Scott Alexander looks at increasingly competitive college admissions and ends with this summary:
- There is strong evidence for more competition for places at top colleges now than 10, 50, or 100 years ago. There is medium evidence that this is also true for upper-to-medium-tier colleges. It is still easy to get into medium-to-lower-tier colleges.
- Until 1900, there was no competition for top colleges, medical schools, or law schools. A secular trend towards increasing admissions (increasing wealth + demand for skills?) plus two shocks from the GI Bill and the Vietnam draft led to a glut of applicants that overwhelmed schools and forced them to begin selecting applicants.
- Changes up until ten years ago were because of a growing applicant pool, after which the applicant pool (both domestic and international) stopped growing and started shrinking. Increased competition since ten years ago does not involve applicant pool size.
- Changes after ten years ago are less clear, but the most important factor is probably the ease of applying to more colleges. This causes an increase in applications-per-admission which is mostly illusory. However, part of it may be real if it means students are stratifying themselves by ability more effectively. There might also be increased competition just because students got themselves stuck in a high-competition equilibrium (ie an arms race), but in the absence of data this is just speculation.
- Medical schools are getting harder to get into, but law schools are getting easier to get into. There is no good data for graduate schools.
- All the hand-wringing about getting into good colleges is probably a waste of time, unless you are from a disadvantaged background. For most people, admission to a more selective college does not translate into a more lucrative career or a higher chance of admission to postgraduate education. There may be isolated exceptions at the very top, like for Supreme Court justices.
If you want a major national career, a Senator or federal Judgeship, the Ivies are mandatory. But, if you want a good life practicing engineering, law, medicine, accounting, business management, any of the large state universities is an excellent choice. Nearly all of them are at least somewhat selective, and some are very selective. But none is as bad or as dishonest in their admissions practices as the Ivies. The state schools also cost only one-third to one-half a private school, and they have excellent faculties and resources. There is no need to apply to an Ivy or to any private liberal arts college.
Those schools with huge endowments can be cheaper though for families with less money. But, they may not provide very good training to earn money, which is something a Senator for example, never needs to do
The change ten years ago was when Obama nationalized student loans. Now you get a loan by checking a box that says “I intend to be a full time student.” A quarter of student loan recipients have no idea that they have loans. The money goes straight to the college.
Read through Scott Alexander’s stuff, he hits the nail on a lot of it.
From personal experience, the “elite” colleges essentially buy you a few things:
-a GPA cushion for med school applications, which theoretically makes sense if you are curved against a higher ratio of “high achievers”
-Recruiters from Goldman Sachs, McKinsey, et al showing up to do case interview. Even “JV” firms like Capital One will hire differently based on schools
-He hits it right in that, for high achievers of the upper to upper middle class [my type], overall there is no difference except for the 200 thousand dollars. Really, I’m over 10 years out at this point, and the best part about going to one of those schools is telling people I went to one of those schools
-Most of the college admissions freakout is that schools that are traditionally “safety” are suddenly dipping in acceptance rates. USC is a very prominent example of one. For those stupid enough to care, we really do parse out tiers for the US News top schools in casual conversation. Our parents for that matter do too when they start comparing kids. Striver hell is a thing
Robert B. Laughlin, a Stanford University physics professor and Nobel Prize winner (1998), observed in an interview once that there was no difference between physics was taught at Stanford and physics taught elsewhere. The premium Stanford offered was the opportunity to network with other elites (real or aspiring). Basically an contemporary American aping of a bride show.