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Why College Has Gotten
Harder to Get Into
There are several reasons behind the intense competition for
college admission. One is demographics. There are simply an
awful lot of college aged Americans, with more on the way. The baby boom
"echo" peaked at 4.1 million births
in 1990, and families immigrating to the US also include
children. Consequently, the number of 17- and 18-year-olds
continues to grow, and is not expected to begin declining
until 2008.
At the same time, the country's most selective schools are not
increasing the size of their entering classes. They can
admit the same number of students for fall 2006 that they
did a decade or even a generation ago. That means a growing
population of high school seniors is competing for a static
number of seats at top tier schools.
Not only are there more college-aged Americans, but a
prosperous economy means more incentive to attend college
(given more sophisticated job requirements) and more money
to do it with. Every year since 1970, an increasing
proportion of high school graduates has pursued
post-secondary education.
Yet another factor is that more students are submitting
applications to multiple schools. The NACAC reported that
32% of students
applied to seven or more colleges the year before
last.
This compares to only 9% who
applied to six or more schools a decade
earlier.
(We apologize for not having directly comparable data, but
we believe this still makes a very strong point.)
To recap,
the four factors listed below have acted together to create
an increasingly competitive college admissions environment:
The population of graduating high school seniors has
increased.
The percentage of high school graduates choosing to attend
college or university has increased.
The average number of colleges each senior applies to has
increased.
The number of freshman seats open each fall at most of the
selective colleges and universities has remained relatively
stable.
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