Sunday, October 12, 2008
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DON’T DESPAIR, THERE IS A COLLEGE FOR EVERYONE
So is it harder than ever to get into college? We must parse the question first, in order to answer it best. Our goal is not to make you feel better or worse, but to have you feel empowered, to know that you are aware of all the factors contributing to the perceived college admissions squeeze.
First of all, it is true that college admission at some highly selective schools is more difficult than ever. That is partly the result of demographics. There are more students in the high school graduation pipeline, more students every year apply to college and more students are aware of and interested schools such as the Ivies on the East Coast, Northwestern and its ilk in the Midwest and Stanford and others of similar academic “brand strength” out West.
But when you take those highly selective schools and others like them, and add in all other universities that take less than one-half of their applicants, you come up with a figure of about 150 institutions, or less than five percent, of the more than 3,500 non-profit colleges and universities across the country.
Now these are the 150 schools, of course, that get most of the media attention, especially in publications such as The New York Times, The Washington Post, and USA Today, not surprisingly, since those colleges and universities are represented in high numbers among the ranks of reporters and editors at those publications.
But do not despair if your child does not attend, was not this year accepted by or is unlikely in future years to be accepted by one of those selective institutions.
It sounds like a cliché, but there really is a college for everyone. Just as a “mid-major” school like George Mason can enter into the “Final Four” of college basketball, a math or science major from one of the thousands of schools offering accredited degree programs can enter into the job or graduate school market with a high degree of confidence in his or her credentials.
This may sound heretical, but for the 3000+ colleges and universities out there that do take at least 50 percent of their applicants (and for at least a couple of thousand that 50 percent is even higher), the college admissions process should not be that stressful to you at all. That is, of course, unless you get stressed by having too many choices.
These thousands of less-selective schools are more like the tens of thousands of hotels out there across America; they are trying to fill beds. In the hotel industry, an empty room, on any given night, is a lost revenue opportunity forever. In the “industry” of college admissions, an empty student slot, for any given semester, is a lost revenue opportunity forever.
Assuming that your child has or will fulfill the basic high school graduation requirements, then there is a likely a school out there that will gladly accept him or her to “fill a bed” or, if close to home, a classroom chair for the semester.
And that’s OK. The vast majority of U.S. college students, more than 80 percent, attend a public college or university within their home states. And with the difficulty of gaining acceptance to the flagship universities within those states, this really means that most students are going to school at the regional state university or local community college right in their own backyard.
Yes, getting into some colleges in the U.S. is harder than ever. But getting into, and performing well, in the vast majority of schools in the U.S. is still pretty much a wide-open book, ready to be written by your sons and daughters, the current and future college students of America.
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