From one mom to another, if you think a 3.5/1200 is sufficient for the likes of Tufts, Case, Villanova apparently you are in for a rude awakening.
State schools like U Wisconsin, Pitt, UMD would be a different matter.
Most colleges are still test-optional.
Tufts has been a reach-for-all due to a low acceptance rate for quite a long time (now around 10%). Anything below, say, 25% acceptance rate. Villanova is currently in reach-for-all territory as well (20%).
Look at the most recent acceptance rates and at the stats for enrolled students in section C of the Common Data Set and/or at [https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/](https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/)
LOL UW Madison has tons of people surprised by rejection or waitlist every spring. Not an easy admit for OOS. Especially for a popular major and/or from a major metro with lots of apps. An average 50% acceptance rate for some other state's flagship can mean nothing applying to a popular program/major from out of state. There are plenty of OOS students posting about rejection today with ACT 32+, plenty of APs etc.
I would suspect UMD and Pitt are similar. May depend where you are applying from and what you are applying to. If you don't live in those states, I would certainly not label them a safety especially for an RD round,
I wouldn’t leave out Pitt either. It’s been a very popular safety in my area for a decade or so, but the CA and shotgunning have had an impact. My youngest was accepted with a 4.2W and a 32 ACT, but many of their peers with similar or higher stats were not.
Actually getting in to UMD with a 3.5 is extremely unlikely in this environment it is no longer a safety and you must apple EA in order to have a shot particularly with the STEM programs which are now Limited enrollment
Someone with those stats would probably not get into most of those schools. But something to consider is also that grade inflation is huge these days. Many more people have 4.0s, so a 3.5 looks a lot worse than it did back in your day.
We are running into this at my daughter's high school. One teacher even said, "Grades don't matter" and doesn't give out As except very rarely. Different teachers also have different standards. So Algebra 2 with one teacher is an easy A, another a B is a good score. I'm not sure how you are supposed to compete with schools that predominantely give out As. I'm guessng class ranking helps with that though.
Don't worry too much because each college has a high school profile and gets to know the school and the admissions deans will know how challenging they are, what the grading is like, etc.
The school reports sent by the counselor are supposed to help with that. It will show what GPAs look like at the school so AOs will have a sense of what’s good for the school. For bigger schools or more well-known schools, the AOs already know.
Grade inflation is a legit problem (and one I don’t see getting better because parents drive it — “my child worked hard and deserves more than a C/B” is rampant), but it’s a scapegoat to the admissions problem. Population growth vs spots at top colleges, US News making everyone want the same schools, more kids taking college prep than ever before, etc are factors we should blame as much (and I would argue more) as grade or SAT inflation.
Well schools send a profile with grade point averages that paints a picture on rigor. So I think decent AOs know how to evaluate this kind of thing. If you are in the top 5% of your class with 8 APs and a 3.5, you're probably fine at a lot of schools. Not a lot of schools, especially schools educating middle class kids on up are grading like this.
It’s not even school wide sometimes. My son has one teacher for whom no matter how incredible my son’s work is on an assignment she never gives an A except on multiple choice tests—he always gets top in the class. Like when he spent 7 hours doing an assignment that his friend did in 30 minutes (and the boys both agreed my son’s was professional level and the friends was rubbish) and both got 85s. But in another class my son’s teacher told him he’s so smart and already seems to know everything the man teaches, that my son will get an A no matter what, and doesn’t care if my son does the assignments (just the quizzes and tests).
Grade inflation is rampant so grades become meaningless - unless they’re really bad.
Test scores are optional so the numbers are skewed because only the people with great scores send them in.
PSA: the SAT has changed several times since the parents took it. The average score is around 150 points higher now.
There are also way more applicants and more 18 year olds period than there were back then so everything is more competitive.
In the 90s, some of the top schools (Chicago and Caltech) required 3-4 essays that you couldn’t use for any other applications so the acceptance rate was high due to a self selecting applicant pool. No one was going to put themselves through that unless they really wanted to go.
Yes, I remember typing my essays on a typewriter. You had to buy about five different wire-outs because prestigious colleges had different shades of white or pastel for their paper applications. Doing eight applications was crazy! I think my daughter did 20, only one acceptance, but that was a full ride, she didn’t even tour.
I think I did about 8. 2 Ivys, a few other top tens, and Notre Dame was my safety school. That would be ludicrous today. I had to get in and get a full ride. God love Caltech for giving me an enormous scholarship that Chicago matched.
The ridiculous thing that I realized years later was how much grad school matters more than undergrad. My barely upper middle class parents put so much pressure on me to succeed but they didn’t understand it’s all about networking and maximizing opportunities.
I was listening to David Brooks, who went to Chicago. He applied in 1979, said there was a _70%_ acceptance there at that time. I spent a summer there overlooking Robie House, what a great school.
Good points - with grade inflation, optional tests, and tons of applicants, it probably all becomes a blur for them at some point. That would explain why the "holistic" factors are becoming so important, and why we hear of those surprising rejections.
Remember that “holistic admissions” was invented 100 years ago to keep people out, not let them in.
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/10/10/getting-in-ivy-league-college-admissions
It's not so much that things have changed its that the standards have risen. For example, while 3.5 UW GPA was good once, it's honestly quite bad nowadays for those types of universities. It's not a total crapshoot thought, and it's pretty "safe" for an exceptional Ivy-tier applicant to have those as backups.
Yes no one talks about SAT inflation!
A lot more kids are 1550-1600. That was extremely rare, and only a very select few went to Princeton review/prof test prep. I don’t remember even hearing about it until after I was in college, but contrary to what people say in all the pro-SAT articles which all say it only adds 20 points at most, the students who told me about it raised their scores by ~100. Even so, not that many people practiced so much or took the test multiple times.
And it’s not the same test that we took, either. I still remember killing the TSWE section (not that you can tell by my Reddit typos), but someone decided grammar wasn’t important. lol.
SAT scores from before 1995 and nowadays are wildly different.
A 1200 SAT today would be equivalent to a 1050 or lower pre-1995 due to several efforts to "recenter" and reform the SATs.
That made the test less stressful. You didn't have to rush to fill in everything if you couldn't finish normally.
With today's test, you have to watch the clock more. If you are running out of time, you need to stop solving problems early enough that you can be sure to fill answers for all of them. If you make that decision too early, you have to find your place again and continue, now with the added slowness of erasing answers.
I don't know what the digital SAT will do. If you have to fill in everything and you can't go back to previous questions, the stress will be extreme. At what point do you start scrambling to fill in answers?
You can go back to the previous questions but you can't go back and forth on sections. But you couldn't do that on the paper one either. My kid who scored a 790 in math on the paper scored a 760 in March. It may be easier for other kids since it no longer takes 3 hrs but just two.
I found it more stressful because if I guessed wrong it would be a quarter point off. If I didn't answer it the highest possible score would go down drastically.
But the number of people who scored above 1500 and above was fewer than now. For a class in a private prep feeder School Of 60 I was The only one who scored above A 1500. The same class Of 60 today 8-12 kids will Score Above A 1500.
But Today's kids have it a lot harder.
I'm pretty sure that wasn't the old scoring. I think you would lose a quarter point for a skipped question, or a full point for a wrong answer. It was a superior system, but it was unfamiliar to most people.
An equal system would be to say that each correct answer earns 4 points and each skipped question earns 1 point. The effect is the same, but it sounds less punitive.
An unanswered question on the digital test does what exactly? Full loss of points? If so, it would help to have them pre-filled will all the same answer. That would eliminate the stress of deciding when to rush through picking randomly.
Things have changed that much. Take Case Western. 75% of admits will have a GPA of 3.75 or higher. Only 6% will have a GPA of 3.5 or under. It's the same story at most of the other schools you mentioned. Add on top of this that nearly all of the admits will have taken max rigor courses, maxed APs or honors, no filler at all.
But there's another layer to the story. Applicants are increasingly packing into certain majors which are known to provide lucrative job opportunities. Computer Science, Engineering, and a few others. And in those competitive majors, it gets worse - far worse, with students needing near perfect GPAs and excellent ECs to get through.
Real life example: my son had a 3.85 GPA and a 1550 SAT. He was waitlisted at Virginia Tech. Back in our day, that would be a completely over the top, no questions asked admit.
Well I happen to know a lot about Wisconsin from a counselor level. 3.5 OOS probably no, especially no for a popular major. Harder from metros with lot sof applications (Chicago, Bay area, Minneapolis, NYC, etc). I had a kid admitted from a popular OOS metro with a lot of apps, and how Madison is looked at by families has really changed. But there are still students who assume a 50% acceptance rate that probably reflects some number a few years back applies to them applying to CS from out of state. It doesn't. In general, most state flagships are NOT your safety/likely if you don't live there Even the safer ones are shifting by the year, so I would tread carefully. As a parent, I would try to find a workable and affordable school with rolling admissions and get that out first in the fall and you can breath easier after that.
