Hopes Dim for Kids On College Wait Lists - WSJ article

Hopes Dim for Kids On College Wait Lists
Many Schools Take Fewer Backup Applicants
Because of Higher-Than-Expected First-Round Yields
By ANJALI ATHAVALEY
May 16, 2007; Page D1

For a while, it looked like this might be a good year for wait-listed college applicants. But that is turning out to be wrong.

Instead, many colleges are taking few students off the wait list -- and sometimes none at all. Elite schools such as Stanford University, the University of Chicago and Dartmouth College aren't admitting any students from their wait lists this year. The University of Pennsylvania expects to admit about 25 students, down from 42 last year. State schools such as the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Delaware, too, are taking fewer students than last year.

The reason, many colleges say, is that they underestimated their yields -- the percentage of students accepted who decide to attend. With unexpectedly high numbers of acceptances, these schools are filling their slots quickly.

The yields surprised many schools, which had been preparing for more wait-list activity after a couple of years of tight admissions. Though it has always been a long shot to get in off the wait list at many schools, the odds have become worse in the past few years. This year, with applications pouring in, and students applying to multiple schools, admissions officers had anticipated more overlap so they were especially conservative in their yield forecasts. Many increased the number of slots offered on wait lists, expecting to then fill out their enrollment from the bench.

WAITING GAME



Plans for wait-listed students at selected schools:
• Admitting no students from their wait lists: Stanford University, University of Chicago, Amherst College

• Accepting fewer wait-listed students than last year: University of Delaware, University of Pennsylvania

• Accepting more than last year: Princeton University


(For more wait-list numbers, see below.)But at many selective schools, that scenario hasn't played out. The University of Pennsylvania had expected that 65% of the 3,614 admitted would accept -- slightly lower than last year -- because it was the first year the university switched to the Common Application, which makes it easier for students to apply online to multiple schools. But the yield came in at 67%. "Conventional wisdom...is that students are less serious with the Common Application, but that has not proven to be true for us," says Lee Stetson, dean of admissions at the University of Pennsylvania.

Yields are highly important to schools, and are closely watched by competing colleges, potential donors and status-conscious applicants as indicators of a school's appeal. But they have become harder to predict in recent years. For one, the number of seniors graduating from high school has been rising for more than a decade, according to the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

Admissions deans and high-school counselors also say students are applying to more schools because they are uncertain of where they will get in. Some counselors also point to the growing popularity of the Common Application, which makes it possible for students to fill out one application and submit it to many schools. But overall the number of applications per student has remained relatively stable at 3.9 compared with 3.6 five years ago, according to Common Application Inc., the nonprofit that administers the process for about 300 colleges.

Even a few percentage points in yield can make "a big difference" in policy, especially at small elite schools that don't admit many wait-listed students, says Christopher Avery, a professor of public policy at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and co-author of a book on college admissions. Amherst College, which had expected a 36% yield, had anticipated more wait-list admissions this year. But the Amherst, Mass., college, which saw a yield of 40%, is taking no one.

Yields will become even more volatile in the future. The Education Department predicts that the rise in the number of high-school seniors will continue until at least 2013. And next year more schools -- Harvard University, Princeton University and the University of Virginia -- will drop so-called early admissions, the system that asks students to promise to attend if they are accepted early. That will add a fresh crop of students to their regular-decision pools.

The University of Delaware, which eliminated early-decision applications last fall, has already found it harder to manage yield without the security of early admissions. Delaware admitted more students initially this year, compared with last. So now it is taking a mere 25 students off the wait list, down from 262 last year.

Next year, says Louis Hirsh, director of admissions, the university will accept fewer students initially so that it can take more students off the wait list. (Colleges generally want to be able to use the wait list to adjust the freshman class for characteristics they are lacking, such as certain majors.)

"We didn't quite know what to expect," says Mr. Hirsh. "You have to assume that the kids who would have applied early decision are still going to apply. The problem is you don't know exactly which ones they are."

To be sure, the unpredictability of yields can have the opposite effect and result in more wait-listed students getting a shot. Princeton, which took zero wait-listed students last year, says it expects to take 30 this year -- a result of a slight drop in yield, to 68% from 69% last year. Princeton is expecting to enroll a slightly larger class in 2008 as part of a long-term plan to expand the size of the undergraduate student body.


