Private colleges set bar higher
Sacramento Bee 4/16/07
As a result, applicants who once would have slipped into schools ranging in size from Westmont College in Santa Barbara, which has a student body of about 1,400, to the University of Southern California, which has around 33,000 students, are getting turned away.
Referring to applicants with similar grades, Tom Rajala, associate provost for enrollment at University of the Pacific, said, "Families are coming back and saying, 'Her brother got in five years ago, and she didn't. You've got to tell them, 'It's a very different profile now.' "
At California's private, four-year colleges that require the SAT test and have more than 1,000 students, almost 60 percent of fall 2006 applications were denied. That's up from 55 percent in fall 2001, The Bee's analysis of data from the National Center for Education Statistics found.
Some of the trend is due to a rise in applications from students who never had much of a chance of admittance in the first place.
But a lot of it is due to higher standards that reflect more competitive applicants.
The Bee determined what combined math and verbal SAT score was needed to be among the top 25 percent of each college's newly enrolled students. (A new writing section was added to the SAT in 2005. In order to compare scores for 2001 and 2006, The Bee did not include data for that section.)
At 17 of the 33 private colleges in the newspaper's analysis, the SAT score needed to be in the top 25 percent rose by at least 20 points from 2001 to 2006. Only three of the colleges saw SAT scores drop at least 20 points.
The trend also showed up in California's public colleges, but was not as pronounced.
High school guidance counselors and college admissions officers see a few factors at work.
When a school gets more applicants, it can be choosier, admitting only the best and expecting more of them to show up. It's like an auction -- the more bids, the higher the price.
"There are a very large number of applicants for a very limited number of openings," said Ralph Robles, head counselor at the Elk Grove Unified School District.
At the same time, as a group, today's applicants look better than their peers did five years ago, Robles said. Parents and students are aware that acceptance rates are down, so youths are studying harder and taking more honors classes.
"ACTs, SATs, GPAs are higher," Robles said. "More students are qualified to apply."
All the while, the general availability of financial aid has emboldened some smart students from poorer backgrounds to go for the expensive, private college. The flood of qualified applicants leaves some students wondering why they got into one school and not another.
Helen Pollock, a senior at Rio Americano, got a $10,000 scholarship to attend Claremont McKenna College but didn't get accepted at Pomona College. The liberal arts schools are next to each other in the Los Angeles area and, in 2001, admitted the same percentage of applicants.
Pomona used to accept 29 percent of applicants. Now it accepts 18 percent, while Claremont accepts 23 percent.
"I was very surprised," said Pollock, who has a roughly 4.4 GPA. "I got a scholarship from CMC, so I thought I would get into Pomona."
Another factor in colleges' pickiness: Students and parents are not as willing to settle for any school. In other words, it's not just about going; it's about where you go, counselors said.
A student with a 1200 combined SAT math and verbal score five years ago might have settled for the state school near home but now wants to land in the best college possible, which raises the bar for everyone else.
"It used to be, 'Just get a college degree,' " said Jerry Lucido, vice provost for enrollment at the University of Southern California. "But the public is starting to view where you go as clearly tied to what will happen to them or their children later in life."
Lucido welcomes the lofty standards. Since 2001, USC has seen the combined math and verbal scores of students jump sharply -- to make it into the top 25 percent, a student had to score 1460 in 2006, up from 1400 in 2001.
Having smarter youths from a range of backgrounds elevates the academic discussion, Lucido said. "It makes the educational climate better," he said.
Another reason colleges like to be more selective is the prestige that exclusivity brings to the university. Popular college rankings such as U.S. News & World Report often weigh selectivity and SAT scores heavily when making evaluations.
And students like feeling that they are among the chosen ones.
At University of the Pacific, for example, the score of the student who did better than three-fourths of new enrollees rose from 1230 in 2001 to 1290 in 2006. Pacific actually accepted 1,000 more students in 2006 than it did in 2001, but applications were so plentiful that its acceptance rate dropped from 78 percent to 69 percent.
"The harder a place is to get into, the more people will want to get in," said Rajala, the Pacific admissions official. "We've experienced that."
Admissions officers and counselors are aware that more applicants wind up disappointed. That's why it's no longer uncommon for students to increase their odds by placing more bets, said Mary Hesser, director of guidance at Sacramento's Christian Brothers High School.
"Students are applying to more schools, making colleges more selective, which means kids apply to more schools," Hesser said. "It's a vicious cycle."
There is hope: Several less-prestigious California private colleges still accept 70 percent to 80 percent of their applicants.
"I think the universities are still very accessible," said Jonathan Brown, president of the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities.
That said, even many of the less-restrictive California private colleges -- places such as California Lutheran University and University of Redlands -- also are rejecting more students and raising their average SAT scores.
And the harder the schools are to get into, the more random the process can seem.
Margaret Chi, a Rio Americano student, also got rejected by Pomona. She has a 4.35 GPA, and got accepted into UC Berkeley.
"I used to live in the neighborhood," she said, expressing disappointment that she didn't get into Pomona. "I've always liked smaller schools."
Schools such as the California Institute of Technology and Stanford University have been quite selective for a while.
Last year, the combined SAT math and verbal scores of the student who did better than three-fourths of new enrollees at Stanford was 1540 out of 1600, roughly that of five years ago.
"It's just one of those impossible schools," said Javi Plasencia, who is graduating from Christian Brothers and going to Columbia University after getting rejected by Stanford. "It's ridiculous."