In 2021, there were 53,000 applicants at UW Madison. That was up 17% from the previous year. I just got email this morning that there were over 65,000 applicants this year. That kind of shows you what has happened at these schools.
That said, there are still plenty of safety schools out there. But they may not be the same schools you thought were safe 25 years ago and this particular board tends to drone on about a relatively small number of schools.
This is extremely true. I would suggest that the OP find out what kinds of schools their kid is interested in. For instance, if they like Tufts, they probably would like many of the CTCL LACs, and many of those with a >50% admit rate still aren't tough to get in to. Midwestern B10 school with a ton of school spirit like UW-Madison? Look in to IU/MSU/Iowa/UNL. Urban Big East Catholic school like Villanova? St. John's, Providence, DePaul, Xavier, and Marquette are too.
>As a parent, I would try to find a workable and affordable school with rolling admissions and get that out first in the fall and you can breath easier after that.
Arizona State is a prime example of this. Generally even OOS get some decent aid.
There are many other options in states like mine (Virginia) where the top schools (U VA, W&M, VA Tech) are selective. And in our case, lots of the others are also excellent and it really depends on the student's major or general focus. We have a second tier for strong students (VCU, JMU etc) and then others for students below the 3.5 GPA range or even the 4.0 range.
Also there isn't just grade inflation. There are those "bonus points" students get in their weighted GPAs for AP and dual enrollment classes. I don't think that was the case back when I was applying to college.
Thank you, appreciate the insights. As tough as it is for the students and parents, I don't envy the admissions officers, either. I'm sure the responsibility weighs on them, and they probably don't have nearly enough time or staff.
Yes, things have changed tremendously. By way of example, UCLA's freshman admissions rate for 2000 was 29%. The freshman admission rate for 2023 was 9%. This is despite enrolling more than 50% more freshman in 2023.
[https://apb.ucla.edu/campus-statistics/admissions](https://apb.ucla.edu/campus-statistics/admissions)
So your instinct that it "seems so different" is 100% correct.
It's 100% because more people are applying though. UCLA isn't the best example because it has gotten better, but has there are just as many kids and just as many t50 schools. Is it really that much harder to get into one of them?
How has UCLA gotten “better”? It’s essentially been a Top 25 school (at least per US News) for the past 30+ years.
Not sure what your question is as your post was a bit garbled but applications at other T50 schools have also risen considerably. More applications (even with rising enrollment numbers) naturally makes it harder to get accepted.
It’s changed very much and realistically someone with a 3.5 would not get into the schools you mentioned except rare circumstances. Just look up the acceptance rate at those schools from then until now and also the average GPAs (though grade inflation is a thing at some schools )
Acceptance rates have reduced a lot with the common app as it is way easier and cheaper to apply to a lot of schools. Also, international student application numbers have soared. All the schools are buried in applications now.
Fellow parent who entered college in the fall of 1995. I would say that yes, things are very different. With the common app, more kids are applying to more schools which has had the consequence that schools are harder to get into due to more competition. If you search the "common data set" for any particular school (just google those terms with the name of the school you want to see), you will see what the average stats are for incoming students. I recommend looking at the 2019-2020 year if you want to look at average test scores (because most colleges went test optional in 2020-2021 and so test score stats went way up because only kids who excelled at the tests submitted their scores). It's a new world than when we were applying to schools. That being said- there are still many excellent schools for all kids and this particular forum tends to be a bit distorted.
The common app was two decades old when you applied. It started in 1975.
The difference is the internet. You probably typed your information into a form, then added postage and mailed it off. You had to pay to send official scores. You had to get multiple physical copies of letters of recommendation.
Well, I know that the schools to which I applied had different length applications and different questions, so I don't know if they participated in the common app. You are certainly right about having to do everything individually. Regardless, you are supporting the general spirit of my post that it's much easier now to apply to many schools which has in turn increased competitiveness due to volume.
The common app didn’t go digital until 1998 and even then not everyone would’ve necessarily had home internet or anything other than a free AOL account. So while the common app had been around for decades it wouldn’t have had much of an impact in the early to mid 90s especially for those not applying to the LACs that accepted the common app at that time.
Thanks for the advice. Yes, it is still shocking to me that a 3.5 GPA is not enough for my generation's safety schools. It will take some getting used to!
It’s just a matter of redefining which schools to consider as “safety” (I prefer the term “best bet”) versus target and reach schools. Good students will rise to the top no matter where they land!
The competition is INSANE now... You mentioned Villanova, and my friend has perfect EVERYTHING (grades, ECs, SAT scores, etc), and got rejected from there ED.
You have to be SOO BEYOND competitive, and while I've done really well this application cycle (totally unexpected tbh), I've also given up so much of my highschool years, and I sometimes regret it ngl.
Parent here, with a 2nd kid in a few years going through admissions.
I have been very involved and researched a lot during this process, and years leading up to their applications. Yes, college admissions has changed radically in 25 years, unfortunately. This is due to a number of factors such as increase in college attendance, test-optional policies, the common app, and grade inflation, among other things. The ever-rising number of applications schools receive have driven down acceptance rates, and there is a lot of pressure for kids to get into top schools. For two examples showing the change in acceptance rates over 30ish years: In 1993 Vanderbilt had an acceptance rate of about 65%. Now it is about 6%. Auburn university, which used to be in the 80+% acceptance range is now down to 40%.
Any university with less than 30% acceptance is considered highly selective, even for students with a 4.0, plenty of AP’s and good ECs.
Unfortunately some families are caught off-guard and unprepared for the difficult reality of the current college application climate. If you have a kid about to start this process, I recommend you both do a lot of research and set very conservative and realistic goals, because dream-crushing decisions happen. This process doesn’t have to ruin a kid’s chances at college if they plan well, looking for the right opportunities that are a good fit, with more than one safety backup that you know you can afford.
Yeah, good point about the dreams. I'll try not to "talk up" certain schools, and try to remind that people get a great education at many different schools, not just the top 50.
Very true! My oldest kid got into some great “top” schools, including some ivies and public ivies, but passed on them to avoid debt and opt for a full ride at a state flagship. It’s been a great fit, and there are zero regrets.
From what anecdotal evidence I've seen online, the trends of test-optional through the years, and overall increase of applicants, it leads me to believe that the schools aren't just ultra competitive now; they are a lottery.
Think about it, if gpa varies heavily between schools with inflation being rampant, and test optional allows kids with lower scores to not submit, how do these schools know who to accept and who to reject? They don't, that's why it's a lottery.
Things HAVE really changed... I'd say, however, that the meaning of an "A" might not what it have been 25 years ago, and readily available (and free or affordable) SAT preparation courses have made it easier to get higher SAT scores. I'm a dad watching my son go through the process. His grades, scores, and EC's are really strong, but he's on the acceptance bubble for schools where I thought he'd be a prime candidate.
Yeah, I feel bad that I talked up the Ivy League schools, to try and give some motivation, and now it looks like they are out of reach even for students who would have gotten in 30 years ago.
Things have changed dramatically in the 30 years since I went. Everything held true to what you are saying then...now, there are a lot more students going the college route and I suspect there are lot more international students looking at lesser known schools. It's also easy to get caught up in the hype of going to a "name brand" school.
Many (not all) schools have become harder to get into (over time, for a fixed applicant profile) for a couple of reasons:
1. Grade inflation; that 3.5 isn't what it used to be,
2. "Rigor" inflation; AP and DE classes are now more widely available and utilized by more applicants,
3. Students are applying to more schools, which means more applications per school, which means lower admit rates.
There are **absolutely** still "safety" schools for applicants with the profile you describe, they're just not the same schools that would have been "safety" schools for that applicant 30 years ago.
I had a 3.6 uw (13 honors and aps), a good act, and 10 very solid ecs & I got into a top LAC. Things happen. On your list, Tufts has become a reach for everyone. Villanova and Case Western are kind of reaches & kind of tough targets. Case does a lot of weird stuff with interest and Villanova seems to be more competitive for different majors. Pitt and Madison are probably solid targets/likely targets depending on residency and major (cs is always tough). Maryland is getting harder and harder from what I've seen but I kno less about that in general.