For students who were wait-listed, the uncertainty can be hellish. "I like to call it purgatory," says Katie French, a senior at Stamford High School in Stamford, Conn., who applied to five schools. She was wait-listed at Boston University, her top choice. She was admitted to Emmanuel College in Boston and rejected from the other three.

Two weeks ago, she found out she got into Boston University. But because she didn't receive financial aid, she says, she had to settle on Emmanuel. "I was an absolute wreck," says Ms. French, who later missed an Advanced Placement English exam because she was so upset.

This year, Ohio State University is trying to make the process less painful. The university decided not to have a wait list this year, after two years of admitting no one. Since the university has rolling admissions, it is easier to forecast in the spring whether it will reach its targets, says Mabel Freeman, assistant vice president of undergraduate admissions. If need be, it can take people who applied late. "There are a number of ways you can try to deal if you suddenly find that you are short," says Ms. Freeman.

At this point in the admissions cycle, students who remain on college wait lists can do little to sway their school of choice. The process will be largely over by the end of the month, though some schools admit students into June. If you haven't sent in a letter expressing your interest already, you should do so, says Jon Reider, director of college counseling at San Francisco University High School. But he says to avoid contacting the college repeatedly. "You don't want to seem too pushy."

Write to Anjali Athavaley at anjali.athavaley@wsj.com1

Ivy League Admissions Crunch Brings New Cachet to Next Tier - NYT article

May 16, 2007
Ivy League Admissions Crunch Brings New Cachet to Next Tier
By ALAN FINDER
BETHLEHEM, Pa. — Lehigh University has never been as sought after as Stanford, Yale or Harvard. But this year, awash in applications, it churned out rejection letters and may break more hearts when it comes to its waiting list.

Call them second-tier colleges (a phrase some administrators despise) or call them the new Ivies (this, they can live with). Twenty-five to 40 universities like Lehigh, traditionally perceived as being a notch below the most elite, have seen their cachet climb because of the astonishing competitive crush at the top.

“It’s harder to get into Bowdoin now than it was to get into Princeton when I worked there,” said William M. Shain, dean of admissions and financial aid at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Me., who worked at Princeton in the 1970s, which is one of those benefiting from the spillover as the country’s most prestigious colleges turn away nearly 9 out of 10 applicants.

At Lehigh, known for its strength in engineering and business, about 12,000 students applied this year. That is a whopping 50 percent increase in applications over seven years ago and more than 10 times the seats available in a freshman class of 1,150. The median SAT score of admitted students has climbed about 10 points a year in recent years, officials said.

Students have generally been quicker to adapt to the new realities than parents have been, many guidance counselors said.

“My sense is that parents are a lot more concerned with how the name is going to look to neighbors and family members, and there is a real sense among parents that it’s almost embarrassing if your child has to settle for a lower-level school,” said Carolyn Lawrence, a private college counselor and the author of a blog, AdmissionsAdvice.com.

Some students who might have readily won admission to Lehigh, Middlebury College, Colgate University, Pomona College, Emory University or New York University just a few years ago are now relegated to waiting lists, left to confront the long odds that an offer of admission might materialize over the next month.

John Dunham, a senior at the private Delbarton School in Morristown, N.J., had trained his sights on Bucknell University and Lafayette College. He was rejected by Bucknell and put on the waiting list at Lafayette. His college counselor pushed him toward Kenyon College in Ohio, or as the counselor put it “the Williams of the Midwest.”

But Mr. Dunham, a solid student who played football and baseball in high school, decided to play baseball on an athletic scholarship at Central Connecticut State.

“People are definitely broadening their horizons, because it’s gotten so competitive,” Mr. Dunham said.

The logjam is the result of supply and demand. The number of students graduating from high school has been increasing, and the preoccupation with the top universities, once primarily a Northeastern phenomenon, has become a more national obsession. High-achieving students are also applying to more colleges than they used to, primarily because of uncertainty over where they will be admitted.

Supply, however, has remained constant. Most of the sought-after universities have not expanded their freshman classes. The result, said Jonathan Miller, a senior at Mamaroneck High School in suburban Westchester County, N.Y., is that many classmates perceive institutions like Tufts University, Bowdoin, the University of Rochester and Lehigh in a new light. “I would say that high school students are looking more and more at these schools,” he said, “the way they used to look at the Ivies.”

An A student with good SAT scores, Mr. Miller said that he considered applying to Brown University, among others, but that his guidance counselor discouraged him, emphasizing the tough odds. Mr. Miller decided instead to apply early admission to Tufts, and by December, had been accepted. He said he was delighted.

