Selective sabotage
Last week, I attended a webinar with NACAC (the National Association for College Admission Counseling), an organization of which I am a member. The broader topic of the webinar was trends in college admission, and I left with a lot of helpful takeaways. The one that has sat with me the most, however, was a statistic: there are 33 colleges that accept less than 10% of their applicants. The next range, 11-20% acceptance, contains 36 schools. For those keeping score at home, that’s roughly 70 schools, and when you consider that there are roughly 2,800 colleges or universities in the US, we’re talking only 2.5% in the most selective deciles. As you can imagine, applications to these schools are surging.
I bet if quizzed, you could probably name a healthy number of these ~70 schools. They’re going to be a lot of the “usual suspects,” the schools that dominate the rankings, year in and year out. They’re the schools that the media (whether social or traditional) places on a pedestal. No question, these schools are graduating students who achieve great outcomes, but they are far from the only ones who can claim successful graduates. For instance, Penn State is #2 in the nation for most CEO’s produced, according to a LinkedIn study. Penn State is not one of the 69 schools that accept 20% of applicants or less.
I foresee the perils of rankings and cautionary tales regarding selectivity as being recurring themes for future entries. We’ll get into that in the coming weeks and months, but I’ll share my favorite anectode of this, as illustrated by Malcolm Gladwell in his best-seller, David and Goliath. In summary, a strong student with a proclivity toward the sciences narrows down their college choice to an Ivy League school, and a public research institution with a solid (albeit not Ivy League) reputation. The student, who probably didn’t expect to get in, is smitten by prestige and chooses the Ivy League “Goliath.” They attend, struggle, and switch majors, away from the sciences altogether, settling into a career that doesn’t stimulate or interest them. Years later, comparing the resources (availability of professors, collaboration versus competition) and the experiences of others at the “David” school, they realize that they would still be in the sciences had they chosen their very viable other top option.
To be clear, a student should not exclude these intensely competitive schools from their list. Nor should they assume that they’re in for the same experience as the student in Gladwell’s book. My points are this:
Attending a school that is less-selective does not mean “settling.”
A student’s college list should be balanced, and not skewed heavily toward that super selective seventy or so.
There are many options that do not necessarily show up in rankings or media that might be the one for you/your student.
Working with an IEC is a great way to learn more about these schools, make sure your list is balanced, and feel great about making a choice that checks the right boxes. Let’s start the conversation!
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AK