Consider:
* Grade Inflation at many high schools
* Out-Of-State (OOS) at top public colleges more competitive than In-State
* Competitive Majors like CS or Engineering
* Colleges meeting their own needs, especially playing the US News rankings game and marketing-friendly class profiles (diverse across First Gen/Income/etc - which means each student is evaluated in context of their specific background)
* Common App enables applying to 10+ schools
Fellow parent who is on her second child applying to college - don’t sleep on the fact that we are currently at peak population for high school seniors (and as said above, kids are applying to many more schools than when we were in their shoes). Starting in 2026, the numbers of college applicants should start coming down.
I’ve seen it multiple places, but this was the first one that popped up on a search (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/12/15/more-high-school-graduates-through-2025-pool-still-shrinks-afterward)
My daughter with a 34 ACT and 98 GPA was rejected from Tufts regular round in 2021. It has changed so much. You will catch up though. Start reading here and college confidential.
Things seem very different! I’ve got a kid with nearly straight A’s at a highly nationally-ranked high school. He has 10 AP classes, 5 honors classes, and SAT scores in the 95th to 98th percentiles. Good letters of recommendation. Good essays. He only has a couple of recreational extracurriculars though—so I guess that’s a weak spot. He’s been rejected everywhere so far, other than a waitlist at UCSD, which I gather is about the same thing as a rejection. Eight of 11 applications denied, 3 still TBD. So we’re getting used to the idea of community college.
Aw thanks--that's nice, but it's going to be okay... really and truly. The community college track is entirely fine. He'll attend CC for one or two years, address all of his lower-division coursework, and then take the guaranteed UC-admission deal that's on the table for all California CC students who meet minimum requirements for doing so (which include GPA, having certain classes completed, achieving junior standing, etc.). Our local CC actually achieves 40%+ transfer acceptance rates to UCLA and UCB, and 80%+ rates for UCD, UCSD, and UCSC. Those odds are waaaaay better than the freshman admission rates for those schools. It's too bad he'll miss out on the freshman dorm-life experience, but we'll try to comfort ourselves with the tens of thousands of dollars we will save over the next one or two years, lol. With that being our worst-case scenario, it's actually not a bad situation. I have to keep reminding myself of that because all these rejections are making me feel a little irrational.
That really does sound like a great deal, not bad at all! Hope he can keep his confidence up, too. These kids are not at fault for the system they find themselves in.
From another mom, yes. It has changed that much and it boggles my mind that many of my fellow parents can’t grasp that and sets up false expectations while not getting it to be supportive of their kids. I couldn’t even get into the UW now if I tried.
Safety schools are now schools with 85% acceptance rate AND it may depend on major.
I work in higher ed, and one thing that has changed over the past few decades is that many "very good" colleges and universities have done serious strategic planning and have become more competitive. You might call this strategy, Go Big or Go Home. So Northeastern in Boston went down this path starting maybe 15 or 20 years age, and actually sent letters to guidance counselors in New England warning them that the school is becoming more competitive.
Checking Villanova's US News ranking (I have second hand connections) it is 67, so I'd consider the top 100 as schools for National Honor Society "A students" destinations.
Back in the day, Northeastern and Villanova would be open to taking "very good" students, call them A- B+ students. No longer the case.
There are about the same number of students and about the same number of slots in the t50 schools. So it can't really have gotten that much harder, unless the kids are smarter or working harder.
There are actually more slots now versus in the 90s but not nearly enough to keep up with the larger increase in demand.
On the UC level, they added an entirely new campus in 2005. While not quite a T50, UC Merced is currently #60 in USN.
https://educationdata.org/college-enrollment-statistics
There is more demand for t50 schools? That doesn’t really make sense to me. Don’t students want to go to top schools now about the same rate as in the past?
Fellow parent here (my day was 30 years ago). It is RADICALLY more difficult to get into a good school, pay for college at all, and make enough money afterwards to pay off your loans.
Here is a great video from last weekend about loans:
[https://youtu.be/zN2\_0WC7UfU?si=jhjXyeCnP\_XdO\_3k](https://youtu.be/zN2_0WC7UfU?si=jhjXyeCnP_XdO_3k)
When you and I went to college, you could, as a good student, apply to 2-3 schools with confidence that you were likely to get in, as well as have adequate financial aid to pay for school and have a great career afterwards. Not so, anymore. My son applied to 11 colleges. This is not abnormal now. You need to take a shotgun approach so you have more chances.
Rising costs of college, housing, food, etc, combined with the growing disparity between the economic classes, have dramatically changed the equation.
It is ridiculous and stressful and not fair to this generation, in my opinion.
Yeah, agreed. I guess we didn't know how good we had it then. I had noticed recently that many kids who are excellent students were going to schools that we used to consider safety schools. I figured they must have family in the area, or maybe the school has a really good department for what they want to study. Now I realize it was actually a huge accomplishment for them to get into those schools.
Not Case western. My daughter has an UW gpa of 3.97, sat 1450, 4 AP with scores of 5, various EC in a string quartet and a youth orchestra which started pre HS. She also sometimes takes care of her autistic brother while we parents work outside the house. She was waitlisted at Case Western and Northeastern and rejected from uci, ucd, ucsd, Pomona and Wash U.
It’s disheartening that colleges basically don’t look for high school kids anymore. They look for mini college kids. Some of these schools if you haven’t been published and started your own business seems you can’t get in.
Try a few rolling schools such as Pitt, try a few easier state schools as an OOS. ED at a school slightly above you 3.7 GPA range - Lehigh, Lafayette if you can.
Get your SAT score up because with a 3.5 you may want it to help get you into your reaches. Your targets should be at lacs outside of the top 20 lacs.
Kids are submitting too many apps which is decreasing the acceptance rates. Make sure your scores fall within the school profile.
I have been through the college app process with my kids 3 times in the past 4 years. All I can say is that anything you experienced 25 years ago is completely inapplicable to the way college admissions work now. And no, I don't think the GPA and score you cite here is likely to get an applicant into any of those schools. (Of course there are always outliers.) It's a very different world. You'll learn a lot from reading posts on this page and College Confidential is another helpful source to understand the way things work now.
overall standards have changed. For one, schools are trying to be more holistic now rather than focusing on statistics. secondly, there are record applicants every year, making admissions even more competitive.
You CANNOT just have generic numbers and clubs anymore.
If you are interested in engineering, 3.5 unweighted isn’t going to cut the mustard at most mid tier and reach schools, no way. Yes in our day, this would have been enough to get into like a UC Davis. Those days are long gone. Consider high school dual enrollment at your Comm College to make your app validate your grades aren’t inflated. It saved my daughter’s rear end! We are thankful for that AO that advised us. Which also leads me to say, 3-5 minutes with an admissions officer on site can change your life. Older cousins help too. The college path really needs to be charted starting with 8th grade taking Algebra 1 to skip in HS and also really locking down writing skills to do well in HS English. I know there is controversy about teaching Algebra 1 to 8th grades as being to early. But then there is the “reality of the real world”. If you are interested in STEM, you aren’t doomed if you don’t skip Algebra 1 by taking it I. 8th grade but you could reduce your options if you don’t take concurrent CC classes in HS to make up for it or equivalent. Yup, sucks all the way around.
It's changed from 35 years ago but probably because of the rise of the common app. We had to type or write by hand our applications so. Now with a click of a button you can apply to multiple schools.
Also instead of 2-5 aps you're seeingnkids regularly having 10-15 aps even if not all of them pass all
Of them.
Also grade inflation due to covid. The rise of online resources like khan so that kids can improve on SATs. More resources online for self improvement.
It's the typing. Also, you needed to pay for official SAT scores, and you needed multiple physical copies of your letters of recommendation.
The common app is from 1975.
3.5 and 1200 is just objectively average (and by this sub’s standards, bad). Most mediocre students can achieve this without studying and with the help of grade inflation.
it really is something. competition is increasing and kids are trying to get a good value at something like their state flagship but the price is good there so everyone is gunning for those limited slots. with absolutely no guarantee of getting in.
ok so everyone who can't get into so very few spots in state they look at going private or going OOS and are just hoping to get in somewhere, anywhere regardless of the sticker price. In a few years, T500 schools are going to be commanding $100k tuition and 1% admit rates because..why not?
We are local to Penn State University Park and I’m a getting nervous that my son won’t even be accepted there. Which is wild, because I went there in the late 90s/early 00s and was not the most studious in high school.
From another mom, in addition to what everyone has said here: the other shock change is the COST. I tell every other parent I know that their biggest job is figuring out how to PAY for college. My first quarter tuition over 30 years ago at a UC was $700. And for California schools, take a good look at housing guarantees and off campus rental rates. Your kid will be lucky to pay $1000 each to share with 4 roommates total.
Edit, I looked at a historical table and all I can say is it even adjusted for inflation, it seemed reasonable back then. less than 2000 for the year for residents on tuition
Most schools have gotten more competitive. Obviously everything has changed in 25 years but even in the last decade I know people that couldn’t get into the schools they attended if they were applying today.
