Application Inflation: When Is Enough Enough?
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This article is the first of a collaboration between The New York Times and The Chronicle of Higher Education, a daily news source for professors and administrators. Eric Hoover is a senior writer for The Chronicle covering admissions.
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.
The biggest boast came from the University of California, Los Angeles. In a news release, U.C.L.A. said its accepted students had "demonstrated excellence in all aspects of their lives." Citing its record 57,670 applications, the university proclaimed itself "the most popular campus in the nation."
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.
Admissions officers are chasing not so much a more perfect student as a more perfect class. In a given year, this elusive ideal might require more violinists, goalies, aspiring engineers or students who can pay the full cost of attendance. Colleges everywhere want more minority students, more out-of-state students and more students from overseas. The pursuit reveals the duality of the modern college. It's a place that serves the public interest, and a business with a bottom line.
Although the tension between mission and marketing has long defined admissions, many believe the balance has tilted too far toward the latter. 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.
"It's like needing a new stereo and buying the whole Radio Shack," says Mark Speyer, director of college counseling at the Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School in New York. "With these bigger pools, colleges are getting a lot of students who have no chance."
Fred Hargadon, former dean of admissions at Princeton and Stanford, doubts that more and more applicants make for a stronger class. "I couldn't pick a better class out of 30,000 applicants than out of 15,000," he says. "I'd just end up rejecting multiples of the same kid."
The tide shows no signs of ebbing. This year, the University of Chicago, Duke and Tulane -- the last juggling 43,816 submissions -- surpassed their previous application records by double-digit percentages. Applications are, of course, a proxy for popularity and metric of merit. Such is the allure of exclusivity, and the appeal of simplicity. Measuring quality is difficult; measuring quantity is as easy as counting. The more apps a college receives, and rejects, the more impressive it seems.
Today's application inflation is a cause and symptom of the uncertainty in admissions. As application totals soar, colleges struggle to predict yield -- the number of admitted students who actually attend -- leading to longer wait lists and other competitive enrollment tactics. Students hedge against the plummeting admissions rates by flooding the system with even more applications.
Sarah Markhovsky sees the uncertainty in the students she counsels at Severn School, in Maryland. "They'll say, 'Oh, my gosh, I should apply to a million schools -- if I shoot lots of arrows, maybe I'll hit something,' " she says. "This translates into hype that's not useful. It feels like the kids are commodities."
That's how Shaun Stewart felt when he started receiving brochures from colleges. "They want you so they can reject you," says Mr. Stewart, a senior in Burnsville, Minn., who has a 3.5 grade-point average and scored a 27 (out of 36) on the ACT. Those numbers are well below the freshman averages at some of the big-name colleges that sent him applications along with brochures.
"Colleges are there to educate you, but they make it all about who's the best college," he says. "They make it too stressful. Then we make it too stressful on ourselves." He is considering liberal arts colleges like Carleton and Gustavus Adolphus, which he says have shown a more personal touch.
The scale of rejection worries Karl M. Furstenberg, dean of admissions and financial aid at Dartmouth from 1992 to 2007. "When people keep hearing that they're not good enough, this has an undermining psychological effect," he says. Over the last 15 years, he says, growing applicant pools reflected an earnest push for greater diversity among the wealthiest institutions. Yet he believes many have reached a point of diminishing returns.
First Published November 7, 2010 1:01 am
