupled with flat demand, one would expect that this rise in top-tier slots would enable an easier path for qualified applicants.  Yet the perception persists that success requires a Herculean effort mixed with some degree of luck. It is a perception, however, that is grounded in several very real and significant transformations in the application process, and in the insidious focus by universities on their rankings. What each of these factors has in common is a marked trend toward encouraging more and more applications.  

Back in 1980, a typical high school senior might apply to three or four colleges, with each application provided by and tailored to the individual school. With the advent of the Common Application, such paltry numbers are truly a remnant of admissions past. Instead, students now routinely submit fifteen, or even twenty college applications. Whether or not this makes any sense – an applicant can only attend one school – is certainly an issue of contention. What is inarguable, however, is that colleges are more than happy to encourage the torrent of paperwork.

War stories of overwhelmed admissions staff withering under an avalanche of applications grow more epic by the year. Yet the mountains are welcomed as a means of ensuring the highest possible selectivity quotient. Put simply, as the number of applications increases, the school’s acceptance rate declines. Lower acceptance rates in turn play a pivotal role in raising the school’s rankings. In a not-so-virtuous cycle, higher rankings draw more interest and yet ever more applications.

Another related phenomenon that feeds the application frenzy is a considerably increased reliance on “early decision” admits. Until recently, a college might employ this process to secure ten or fifteen percent of its freshmen class; the remaining vast majority of applicants were admitted months later during the traditional springtime process.  Today, however, many colleges have significantly shifted this ratio, securing upwards of half their class through early decision.   

In the end, then, the perception of increased competition is not completely ill-founded.  The increase, however, is primarily a rise not in applicants, but merely in applications.