Some students who have accepted offers from these colleges were rejected by the most prestigious universities. Others, keenly aware of the extreme competition at the top, decided at the outset to focus on colleges more likely to admit them.

“I’m sure part of what we’re seeing is people are saying, ‘Well, if the Ivies and Duke are inaccessible, where do I go to get a similar academic experience?’ ” said Jonathan Burdick, dean of admissions and financial aid at Rochester.

There are other reasons, too, why these colleges and universities find their stock climbing. To position themselves in the fiercely competitive market, they have hired stronger faculty; built new libraries, science complexes, dining halls, fitness centers and dormitories; and created international programs and interdisciplinary majors. Many have also sought to transform themselves from regional institutions to national ones, recruiting across the country.

At Middlebury, applications have increased by 1,000 in each of the last two years; nearly 7,200 students applied this year, compared with 5,200 in 2005. At Kenyon, about 4,600 students applied this year, while 2,000 did six years ago. Colgate received 8,752 applications this year, compared with 5,852 a decade ago.

And at the University of Vermont, a state institution, nearly 19,000 applications poured in this year, compared with 7,400 seven years ago. Many of the most prestigious public universities like Michigan and Virginia have also become much more selective, especially for out-of-state applicants.

The academic profile of students enrolling at these colleges is improving, based on average SAT scores and other data.

“We’re getting a remarkably gifted group of students,” said Gerard P. Lennon, associate dean in the college of engineering and applied sciences at Lehigh, who has taught at the university for 27 years. The median SAT score in the combined verbal and math parts of the test is now 1,320 out of 1,600. (That is not counting the writing section of the test.)

But the spillover at the second level has also created its own spillover; some students who not long ago would have won admission to these colleges no longer are.

The admission rate at Pomona, in Claremont, Calif., was about 15 percent this spring; it was 38 percent 20 years ago. Bowdoin’s rate was 18.5 percent this year and 32 percent eight years ago. At Lehigh, 31 percent were accepted this spring, compared with 47 percent in 2001.

High school guidance counselors have become the reality instructors, encouraging students and parents to think more broadly about colleges.

“Now a kid who is applying to Harvard, Yale, Princeton is also applying to the Lehighs and Lafayettes,” said Brett Levine, director of guidance at Madison High School in New Jersey. “It’s the same tier, basically.”

Admission impossible? - DMN article

Admission impossible?

The declining odds of getting into an elite college are mostly a statistical mirage, says KEVIN CAREY


02:39 PM CDT on Sunday, May 13, 2007

Every spring, the media send a bolt of fear into the heart of the upper-middle class. The message is clear: "Your children are never getting into a good college."

As Ivy League universities report – once again – that admissions rates have fallen to record lows, newspapers rush to publish stories documenting the increasingly frenzied competition among students vying for a coveted slot in an elite school. There's just one problem: It's not true. The declining odds of getting into an elite college are mostly a statistical mirage, caused by confusion between college applicants and college applications.

From a student's perspective, the odds of getting into college are a function of two things: the number of qualified students who apply and the number of slots that colleges make available. It's true that the number of prospective college students is growing. Driven by the baby-boom echo, the number of high school graduates jumped from 2.9 million in 2002 to 3.1 million in 2006, an increase of 8.4 percent.

But the number of spaces in elite colleges is increasing too, at a nearly identical rate. According to U.S. Department of Education statistics, the 60-odd colleges and universities rated "Most Competitive" by Barron's Guide to Colleges sent out 199,821 acceptance letters in 2002. In 2006, the number of "fat envelopes" had increased to 215,738, an 8.0 percent jump. As the nation has grown, its elite colleges have grown along with it.

Why, then, the high anxiety? Because college admissions scare stories aren't based on the overall ratio of admissions to applicants. They're based on the ratio of admissions to applications, as reported by individual colleges. And the number of applications to elite schools is skyrocketing, increasing 18.9 percent from 2002 to 2006.

When the number of applications grows faster than the number of applicants, it creates a false sense that admission standards are getting tighter. Imagine 20 students, each of whom applies to five schools and gets into two. Now imagine if the same students each applied to 10 schools and got into two. The outcome for the students is the same: two acceptance letters. But the schools report lower admission rates, and the odds of admission seem worse.