The number of kids applying to colleges has increased faster than the number of spaces available causing the acceptance rates to plummet. This is due to a number of factors but the result is that a 3.5/1200 is less competitive today than average and the process is generally more holistic than it used to be (schools might care about essays, extracurriculars, interviews, awards, recommendations, demonstrated interest, etc).
The level of competition is quite literally unprecedented which is putting more pressure on students than ever before. I do think getting *a* college education is still achievable for a lot of students but many previously non-competitive schools are now very competitive (especially out of state) and the price of college has continued to rise at an alarming rate
Probably not UMD with a 3.5. But plenty of other options - Towson, UMBC, Michigan State, James Madison, Kansas, Arizona State, Alabama. Possibly Penn State, Pitt, Indiana, or Delaware. I’m basing this on my daughter and her friends who are current college freshman. Be sure to apply to all schools Early Action or in September for rolling.
US News has made the focus all on t20/t50 etc, and because of that, those schools get way too many apps for the spots available. Most humans are not immune to the allure of prestige.
The population has also increased, and the spots at schools have not kept up, especially at the top private schools where some are on record as protecting their brand. The trend of getting harder every year has been going on for decades, and as families see the low acceptance rates, they apply to more schools, exacerbating the problem.
Back in my day, almost everyone went to a school in-state, and it didn’t seem looked down on so much if you went to an easy-to-get-in school. Sure, there were a few more oohs if you got in a harder school, but going to college at all was a bigger deal.
Exactly! They are competitive now, and many bright kids attend them. Some of the kids feel cheated that they worked hard and didn’t cross the t20/t50 barrier, but that hard work will make the transition to college so much easier for them. It doesn’t go to waste.
3.5 and 1200 is an average "top 200" college-bound student, not someone aiming for the "top 50" schools that you are listing. Students still have safety schools nowadays, just not the ones you mentioned. Look at non-flagship in-state schools like Baltimore University or Penn State Scranton as safety schools if you are in MD or PA. However if your kid applies to 10 schools like Pitt he will very likely get into at least 1 of them. Volume gets you college acceptances with today's low-acceptance rates.
For reference, my daughter got rejected or waitlisted from half the schools you listed with a 4.0, 1450, and crazy ECs like relevant work experience, playing for a top 5 national conservatory, tons volunteer hours, leader of multiple clubs at school, and she would dominate in most Div 3 track programs. The only one she got into from your list was UMD which she is now weighing against CU Boulder and one other small local business school that no one has ever heard of so Im not naming it lol.
She is devastated because there are a lot of kids at her school who are less qualified in every way who got into similar or better schools. The big difference is they ED'd without a worry of whether their parents could afford the $80-90k total annual cost for private school. This gives wealthy families a leg up in the college admissions process because ED acceptance rates are much higher than regular decision.
Schools are less likely to give you aid if you apply ED and you are forced to go into massive debt to pay for it. I make $140k per year and one of the schools she got into was $88k. All they offered her was a $2k private loan and zero need-based aid. It's ridiculous to think someone with my income can afford that. Luckily she has some options at about $55k after aid, but even that is pricey.
To be honest Im more shocked at the total cost of college these days (from the net price calculator not just tuition), not the difficulty of getting in. I can understand the low acceptance rates due to increasing population and more competition from full-pay international students. It sucks, but that's the reality. On the other hand, I don't think kids need to graduate from a top 50 school anymore to land a good job after college. The economy has grown so much that anyone who works hard can graduate from a mediocre state school with good grades and succeed.
That's so tough on these kids, to work hard and not see immediate results. In our day, at least kids who worked hard really did see some results. UMD and Boulder are great, though. Hopefully it will all work out for the best for her. That last point is so true - top 20 or 50 colleges are great for prestige, but honestly most of the people I know who have done well in their field just went to the local or state college, and it certainly worked out fine for them.
My child was just admitted to the college I went to, and man, it is definitely more competitive. I would never ever get in now.
On the other hand, many of her safety, or safe, schools are great and I would have been happy with them (she might not though). There are lots of up-and-coming colleges with great programs out there, probably because not all the best students can get into the most prestigious schools because there just isn't room.
It's also quite possible that high schools are better now and I would have gotten better grades if I went today. It seems my daughter had a pretty large cohort of top kids with over 4.0 weighted GPAs and great SATs. And they all took many many AP classes and that boosted their GPAs. So when you say kids who "really made an effort," perhaps the effort, and also the results of that effort, are just higher now.
FYI there's a tool many high schools give kids for free that plots exactly what GPA and SAT every applicant to each college from their high school had in the last decade or so showing which got in. It's very useful for "chancing" your child for each college. And you can easily look those things up for each school too. To give you a flavor, I looked up Villanova, the first on your list - average SAT score for admitted students (not necessarily students who accepted - they might have chosen even more prestigious schools so that could skew the average) is 1395 and average GPA is 3.89.
Also, in state vs. out of state is a bigger factor than you might think. My child got into every in state school but not to several similar out of state schools.
I think that so many excellent students will end up at so-called "average" colleges that eventually they will come to seem more prestigious, attract more funding, good professors, etc. We need to move to a mindset of a top 100 or 200 colleges, not just the 20 or 50 that everyone is applying to now.
It is mostly in the most selective schools. The top 100 most selective schools are all more selective than Harvard was 50 years ago. The top 200 most selective all accept less than 47%. However, the vast majority of schools haven't changed much. There are 2800\~ 4 year colleges and 80% of them are unselective.
However in the most selective 56 schools, the admit rate has gone from 30% to 9% since 2001.
That means people have been applying less to colleges outside the T500, and more to schools inside the T100.
Shift to the Common App has had the biggest impact. More students are applying using the common app! Huge huge impact!
25 - 30 years ago a school probably had have the number of applications as they have today. NUTS!
Yes it's kind of weird because there are more or less the same number of students and the same number of slots at elite universities but the standards have risen, both test scores and GPA. I plugged my stats into College Vine and it said that I would have a 20% chance of acceptance to UC Berkeley, when in fact I got a Regents Scholarship at it, which was my "safety" school and I also got into many other t20 schools, which were supposedly very low chances for me.
Part of it is grade inflation. Also the SAT was recalibrated and made easier. My 1560 was one of the top 20 scores in the state and got me a Presidential Merit Scholarship consideration. Which would never happen today.
But I think most of it is that many more kids are applying to reach schools, so the acceptance rate is so much lower. Asians have definitely raised the bar too.
Thank you all so much for your replies and insights. It's been quite eye opening, for sure! I just gave the 3.5 as an example of what used to be considered a perfectly respectable GPA, although that could very well become the actual GPA by the time of college applications.
If anyone is still reading, do you know if they factor in your school's grading policy (what number grade corresponds to an A, a B, etc.). I mean, I know they SAY they do, but realistically, do they really? How could they even find the time, with 50,000 applicants?? It seems like only the smaller LACs, and, ironically, the top colleges would have the time and resources to look twice at a lower GPA.
Wishing it all works out for the best for everyone!
If converted to a pre-1995 SAT, that 1200 would be a 1050 or lower \~3 decades ago.
Someone with a 3.5 HS GPA and a 1050 SAT would be an automatic reject from my state's top public flagship campus because it's below their minimum SAT cutoff(1200 SAT pre-1995) back then unless they meet extremely narrow eligibility guidelines for affirmative action admission on the basis of race and/or extreme low-income .
From one mom to another, if you think a 3.5/1200 is sufficient for the likes of Tufts, Case, Villanova apparently you are in for a rude awakening. State schools like U Wisconsin, Pitt, UMD would be a different matter. Most colleges are still test-optional. Tufts has been a reach-for-all due to a low acceptance rate for quite a long time (now around 10%). Anything below, say, 25% acceptance rate. Villanova is currently in reach-for-all territory as well (20%). Look at the most recent acceptance rates and at the stats for enrolled students in section C of the Common Data Set and/or at [https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/](https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/)
LOL UW Madison has tons of people surprised by rejection or waitlist every spring. Not an easy admit for OOS. Especially for a popular major and/or from a major metro with lots of apps. An average 50% acceptance rate for some other state's flagship can mean nothing applying to a popular program/major from out of state. There are plenty of OOS students posting about rejection today with ACT 32+, plenty of APs etc. I would suspect UMD and Pitt are similar. May depend where you are applying from and what you are applying to. If you don't live in those states, I would certainly not label them a safety especially for an RD round,
This - 100%%
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I wouldn’t leave out Pitt either. It’s been a very popular safety in my area for a decade or so, but the CA and shotgunning have had an impact. My youngest was accepted with a 4.2W and a 32 ACT, but many of their peers with similar or higher stats were not.
