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Through our very own editors and guest writers, this blog will discuss the INSIDE scoop on the admissions process of various schools and programs. If you wish to ask a specific question, please write to us, and we will make every attempt to address your questions in our future blog discussions.
Wednesday, April 11, 2018
Why College Seems So Out of Reach
If you're in the waning years of your high school career, I've got one piece of useful advice for you: stop looking at admissions statistics. Any scientist will remind you that correlation does not imply causation. So while colleges are in fact admitting fewer students, it isn't just because the competition is stiffer.

Here are four things to consider:

1) The Common Application: Feel free to blame most of your college admissions woes on this effective electronic platform. Gone are the days of filling out separate applications by hand. Now you can apply to an unlimited number of schools with the click of the button. What have you got to lose?

2) More High School Graduates: There isn't much you can do about a growing population. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, the number of students expecting to attend university has quadrupled since the year 2000.

3) Students Take Longer to Graduate: Did you know that students are now taking an average of five years to complete an undergraduate degree? Educational costs often drive students to work in order to fund their degrees. Ironically, this means they're taking fewer units over a longer period of time. The slower turnover means fewer empty chairs at the start of a new admissions cycle.

4) Competition is Fierce in Elite Colleges: Ivy League and other elite schools are now boasting of single digit acceptance rates. The best solution for this hurdle? Stop paying attention to them. The US has close to 8,000 colleges and universities. We are a nation of 325 million people. You do the math. Check the ivies off your list and move on.

Any living society learns to bend to the will of change. College admissions may look very different than it did twenty years ago, but so do a lot of things. This does not mean that we aren't progressing as a social collective.

The best way to tackle change is to embrace it. Now's as good a time as any.

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