This phenomenon is particularly pronounced in that hard-to-reach nirvana for striving parents and students: the Ivy League. While the number of acceptance letters mailed by Harvard, Princteon, etc., increased 10.6 percent from 2002 to 2006 – faster than the growth in high school graduates – applications grew 28.6 percent during the same time. Thus, many Ivy League admission rates are at an all-time low.

There's little chance that the number of Ivy League-caliber students jumped by more than one-fourth in four years. Nor is it likely that a large number of super-smart students only recently and suddenly realized that a Harvard diploma is the ticket to the good life. Instead, two things are probably happening. First, there has likely been an increase in the number of unqualified students treating the Harvard application like a Powerball ticket. An Ivy League education can be worth millions of dollars over a lifetime. To take a shot at one, all you need is $65 and a dream.

Second, qualified students seem to be applying to more elite schools than they used to. Many of news articles actually note this. From The New York Times: "The third trend driving the frantic competition is that the average college applicant applies to many more colleges than in past decades. In the 1960s, fewer than 2 percent of college freshmen had applied to six or more colleges, whereas in 2006 more than 2 percent reported having applied to 11 or more, according to 'The American Freshman: National Norms for Fall 2006.' "

One reason that students are filing more applications is the increasing use of the Common Application, a form that can be completed and filed via the Internet. But the growing number of applications per student only makes the admissions environment seem more crowded.

The distinction between the perception and reality of a tightening admissions environment is nowhere to be found in the media. That's not surprising, given how many people stand to benefit from the annual admissions scare story.

For newspapers, it's an irresistible way to grab the attention of their affluent subscribers with college-age children.

For elite colleges, which are first and foremost in the business of selling status and exclusivity, it's invaluable free advertising.

The bottom line: Getting into an elite college is certainly difficult, particularly if you're not a legacy, scholarship athlete, or related to someone who recently donated a lot of money to the endowment. But it's not getting a whole lot more difficult – despite what you read in the newspaper every year.

Kevin Carey is research and policy manager at Education Sector. His e-mail address is kcarey @educationsector.org.

Colleges Seek to Address Affordability - WSJ article

Colleges Seek to Address Affordability As Tuition Continues to Soar,Some Offer More Grants, Ease Aid Formulas, Lock In Fees
By JANE J. KIM and ANJALI ATHAVALEY
May 3, 2007; Page D1

As college tuition continues to outpace inflation year after year, many schools are experimenting with ways to help more students afford the potentially crippling costs.

TAMING TUITION


Colleges are trying to make tuition more affordable. Here's what to expect:
• Some schools are guaranteeing tuition will not rise during a student's tenure.

• More schools are replacing need-based loans with grants.

• Parents may be asked to chip in less under new aid formulas.

Spurred in part by increased competition for the best students, a number of colleges have launched new programs for this fall that include freezing tuition, offering more grants instead of loans, and tinkering with financial-aid formulas to reduce the amount families are expected to contribute. Unlike past aid efforts, which mainly helped financially needy students, the latest moves also stand to benefit more-affluent families.

Many colleges today can afford to be more generous, as their endowment coffers are flush from strong stock-market gains. And they are under pressure to do so as growth in federal financial aid has been dwarfed by rising school costs. College costs, including tuition, fees and living expenses, can top $45,000 a year at some private institutions, and tuition and fees are expected to rise a further 5.5% to 5.8% this year, according to the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. State school costs are lower, averaging close to $13,000 if room and board are included, according to the College Board, but increases from year to year can fluctuate sharply, depending on a state's fiscal health.

The new programs are luring students. Victoria Tran of Colleyville, Texas, was accepted by her top choice, Baylor University, and four other colleges. But she chose the University of Texas at Dallas largely because of its lower tuition and new guaranteed-tuition program, which allows new and returning students to pay the same tuition -- $8,554 for a full year -- for as long as they are enrolled. "The guarantee makes it more attractive," says Victoria's father, Binh Tran, a computer programmer. "We know for the next four years, we are going to pay the same rate."

At Emory University in Atlanta, a new program called Emory Advantage is giving out grants in lieu of offering federal need-based loans to students whose families earn up to $100,000 a year. Brandon Bedford of Ocala, Fla., says he doesn't expect to have to take out any student loans because the school offered to cover the bulk of his $46,000 annual total school costs through grants and work-study programs. Mr. Bedford says he turned down an offer from another prestigious college that would have required him and his parents to take out $27,000 in loans.

"That was definitely too much," says the 18-year-old.

