just out of curiosity, why have colleges suddenly become so competitive and selective??? i can't seem to figure out why...it's just getting crazy!
2006-11-20 13:22:25 · 4 answers · asked by Anonymous in Education & Reference ➔ Higher Education (University +)
Because more and more people feel either that they want or need to go to college...More people competing for the same number of slots(at the preferred schools) => more selective.
Example: Harvard was hard to get in...Now it's REALLY hard.
But, community college is about the same.
2006-11-20 13:26:03 · answer #1 · answered by feanor 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
First, you have to understand that most colleges are NOT competitive. There are 2000 colleges in the USA and many of the top 100 accept half the kids who apply, so that's not very selective. There are LOTS of schools that accept almost everyone who applies.
The elite schools - the Ivies, Stanford, Duke, Chicago, MIT, Caltech - accept from 10 to 20 % of their applicants. They ARE selective, and those schools take fewer than 2000 students each, so the total number of kids getting into the top 25 schools is less than 50,000. But there are like 1,500,000 kids entering college. So, not very many kids are going to get accepted at these top schools. But except for that, most of the kids got into the college they wanted, if they were reasonable about what they wanted and matched themselves up with the grades they got and the average grades of the kids in the school they apply to. .
When I was a kid many, many moons ago, only about 15 % of the high school grads in the USA went to college. Now it is almost 60%. You can't fit 1.5 million kids into 50,000 dorm rooms, so not everyone can go Ivy. The elite schools have not expanded very much, so they are tougher to get in, but the rest of the schools are still taking anyone with a reasonable record, who can read, write and calculate normal math at the 12th grade level. IF you want to go to college, there is a college that will take you.
2006-11-20 13:36:44 · answer #2 · answered by matt 7 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Generally speaking, the "top" schools are really just gettin competitive. Usually most colleges will take you.
Heh, compared to Germany, that's awesome. They have some people waiting in line for 4-5 years in Germany. It's crazy!
2006-11-20 14:03:19 · answer #3 · answered by Greg S 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
because more and more people are pushing to say they want in, but there is only a finite number of individuals qualified to attend so you just have lower acceptance rates.
the number of qualified/talented/smart/intelligent does not really change just the number of people that want to go to their colleges
2006-11-20 19:33:05 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