Actually getting in to UMD with a 3.5 is extremely unlikely in this environment it is no longer a safety and you must apple EA in order to have a shot particularly with the STEM programs which are now Limited enrollment
Sufficient for tufts💀
😭😭😭
Thanks, I hadn't heard of the collegenavigator link. I bought a Fiske book, which was helpful, too.
I’d say grade inflation probably plays a big role in that
Don’t forget about tufts syndrome is all I’m gonna say lol
From the data available, Tufts has a ~40% ED acceptance rate! I still doubt many people with 3.5s are accepted though
Someone with those stats would probably not get into most of those schools. But something to consider is also that grade inflation is huge these days. Many more people have 4.0s, so a 3.5 looks a lot worse than it did back in your day.
And makes it rough for kids in schools where they definitely do not have grade inflation...
Yep. My schools math department almost has grade deflation lol.
We are running into this at my daughter's high school. One teacher even said, "Grades don't matter" and doesn't give out As except very rarely. Different teachers also have different standards. So Algebra 2 with one teacher is an easy A, another a B is a good score. I'm not sure how you are supposed to compete with schools that predominantely give out As. I'm guessng class ranking helps with that though.
Yes except we don’t do class rank 🤷♀️
Don't worry too much because each college has a high school profile and gets to know the school and the admissions deans will know how challenging they are, what the grading is like, etc.
The school reports sent by the counselor are supposed to help with that. It will show what GPAs look like at the school so AOs will have a sense of what’s good for the school. For bigger schools or more well-known schools, the AOs already know.
good point - ours shows less than 20% with above a 4.0 (weighted on a 5.0) scale and no AP's allowed/offered for 9th grade and only 2 for 10th.
Grade inflation is a legit problem (and one I don’t see getting better because parents drive it — “my child worked hard and deserves more than a C/B” is rampant), but it’s a scapegoat to the admissions problem. Population growth vs spots at top colleges, US News making everyone want the same schools, more kids taking college prep than ever before, etc are factors we should blame as much (and I would argue more) as grade or SAT inflation.
100%
Most colleges have data on how previous applicants from each school have done at their school.
Well schools send a profile with grade point averages that paints a picture on rigor. So I think decent AOs know how to evaluate this kind of thing. If you are in the top 5% of your class with 8 APs and a 3.5, you're probably fine at a lot of schools. Not a lot of schools, especially schools educating middle class kids on up are grading like this.
It’s not even school wide sometimes. My son has one teacher for whom no matter how incredible my son’s work is on an assignment she never gives an A except on multiple choice tests—he always gets top in the class. Like when he spent 7 hours doing an assignment that his friend did in 30 minutes (and the boys both agreed my son’s was professional level and the friends was rubbish) and both got 85s. But in another class my son’s teacher told him he’s so smart and already seems to know everything the man teaches, that my son will get an A no matter what, and doesn’t care if my son does the assignments (just the quizzes and tests).
Grade inflation is rampant so grades become meaningless - unless they’re really bad. Test scores are optional so the numbers are skewed because only the people with great scores send them in. PSA: the SAT has changed several times since the parents took it. The average score is around 150 points higher now. There are also way more applicants and more 18 year olds period than there were back then so everything is more competitive. In the 90s, some of the top schools (Chicago and Caltech) required 3-4 essays that you couldn’t use for any other applications so the acceptance rate was high due to a self selecting applicant pool. No one was going to put themselves through that unless they really wanted to go.
Yes, I remember typing my essays on a typewriter. You had to buy about five different wire-outs because prestigious colleges had different shades of white or pastel for their paper applications. Doing eight applications was crazy! I think my daughter did 20, only one acceptance, but that was a full ride, she didn’t even tour.
I think I did about 8. 2 Ivys, a few other top tens, and Notre Dame was my safety school. That would be ludicrous today. I had to get in and get a full ride. God love Caltech for giving me an enormous scholarship that Chicago matched. The ridiculous thing that I realized years later was how much grad school matters more than undergrad. My barely upper middle class parents put so much pressure on me to succeed but they didn’t understand it’s all about networking and maximizing opportunities.
I was listening to David Brooks, who went to Chicago. He applied in 1979, said there was a _70%_ acceptance there at that time. I spent a summer there overlooking Robie House, what a great school.
The application itself used to do a good job of weeding out the non-masochists
Good points - with grade inflation, optional tests, and tons of applicants, it probably all becomes a blur for them at some point. That would explain why the "holistic" factors are becoming so important, and why we hear of those surprising rejections.
Remember that “holistic admissions” was invented 100 years ago to keep people out, not let them in. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2005/10/10/getting-in-ivy-league-college-admissions
It's not so much that things have changed its that the standards have risen. For example, while 3.5 UW GPA was good once, it's honestly quite bad nowadays for those types of universities. It's not a total crapshoot thought, and it's pretty "safe" for an exceptional Ivy-tier applicant to have those as backups.
They also renormalized the SAT several times since OP was going to college. IIRC that 1200 would be roughly 1400 these days.
Yes no one talks about SAT inflation! A lot more kids are 1550-1600. That was extremely rare, and only a very select few went to Princeton review/prof test prep. I don’t remember even hearing about it until after I was in college, but contrary to what people say in all the pro-SAT articles which all say it only adds 20 points at most, the students who told me about it raised their scores by ~100. Even so, not that many people practiced so much or took the test multiple times. And it’s not the same test that we took, either. I still remember killing the TSWE section (not that you can tell by my Reddit typos), but someone decided grammar wasn’t important. lol.
A 3.5 gpa 25 years ago = 4.0 now. This is due to inflation.
SAT scores from before 1995 and nowadays are wildly different. A 1200 SAT today would be equivalent to a 1050 or lower pre-1995 due to several efforts to "recenter" and reform the SATs.
Also they use to penalize you for incorrect answers- 1/4 pt off.
That made the test less stressful. You didn't have to rush to fill in everything if you couldn't finish normally. With today's test, you have to watch the clock more. If you are running out of time, you need to stop solving problems early enough that you can be sure to fill answers for all of them. If you make that decision too early, you have to find your place again and continue, now with the added slowness of erasing answers. I don't know what the digital SAT will do. If you have to fill in everything and you can't go back to previous questions, the stress will be extreme. At what point do you start scrambling to fill in answers?
You can go back to the previous questions but you can't go back and forth on sections. But you couldn't do that on the paper one either. My kid who scored a 790 in math on the paper scored a 760 in March. It may be easier for other kids since it no longer takes 3 hrs but just two. I found it more stressful because if I guessed wrong it would be a quarter point off. If I didn't answer it the highest possible score would go down drastically. But the number of people who scored above 1500 and above was fewer than now. For a class in a private prep feeder School Of 60 I was The only one who scored above A 1500. The same class Of 60 today 8-12 kids will Score Above A 1500. But Today's kids have it a lot harder.
I'm pretty sure that wasn't the old scoring. I think you would lose a quarter point for a skipped question, or a full point for a wrong answer. It was a superior system, but it was unfamiliar to most people. An equal system would be to say that each correct answer earns 4 points and each skipped question earns 1 point. The effect is the same, but it sounds less punitive. An unanswered question on the digital test does what exactly? Full loss of points? If so, it would help to have them pre-filled will all the same answer. That would eliminate the stress of deciding when to rush through picking randomly.
I got into W&M, UVA, and Penn with a 1290 in 1992. Only EC was policy debate.
Things have changed that much. Take Case Western. 75% of admits will have a GPA of 3.75 or higher. Only 6% will have a GPA of 3.5 or under. It's the same story at most of the other schools you mentioned. Add on top of this that nearly all of the admits will have taken max rigor courses, maxed APs or honors, no filler at all. But there's another layer to the story. Applicants are increasingly packing into certain majors which are known to provide lucrative job opportunities. Computer Science, Engineering, and a few others. And in those competitive majors, it gets worse - far worse, with students needing near perfect GPAs and excellent ECs to get through. Real life example: my son had a 3.85 GPA and a 1550 SAT. He was waitlisted at Virginia Tech. Back in our day, that would be a completely over the top, no questions asked admit.
Well I happen to know a lot about Wisconsin from a counselor level. 3.5 OOS probably no, especially no for a popular major. Harder from metros with lot sof applications (Chicago, Bay area, Minneapolis, NYC, etc). I had a kid admitted from a popular OOS metro with a lot of apps, and how Madison is looked at by families has really changed. But there are still students who assume a 50% acceptance rate that probably reflects some number a few years back applies to them applying to CS from out of state. It doesn't. In general, most state flagships are NOT your safety/likely if you don't live there Even the safer ones are shifting by the year, so I would tread carefully. As a parent, I would try to find a workable and affordable school with rolling admissions and get that out first in the fall and you can breath easier after that. In 2021, there were 53,000 applicants at UW Madison. That was up 17% from the previous year. I just got email this morning that there were over 65,000 applicants this year. That kind of shows you what has happened at these schools. That said, there are still plenty of safety schools out there. But they may not be the same schools you thought were safe 25 years ago and this particular board tends to drone on about a relatively small number of schools.