More schools also are starting to give a break to homeowners. A group of 28 elite private colleges, calling themselves the 568 Presidents' Group, after the federal antitrust exception that allows them to set joint-aid rules, began using a more generous financial-aid calculation this year that is expected to reduce the expected contributions for families whose homes have appreciated.

The group, which includes schools such as Duke University, Dartmouth College and the University of Pennsylvania, had previously asked financial-aid officers to count the market value of a house, up to 2.4 times a family's income, as an available asset, regardless of how large a mortgage the family was carrying. Starting this fall, the schools will count only home equity, which is market value minus mortgage debt, and cap that at 1.2 times income. It "allows us to focus on the reality of a family's financial strength," says Jim Belvin, Duke's financial-aid director and chairman of the technical committee for the 568 group.

Stanford University, which isn't a member of the 568 group, also said recently it would begin capping the amount of home equity assessed in the calculation of a parental contribution to 1.5 times the family income. The move is expected to reduce parental contributions for families with significant home equity by $2,000 on average, Stanford says. The university also created new guidelines for middle-income families that would reduce the amounts students are expected to borrow, and replace the balance with grants and scholarships.

"Middle-income families feel particularly impacted by the lack of financial aid or the fact that [they] are not getting as much attention," says Daniel Walls, associate vice provost for enrollment management at Emory.

Some relatively affluent students don't bother to seek aid. Leslie Heffez, an oral surgeon in Deerfield, Ill., figured that because of his income level it was a waste of time to apply for financial aid for his son, Adam, who will begin attending Georgetown University this fall. "I think a lot of middle to well-to-do people don't bother to do it, because they know it's not available to them," says Dr. Heffez, who plans to pay the full cost of Georgetown, an estimated $46,989 a year, including tuition, fees, room and board.

For smart, affluent kids who don't qualify for financial aid, some of the best deals can be found at smaller, middle-market schools, many of which are offering merit-based scholarships that discount tuition 10% to 50% to a majority of their incoming students, says Paul Hamborg, vice president at Human Capital Research Corp. in Evanston, Ill., which advises colleges on enrollment strategies. That's a big shift from a few years ago when schools typically offered scholarships to only a handful of students.

At Knox College, a private school in Galesburg, Ill., that charges $35,478 for tuition, fees and room and board, over half of admitted applicants receive some type of merit-based scholarship, which can range from $2,000 to $15,000 a year. About half the students at Rhodes College of Memphis, Tenn., where the full cost of attendance is $38,120 a year, qualify for merit-based scholarships. Typically, to qualify for merit-based scholarships, students have to have strong test scores, top grade-point averages and other leadership qualities.


Other colleges trying new approaches to attract students include Davidson College of Davidson, N.C., which announced a new policy that will eliminate student loans from financial-aid packages entirely, funding students' financial need through grants and student employment. Such moves can help students graduate with fewer loans, easing their debt burdens. Freed-Hardeman University of Henderson, Tenn., recently announced it would freeze tuition and fees at the current year's levels for new and returning students. Still others, ranging from George Washington University to regional schools like Ohio's Hiram College, have adopted tuition guarantees that enable each incoming class to lock in the tuition they pay as freshmen until they graduate, typically up to four or five years.

While such freezes and guarantees are attention-getting, some financial-aid experts say the programs may not be as beneficial as they look. "Some of it is PR and marketing," says Mark Kantrowitz, founder of FinAid.org3, a financial-aid Web site. When colleges cut tuition, they also often cut their student-aid budgets, so many students end up paying the same amount, he says.

And some colleges raise other costs. Princeton University this fall plans to freeze tuition at this year's level of $33,000, but the school is raising fees for room and board by 19%. Total costs at Princeton this year are expected to rise 4.2% to $43,980.

Still, tuition-guarantee programs can help families plan more effectively for college costs, especially at public schools, where tuition can rise precipitously and unpredictably. "It eliminates any major tuition surprises midway through the college experience," says David Daniel, president of UT-Dallas.

A handful of states, including Washington, Missouri and Texas, have passed or are considering legislation to stem the rate of tuition increases and impose more predictability on college costs. In Ohio, the House passed a budget bill this week that limits tuition increases in 2008 to 3% and freezes tuition in 2009. The budget also plans to increase funding to public universities by 2% in 2008 and 10% the following year.

Write to Jane J. Kim at jane.kim@wsj.com4 and Anjali Athavaley at anjali.athavaley@wsj.com5