Ivy League record low admission

March 31 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. colleges that have been hard to get into are getting even harder.

Duke University offered admission this year to 3,972, or 15 percent of aspirants, down from 18 percent last year, after applications soared, according to Duke officials. Stanford University admitted 2,300 -- or 7.2 percent, the least ever -- said Shawn Abbott, admission director. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology saw its admittance drop below 10 percent for the first time, said Stuart Schmill, admissions dean.

Applications are surging because colleges are marketing themselves more vigorously, and the tougher they are to get into, the more students seek entry to multiple schools and increase competition for slots, said Jon Reider, director of college counseling at San Francisco University High School. The typical senior applies to a dozen colleges, 50 percent more than 10 years ago, Reider said.

“This is without any question the hardest year ever,” Reider, who is also a former admissions officer for Stanford, near Palo Alto, California, said in an interview. “This is unprecedented. No question.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=adAQlbZSm57k&pos=11

 

just to be the first a hole, neither of those are ivy league schools...

 

Harvard: Accepted: 2,095 (7.7%)
Yale: Accepted: 1,911 (9.9%)

Preferred rank: #1 & #2 respectively.

http://college.mychances.net/college-1737-Yale-University.html

 

I'm assuming that the internet has made applying for college easier. Not sure that those percentages can be meaningfully compared to past years.

 

1) It's a statistical quirk. "Typical" students are wasting their time applying to schools they will never be accepted to. This creates the appearance of greater demand to get into the "best" schools. The "best" students are competing against other "best" students to gain admission, not against "typical" students.
2) To apply to 12 different schools?.....WTF?......make up yerr fricking mind.
3) If the "best" schools are only accepting, on average, 1 out of 14 applicants, then they really ought to give consideration to greatly expanding their campuses if demand is so great without diluting the student body too much.