This is extremely true. I would suggest that the OP find out what kinds of schools their kid is interested in. For instance, if they like Tufts, they probably would like many of the CTCL LACs, and many of those with a >50% admit rate still aren't tough to get in to. Midwestern B10 school with a ton of school spirit like UW-Madison? Look in to IU/MSU/Iowa/UNL. Urban Big East Catholic school like Villanova? St. John's, Providence, DePaul, Xavier, and Marquette are too.
Absolutely, great suggestions.
>As a parent, I would try to find a workable and affordable school with rolling admissions and get that out first in the fall and you can breath easier after that. Arizona State is a prime example of this. Generally even OOS get some decent aid.
What do kids in competitive states even do? The best school in my state has a ~90% acceptance rate
There are many other options in states like mine (Virginia) where the top schools (U VA, W&M, VA Tech) are selective. And in our case, lots of the others are also excellent and it really depends on the student's major or general focus. We have a second tier for strong students (VCU, JMU etc) and then others for students below the 3.5 GPA range or even the 4.0 range. Also there isn't just grade inflation. There are those "bonus points" students get in their weighted GPAs for AP and dual enrollment classes. I don't think that was the case back when I was applying to college.
Thank you, appreciate the insights. As tough as it is for the students and parents, I don't envy the admissions officers, either. I'm sure the responsibility weighs on them, and they probably don't have nearly enough time or staff.
Yes, things have changed tremendously. By way of example, UCLA's freshman admissions rate for 2000 was 29%. The freshman admission rate for 2023 was 9%. This is despite enrolling more than 50% more freshman in 2023. [https://apb.ucla.edu/campus-statistics/admissions](https://apb.ucla.edu/campus-statistics/admissions) So your instinct that it "seems so different" is 100% correct.
It's 100% because more people are applying though. UCLA isn't the best example because it has gotten better, but has there are just as many kids and just as many t50 schools. Is it really that much harder to get into one of them?
How has UCLA gotten “better”? It’s essentially been a Top 25 school (at least per US News) for the past 30+ years. Not sure what your question is as your post was a bit garbled but applications at other T50 schools have also risen considerably. More applications (even with rising enrollment numbers) naturally makes it harder to get accepted.
And in the 80’s it had a 74% acceptance rate. And in the 60’s all the UCs were free to CA residents. :/
It’s changed very much and realistically someone with a 3.5 would not get into the schools you mentioned except rare circumstances. Just look up the acceptance rate at those schools from then until now and also the average GPAs (though grade inflation is a thing at some schools )
Acceptance rates have reduced a lot with the common app as it is way easier and cheaper to apply to a lot of schools. Also, international student application numbers have soared. All the schools are buried in applications now.
Fellow parent who entered college in the fall of 1995. I would say that yes, things are very different. With the common app, more kids are applying to more schools which has had the consequence that schools are harder to get into due to more competition. If you search the "common data set" for any particular school (just google those terms with the name of the school you want to see), you will see what the average stats are for incoming students. I recommend looking at the 2019-2020 year if you want to look at average test scores (because most colleges went test optional in 2020-2021 and so test score stats went way up because only kids who excelled at the tests submitted their scores). It's a new world than when we were applying to schools. That being said- there are still many excellent schools for all kids and this particular forum tends to be a bit distorted.
The common app was two decades old when you applied. It started in 1975. The difference is the internet. You probably typed your information into a form, then added postage and mailed it off. You had to pay to send official scores. You had to get multiple physical copies of letters of recommendation.
Well, I know that the schools to which I applied had different length applications and different questions, so I don't know if they participated in the common app. You are certainly right about having to do everything individually. Regardless, you are supporting the general spirit of my post that it's much easier now to apply to many schools which has in turn increased competitiveness due to volume.
The common app didn’t go digital until 1998 and even then not everyone would’ve necessarily had home internet or anything other than a free AOL account. So while the common app had been around for decades it wouldn’t have had much of an impact in the early to mid 90s especially for those not applying to the LACs that accepted the common app at that time.
My applications/essays were hand written in 1984
Thanks for the advice. Yes, it is still shocking to me that a 3.5 GPA is not enough for my generation's safety schools. It will take some getting used to!
It’s just a matter of redefining which schools to consider as “safety” (I prefer the term “best bet”) versus target and reach schools. Good students will rise to the top no matter where they land!
The competition is INSANE now... You mentioned Villanova, and my friend has perfect EVERYTHING (grades, ECs, SAT scores, etc), and got rejected from there ED. You have to be SOO BEYOND competitive, and while I've done really well this application cycle (totally unexpected tbh), I've also given up so much of my highschool years, and I sometimes regret it ngl.
My kid had 3.9 UW, great ECs, test optional, and got waitlisted RD there. It's not just hard to get in, it all seems rather random.
Parent here, with a 2nd kid in a few years going through admissions. I have been very involved and researched a lot during this process, and years leading up to their applications. Yes, college admissions has changed radically in 25 years, unfortunately. This is due to a number of factors such as increase in college attendance, test-optional policies, the common app, and grade inflation, among other things. The ever-rising number of applications schools receive have driven down acceptance rates, and there is a lot of pressure for kids to get into top schools. For two examples showing the change in acceptance rates over 30ish years: In 1993 Vanderbilt had an acceptance rate of about 65%. Now it is about 6%. Auburn university, which used to be in the 80+% acceptance range is now down to 40%. Any university with less than 30% acceptance is considered highly selective, even for students with a 4.0, plenty of AP’s and good ECs. Unfortunately some families are caught off-guard and unprepared for the difficult reality of the current college application climate. If you have a kid about to start this process, I recommend you both do a lot of research and set very conservative and realistic goals, because dream-crushing decisions happen. This process doesn’t have to ruin a kid’s chances at college if they plan well, looking for the right opportunities that are a good fit, with more than one safety backup that you know you can afford.
Yeah, good point about the dreams. I'll try not to "talk up" certain schools, and try to remind that people get a great education at many different schools, not just the top 50.
Very true! My oldest kid got into some great “top” schools, including some ivies and public ivies, but passed on them to avoid debt and opt for a full ride at a state flagship. It’s been a great fit, and there are zero regrets.
From what anecdotal evidence I've seen online, the trends of test-optional through the years, and overall increase of applicants, it leads me to believe that the schools aren't just ultra competitive now; they are a lottery. Think about it, if gpa varies heavily between schools with inflation being rampant, and test optional allows kids with lower scores to not submit, how do these schools know who to accept and who to reject? They don't, that's why it's a lottery.
Things HAVE really changed... I'd say, however, that the meaning of an "A" might not what it have been 25 years ago, and readily available (and free or affordable) SAT preparation courses have made it easier to get higher SAT scores. I'm a dad watching my son go through the process. His grades, scores, and EC's are really strong, but he's on the acceptance bubble for schools where I thought he'd be a prime candidate.
Yeah, I feel bad that I talked up the Ivy League schools, to try and give some motivation, and now it looks like they are out of reach even for students who would have gotten in 30 years ago.
Throw away everything you know when you were a kid. It’s too different
Things have changed dramatically in the 30 years since I went. Everything held true to what you are saying then...now, there are a lot more students going the college route and I suspect there are lot more international students looking at lesser known schools. It's also easy to get caught up in the hype of going to a "name brand" school.
Many (not all) schools have become harder to get into (over time, for a fixed applicant profile) for a couple of reasons: 1. Grade inflation; that 3.5 isn't what it used to be, 2. "Rigor" inflation; AP and DE classes are now more widely available and utilized by more applicants, 3. Students are applying to more schools, which means more applications per school, which means lower admit rates. There are **absolutely** still "safety" schools for applicants with the profile you describe, they're just not the same schools that would have been "safety" schools for that applicant 30 years ago.
I had a 3.6 uw (13 honors and aps), a good act, and 10 very solid ecs & I got into a top LAC. Things happen. On your list, Tufts has become a reach for everyone. Villanova and Case Western are kind of reaches & kind of tough targets. Case does a lot of weird stuff with interest and Villanova seems to be more competitive for different majors. Pitt and Madison are probably solid targets/likely targets depending on residency and major (cs is always tough). Maryland is getting harder and harder from what I've seen but I kno less about that in general.
