It's More Difficult Than Ever to Get Into Selective Colleges--And Why That's a Good Thing

The latest episode of SNL poked fun at Lori Loughlin for bribing her daughter’s way into the University of Southern California. But the sketch also took a jab at USC: “Hold up, you paid 500 grand for USC?!?” Kenan Thompson’s character asks incredulously, placing a skeptical emphasis on “for USC??”

For those of us raised on stereotypes of USC as the “university of spoiled children,” home to little more than frat parties and football games, it’s time to rethink. USC is now an extremely selective college. The acceptance rate at USC in the most recent admissions cycle was 11%. To show how drastically admissions has changed, it was easier to get into Yale (11.3%), Princeton (12.7%), and Stanford (13.0%) fifteen years ago than it is to get into USC today.

USC is far from the only college to see drastic increases in selectivity. Fifteen years ago, Georgia Tech admitted 70% of applicants. This year, it admitted 18.8%.

Where’s the increase in selectivity coming from? Some argue that the proliferation of the common app has made it easy for students to apply to a large number of colleges. This is no doubt a factor. However, the common app has been around since 1975. When I applied to colleges fifteen years ago, most colleges I looked at accepted the common app. The common app is nothing new.

Personally, I think it’s because students, collectively, have gotten more impressive. More students are taking honors and AP classes—and succeeding in them—than ever before. Test scores are higher. Perhaps most importantly, many of today’s students have discovered a passion (or two or three) and truly sunk their teeth into it, committing themselves to several related extracurriculars, like a musician who performs in 4 different performance groups and composes her own songs, or a self-proclaimed ‘science nerd’ who has shadowed doctors, done research at labs, and placed nationally in Science Olympiad. 

The days of students getting into extremely selective colleges based purely off excellent grades and test scores are gone (excluding legacies, of course), and I think we’re all better for it. Students who a generation ago might have coasted into UPenn purely on exemplary academics are now going to colleges like Emory and Boston University. Students who a generation ago went to Emory and BU are now going to Penn State and Pitt. And students who a generation ago went to Penn State are now going to Temple and West Chester. This can be disheartening for students struggling through the admissions process. In the long run, though, it’s a great development for society as a whole. Since the quality of a school is largely determined by the quality of its students, twenty years from now, the students who go to Penn State will probably be on the same caliber as students who went to Penn twenty years ago.

There’s been a lot of hand-wringing about the entitled attitude of today’s youth and concerns about a generation raised tethered to their phones, but in working with high schoolers every day, I see nothing but a more impressive crop of students year after year. And while we need to expand our view of what a ‘good’ or ‘great’ or ‘elite’ college is, that progress only bodes well for the college students of today who will be our leaders of tomorrow.

*All historical admissions data from https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/data/