De-Hyping College Admissions

Contrary to popular belief, most students only apply to a few schools (3.71) and get accepted at most of the schools they apply to (2.99), especially their first choice (88%). According to the author, the stories about increasing competition as students apply to more and more schools and get into fewer and fewer are mostly an “urban legend” that apply only to a very narrow range of institutions at the very top of the educational ladder (and more so with Asian Americans).

What the author does not demonstrate, however, is whether these still relatively low levels of college comparison shopping are up or down from previous decades. If could be that these low levels are still dramatically higher than they were even a decade or two ago. I applied only to one college, for example, so by that comparison, applying to 3.71 would be a huge increase over 20 years. Just a thought.

http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/01/13/admissions