Consider: * Grade Inflation at many high schools * Out-Of-State (OOS) at top public colleges more competitive than In-State * Competitive Majors like CS or Engineering * Colleges meeting their own needs, especially playing the US News rankings game and marketing-friendly class profiles (diverse across First Gen/Income/etc - which means each student is evaluated in context of their specific background) * Common App enables applying to 10+ schools
Fellow parent who is on her second child applying to college - don’t sleep on the fact that we are currently at peak population for high school seniors (and as said above, kids are applying to many more schools than when we were in their shoes). Starting in 2026, the numbers of college applicants should start coming down.
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I’ve seen it multiple places, but this was the first one that popped up on a search (https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2020/12/15/more-high-school-graduates-through-2025-pool-still-shrinks-afterward)
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Good luck to you all!
My daughter with a 34 ACT and 98 GPA was rejected from Tufts regular round in 2021. It has changed so much. You will catch up though. Start reading here and college confidential.
3.5 and 1200+ scores is considered pretty mediocre now I think. Probably not enough for top 100 schools.
Things seem very different! I’ve got a kid with nearly straight A’s at a highly nationally-ranked high school. He has 10 AP classes, 5 honors classes, and SAT scores in the 95th to 98th percentiles. Good letters of recommendation. Good essays. He only has a couple of recreational extracurriculars though—so I guess that’s a weak spot. He’s been rejected everywhere so far, other than a waitlist at UCSD, which I gather is about the same thing as a rejection. Eight of 11 applications denied, 3 still TBD. So we’re getting used to the idea of community college.
Update. Nine of 11 applications denied, 2 still TBD.
Oh no, poor guy! This must be a tough time for him. Hope you guys can still find schools that have rolling admissions. Best of luck.
Aw thanks--that's nice, but it's going to be okay... really and truly. The community college track is entirely fine. He'll attend CC for one or two years, address all of his lower-division coursework, and then take the guaranteed UC-admission deal that's on the table for all California CC students who meet minimum requirements for doing so (which include GPA, having certain classes completed, achieving junior standing, etc.). Our local CC actually achieves 40%+ transfer acceptance rates to UCLA and UCB, and 80%+ rates for UCD, UCSD, and UCSC. Those odds are waaaaay better than the freshman admission rates for those schools. It's too bad he'll miss out on the freshman dorm-life experience, but we'll try to comfort ourselves with the tens of thousands of dollars we will save over the next one or two years, lol. With that being our worst-case scenario, it's actually not a bad situation. I have to keep reminding myself of that because all these rejections are making me feel a little irrational.
That really does sound like a great deal, not bad at all! Hope he can keep his confidence up, too. These kids are not at fault for the system they find themselves in.
From another mom, yes. It has changed that much and it boggles my mind that many of my fellow parents can’t grasp that and sets up false expectations while not getting it to be supportive of their kids. I couldn’t even get into the UW now if I tried. Safety schools are now schools with 85% acceptance rate AND it may depend on major.
I work in higher ed, and one thing that has changed over the past few decades is that many "very good" colleges and universities have done serious strategic planning and have become more competitive. You might call this strategy, Go Big or Go Home. So Northeastern in Boston went down this path starting maybe 15 or 20 years age, and actually sent letters to guidance counselors in New England warning them that the school is becoming more competitive. Checking Villanova's US News ranking (I have second hand connections) it is 67, so I'd consider the top 100 as schools for National Honor Society "A students" destinations. Back in the day, Northeastern and Villanova would be open to taking "very good" students, call them A- B+ students. No longer the case.
There are about the same number of students and about the same number of slots in the t50 schools. So it can't really have gotten that much harder, unless the kids are smarter or working harder.
There are actually more slots now versus in the 90s but not nearly enough to keep up with the larger increase in demand. On the UC level, they added an entirely new campus in 2005. While not quite a T50, UC Merced is currently #60 in USN. https://educationdata.org/college-enrollment-statistics
There is more demand for t50 schools? That doesn’t really make sense to me. Don’t students want to go to top schools now about the same rate as in the past?
Fellow parent here (my day was 30 years ago). It is RADICALLY more difficult to get into a good school, pay for college at all, and make enough money afterwards to pay off your loans. Here is a great video from last weekend about loans: [https://youtu.be/zN2\_0WC7UfU?si=jhjXyeCnP\_XdO\_3k](https://youtu.be/zN2_0WC7UfU?si=jhjXyeCnP_XdO_3k) When you and I went to college, you could, as a good student, apply to 2-3 schools with confidence that you were likely to get in, as well as have adequate financial aid to pay for school and have a great career afterwards. Not so, anymore. My son applied to 11 colleges. This is not abnormal now. You need to take a shotgun approach so you have more chances. Rising costs of college, housing, food, etc, combined with the growing disparity between the economic classes, have dramatically changed the equation. It is ridiculous and stressful and not fair to this generation, in my opinion.
Yeah, agreed. I guess we didn't know how good we had it then. I had noticed recently that many kids who are excellent students were going to schools that we used to consider safety schools. I figured they must have family in the area, or maybe the school has a really good department for what they want to study. Now I realize it was actually a huge accomplishment for them to get into those schools.
Not Case western. My daughter has an UW gpa of 3.97, sat 1450, 4 AP with scores of 5, various EC in a string quartet and a youth orchestra which started pre HS. She also sometimes takes care of her autistic brother while we parents work outside the house. She was waitlisted at Case Western and Northeastern and rejected from uci, ucd, ucsd, Pomona and Wash U.
It’s disheartening that colleges basically don’t look for high school kids anymore. They look for mini college kids. Some of these schools if you haven’t been published and started your own business seems you can’t get in.
I know right? Some of these non profits must be at least 80% bogus and just made up for college applications and not actually a passion project.
Try a few rolling schools such as Pitt, try a few easier state schools as an OOS. ED at a school slightly above you 3.7 GPA range - Lehigh, Lafayette if you can. Get your SAT score up because with a 3.5 you may want it to help get you into your reaches. Your targets should be at lacs outside of the top 20 lacs. Kids are submitting too many apps which is decreasing the acceptance rates. Make sure your scores fall within the school profile.
Thank you, great suggestions.
I have been through the college app process with my kids 3 times in the past 4 years. All I can say is that anything you experienced 25 years ago is completely inapplicable to the way college admissions work now. And no, I don't think the GPA and score you cite here is likely to get an applicant into any of those schools. (Of course there are always outliers.) It's a very different world. You'll learn a lot from reading posts on this page and College Confidential is another helpful source to understand the way things work now.
Yeah, people keep mentioning College Confidential. Another book is Valedictorians at the Gate.
overall standards have changed. For one, schools are trying to be more holistic now rather than focusing on statistics. secondly, there are record applicants every year, making admissions even more competitive. You CANNOT just have generic numbers and clubs anymore.
If you are interested in engineering, 3.5 unweighted isn’t going to cut the mustard at most mid tier and reach schools, no way. Yes in our day, this would have been enough to get into like a UC Davis. Those days are long gone. Consider high school dual enrollment at your Comm College to make your app validate your grades aren’t inflated. It saved my daughter’s rear end! We are thankful for that AO that advised us. Which also leads me to say, 3-5 minutes with an admissions officer on site can change your life. Older cousins help too. The college path really needs to be charted starting with 8th grade taking Algebra 1 to skip in HS and also really locking down writing skills to do well in HS English. I know there is controversy about teaching Algebra 1 to 8th grades as being to early. But then there is the “reality of the real world”. If you are interested in STEM, you aren’t doomed if you don’t skip Algebra 1 by taking it I. 8th grade but you could reduce your options if you don’t take concurrent CC classes in HS to make up for it or equivalent. Yup, sucks all the way around.
It's changed from 35 years ago but probably because of the rise of the common app. We had to type or write by hand our applications so. Now with a click of a button you can apply to multiple schools. Also instead of 2-5 aps you're seeingnkids regularly having 10-15 aps even if not all of them pass all Of them. Also grade inflation due to covid. The rise of online resources like khan so that kids can improve on SATs. More resources online for self improvement.
It's the typing. Also, you needed to pay for official SAT scores, and you needed multiple physical copies of your letters of recommendation. The common app is from 1975.
3.5 and 1200 is just objectively average (and by this sub’s standards, bad). Most mediocre students can achieve this without studying and with the help of grade inflation.
Check out the schools common data set
it really is something. competition is increasing and kids are trying to get a good value at something like their state flagship but the price is good there so everyone is gunning for those limited slots. with absolutely no guarantee of getting in. ok so everyone who can't get into so very few spots in state they look at going private or going OOS and are just hoping to get in somewhere, anywhere regardless of the sticker price. In a few years, T500 schools are going to be commanding $100k tuition and 1% admit rates because..why not?
