High school seniors nationwide are anxiously awaiting the verdicts from
the colleges of their choice later this month. But though it may not be of
much solace to them, in just a few years the admissions frenzy is likely
to ease. It’s simply a matter of demographics.
Concerned that the barriers to elite institutions are being increasingly drawn along class lines, and wanting to maintain some role as engines of social mobility, about two dozen schools — Amherst, Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, the University of Virginia, Williams and the University of North Carolina, among them — have pushed in the past few years to diversify economically.
ON a Sunday morning a few months back, I interviewed my final Harvard
applicant of the year. After saying goodbye to the girl and watching her
and her mother drive off, I headed to the beach at the end of our street for
a run.
A report released Monday says that "despite all the hype, only 16.4% of incoming students in 2006 reported that rankings were very important in their decision to attend their particular college." That's up steadily from 10.5% in 1995, the first year the question was posed.
Welcome to admitted-student season, when many of the same high school seniors who worried that they might not get in anywhere are being courted like celebrities by colleges that accepted them. The tables turn in April, when admissions officers are well aware that the students they want probably got into other similar colleges, too.
This is the time of year when colleges send their decisions and many high
school counselors console, cheer up and otherwise try to help this year’s
seniors.
The U.S. Education Department’s National Center for Education Statistics
says the number of graduating high school seniors will peak at 3.3
million in 2011 and decline only slightly to 3.2 million by 2016. Most
educators predict that the percentage of those students going to college
—about 67%--will increase and make the college application process
even more stressful.
In past eras, good high schools provided the educational foundation for
an intellectual awakening in college. But for the mostly affluent students
in private and competitive public schools — from T.J. (as Thomas
Jefferson is known) to urban intellectual cocoons like Bronx Science and
Stuyvesant — high school has become the defining academic
experience.
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High school seniors nationwide are anxiously awaiting the verdicts from the colleges of their choice later this month. But though it may not be of much solace to them, in just a few years the admissions frenzy is likely to ease. It’s simply a matter of demographics.
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