Class of 2007 college acceptance statistics:
1.. Yale turned down ‘several’ applications with perfect three part 2400 SATs (PS I’ve never seen someone with a perfect 2400 score, nor have I heard of one in recent history at our school)
2. Princeton turned down ‘thousands’ of students with perfect 4.0s
3. Columbia received 18,081 applications for admission and accepted 1,618 of them making their acceptance rate 8.9%, the lowest in history for the school and certainly one of the lowest for an American college (Harvard accepted 9% of applicants, the ‘lowest in Harvard history’)
4. 80% of Valedictorians applying to Brown were rejected
Isn’t that scary? Gone are the days when valedictorians could get into the ivy league school of their choice.
The grade inflation is not new. At my high school in TX I graduated with like a 4.8 or something. It was a joke, you got something like 2 extra points for an “honors” class and 1 extra point for an “advanced” class but I don’t even think there WERE any classes that weren’t at least advanced. That said, most colleges come up with their OWN GPA, BYU, for example, calculates it themselves without any “extra” weight. So the 4.0’s that were rejected were probably legit. But I will admit that as a teacher “C” isn’t average any more. At our school “B” is average. Its because of the parents.
As for Utah, the number of students entering college is decreasing. But this is also in a state where there is a very high percentage of resident students going. Also, the colleges aren’t Ivy league. You don’t have to have anything great to get into school here.I think that having that many students with 4.0 or greater is ridiculous. It means school needs to be more challenging. Sadly, it makes the school system look unreliable and irrelevant. No wonder schools are looking for diverity and additional experience out of the school system. There is no way for then to differentiate between students.I remember watching a cheerleader in my school talk the teacher into giving her an A instead of an A-! From then on I didn’t care about grades. I thought it was a joke, until I graduated with a poor GPA at the end of it all.
Plus side: I have one sister who got into Columbia and one brother who got into Harvard.But that’s grad school, which is a whole other ball game. My kids are doomed.
Plus side: three of my friends were accepted to Harvard!!Downside: four of my friends were deferred, and then rejected, from Yale. : (
Yeah, I think more students should start rejecting schools – I personally sent Princeton a high-definition fax of my right cheek when I decided to go to BYU.
school is for fools
yeah, there are a few different reasons. One is that there are way more kids going straight to college from high school. The numbers have like doubled in the past five years (baby boomers’ kids). Also, the application process has gotten so much simplier (you can literally fill one application out and send that same application to a bunch of different schools) that it’s much easier to apply to a lot of schools which makes the rate of acceptances go down with the high numbers of applications. I have many kids that apply to 20+ schools. Yeah and I think grade inflation is part of it too. A ‘C’ is definitely not the average grade anymore. At our school for example, the average GPA is about a 3.2 (which is between a B and a B+)
Could it be simple grade inflation? Schools and teachers don’t want to tell a student he’s getting the C he so richly deserves.
So what’s the deal–are there just more smart kids out there than in the past? More people going to college? What has happened in the last 10 years to change things?
yeah, most schools don’t have valedictorians anymore. our current senior class, for example, has 64 students with over a 4.0.colleges are looking at students that have had a real interest in a subject and pursued it. they’re also looking for very specific diversity, and you never know what that is: a saxaphone player from bosnia who spent most of his life in france learning culinary arts, for example.because it’s so competitive, they’re forced to compare students with perfect AND identical academic records so it’s become more about who the student is and what kind of diverse passions they’ve pursued. there’s no doubt anymore that thousands of the applicants turned away from Harvard this year could have handled the work load and brought a lot to the school, but there’s just not room for every remarkable student.
Yeah, I don’t think anyone has gotten any smarter though. Low paid teachers just don’t want to deal with aggressive parents. At my school there were 7 valedictorians. 7 people with a 4.0. Some of the kids I work with right now boast a 4.3 GPA. WTF??!! The standard is 4.0! I am curious as to what are university’s looking for if not kids who know how to get good grades or score perfect SAT scores?
uhm what are county colleges?