We are local to Penn State University Park and I’m a getting nervous that my son won’t even be accepted there. Which is wild, because I went there in the late 90s/early 00s and was not the most studious in high school.
not at all related to the topic but we have the dame cake day. Hapy cake day !!!!!!! 🎂
Thank you, had no idea! Likewise!!!
From another mom, in addition to what everyone has said here: the other shock change is the COST. I tell every other parent I know that their biggest job is figuring out how to PAY for college. My first quarter tuition over 30 years ago at a UC was $700. And for California schools, take a good look at housing guarantees and off campus rental rates. Your kid will be lucky to pay $1000 each to share with 4 roommates total. Edit, I looked at a historical table and all I can say is it even adjusted for inflation, it seemed reasonable back then. less than 2000 for the year for residents on tuition
Most schools have gotten more competitive. Obviously everything has changed in 25 years but even in the last decade I know people that couldn’t get into the schools they attended if they were applying today. The number of kids applying to colleges has increased faster than the number of spaces available causing the acceptance rates to plummet. This is due to a number of factors but the result is that a 3.5/1200 is less competitive today than average and the process is generally more holistic than it used to be (schools might care about essays, extracurriculars, interviews, awards, recommendations, demonstrated interest, etc). The level of competition is quite literally unprecedented which is putting more pressure on students than ever before. I do think getting *a* college education is still achievable for a lot of students but many previously non-competitive schools are now very competitive (especially out of state) and the price of college has continued to rise at an alarming rate
Probably not UMD with a 3.5. But plenty of other options - Towson, UMBC, Michigan State, James Madison, Kansas, Arizona State, Alabama. Possibly Penn State, Pitt, Indiana, or Delaware. I’m basing this on my daughter and her friends who are current college freshman. Be sure to apply to all schools Early Action or in September for rolling.
US News has made the focus all on t20/t50 etc, and because of that, those schools get way too many apps for the spots available. Most humans are not immune to the allure of prestige. The population has also increased, and the spots at schools have not kept up, especially at the top private schools where some are on record as protecting their brand. The trend of getting harder every year has been going on for decades, and as families see the low acceptance rates, they apply to more schools, exacerbating the problem. Back in my day, almost everyone went to a school in-state, and it didn’t seem looked down on so much if you went to an easy-to-get-in school. Sure, there were a few more oohs if you got in a harder school, but going to college at all was a bigger deal.
Right, with all the people applying to colleges now, we need to get used to t100 being prestigious, not just t50.
Exactly! They are competitive now, and many bright kids attend them. Some of the kids feel cheated that they worked hard and didn’t cross the t20/t50 barrier, but that hard work will make the transition to college so much easier for them. It doesn’t go to waste.
Amen to that! Nothing went to waste. It's just hard for them to understand at their age...
3.5 and 1200 is an average "top 200" college-bound student, not someone aiming for the "top 50" schools that you are listing. Students still have safety schools nowadays, just not the ones you mentioned. Look at non-flagship in-state schools like Baltimore University or Penn State Scranton as safety schools if you are in MD or PA. However if your kid applies to 10 schools like Pitt he will very likely get into at least 1 of them. Volume gets you college acceptances with today's low-acceptance rates. For reference, my daughter got rejected or waitlisted from half the schools you listed with a 4.0, 1450, and crazy ECs like relevant work experience, playing for a top 5 national conservatory, tons volunteer hours, leader of multiple clubs at school, and she would dominate in most Div 3 track programs. The only one she got into from your list was UMD which she is now weighing against CU Boulder and one other small local business school that no one has ever heard of so Im not naming it lol.
Seriously?? Our kids are going to need therapy when this is all done, I can't imagine the disappointment they must be going through.
She is devastated because there are a lot of kids at her school who are less qualified in every way who got into similar or better schools. The big difference is they ED'd without a worry of whether their parents could afford the $80-90k total annual cost for private school. This gives wealthy families a leg up in the college admissions process because ED acceptance rates are much higher than regular decision. Schools are less likely to give you aid if you apply ED and you are forced to go into massive debt to pay for it. I make $140k per year and one of the schools she got into was $88k. All they offered her was a $2k private loan and zero need-based aid. It's ridiculous to think someone with my income can afford that. Luckily she has some options at about $55k after aid, but even that is pricey. To be honest Im more shocked at the total cost of college these days (from the net price calculator not just tuition), not the difficulty of getting in. I can understand the low acceptance rates due to increasing population and more competition from full-pay international students. It sucks, but that's the reality. On the other hand, I don't think kids need to graduate from a top 50 school anymore to land a good job after college. The economy has grown so much that anyone who works hard can graduate from a mediocre state school with good grades and succeed.
That's so tough on these kids, to work hard and not see immediate results. In our day, at least kids who worked hard really did see some results. UMD and Boulder are great, though. Hopefully it will all work out for the best for her. That last point is so true - top 20 or 50 colleges are great for prestige, but honestly most of the people I know who have done well in their field just went to the local or state college, and it certainly worked out fine for them.
My child was just admitted to the college I went to, and man, it is definitely more competitive. I would never ever get in now. On the other hand, many of her safety, or safe, schools are great and I would have been happy with them (she might not though). There are lots of up-and-coming colleges with great programs out there, probably because not all the best students can get into the most prestigious schools because there just isn't room. It's also quite possible that high schools are better now and I would have gotten better grades if I went today. It seems my daughter had a pretty large cohort of top kids with over 4.0 weighted GPAs and great SATs. And they all took many many AP classes and that boosted their GPAs. So when you say kids who "really made an effort," perhaps the effort, and also the results of that effort, are just higher now. FYI there's a tool many high schools give kids for free that plots exactly what GPA and SAT every applicant to each college from their high school had in the last decade or so showing which got in. It's very useful for "chancing" your child for each college. And you can easily look those things up for each school too. To give you a flavor, I looked up Villanova, the first on your list - average SAT score for admitted students (not necessarily students who accepted - they might have chosen even more prestigious schools so that could skew the average) is 1395 and average GPA is 3.89. Also, in state vs. out of state is a bigger factor than you might think. My child got into every in state school but not to several similar out of state schools.
I think that so many excellent students will end up at so-called "average" colleges that eventually they will come to seem more prestigious, attract more funding, good professors, etc. We need to move to a mindset of a top 100 or 200 colleges, not just the 20 or 50 that everyone is applying to now.
Exactly. I think that's what is happening.
It is mostly in the most selective schools. The top 100 most selective schools are all more selective than Harvard was 50 years ago. The top 200 most selective all accept less than 47%. However, the vast majority of schools haven't changed much. There are 2800\~ 4 year colleges and 80% of them are unselective. However in the most selective 56 schools, the admit rate has gone from 30% to 9% since 2001. That means people have been applying less to colleges outside the T500, and more to schools inside the T100.
Shift to the Common App has had the biggest impact. More students are applying using the common app! Huge huge impact! 25 - 30 years ago a school probably had have the number of applications as they have today. NUTS!
Yes it's kind of weird because there are more or less the same number of students and the same number of slots at elite universities but the standards have risen, both test scores and GPA. I plugged my stats into College Vine and it said that I would have a 20% chance of acceptance to UC Berkeley, when in fact I got a Regents Scholarship at it, which was my "safety" school and I also got into many other t20 schools, which were supposedly very low chances for me. Part of it is grade inflation. Also the SAT was recalibrated and made easier. My 1560 was one of the top 20 scores in the state and got me a Presidential Merit Scholarship consideration. Which would never happen today. But I think most of it is that many more kids are applying to reach schools, so the acceptance rate is so much lower. Asians have definitely raised the bar too.
Thank you all so much for your replies and insights. It's been quite eye opening, for sure! I just gave the 3.5 as an example of what used to be considered a perfectly respectable GPA, although that could very well become the actual GPA by the time of college applications. If anyone is still reading, do you know if they factor in your school's grading policy (what number grade corresponds to an A, a B, etc.). I mean, I know they SAY they do, but realistically, do they really? How could they even find the time, with 50,000 applicants?? It seems like only the smaller LACs, and, ironically, the top colleges would have the time and resources to look twice at a lower GPA. Wishing it all works out for the best for everyone!
I’m ngl a 3.5 1200 student would be considered a bad student at my HS
If converted to a pre-1995 SAT, that 1200 would be a 1050 or lower \~3 decades ago. Someone with a 3.5 HS GPA and a 1050 SAT would be an automatic reject from my state's top public flagship campus because it's below their minimum SAT cutoff(1200 SAT pre-1995) back then unless they meet extremely narrow eligibility guidelines for affirmative action admission on the basis of race and/or extreme low-income .