We’ve all seen report after report that it is increasingly difficult to gain acceptance at the country’s elite colleges (recognizing that the label of elite college is itself in constant flux). For example, the admission rate (percentage of applicants accepted) at Pomona in Claremont, California, was about 15% this spring; it was 38% twenty years ago. (reported in New York Times, 5/16/07).

Kevin Carey, a research and policy manager at Education Sector, insists it is not in reality harder to gain acceptance to elite colleges calling the alleged increased difficulty a “statistical mirage”. (See Dallas Morning News May 13, 2007) Carey explains that from a student’s perspective, the odds of getting into college are a function of two things: the number of qualified students who apply and the number of slots that colleges make available. Carey agrees that the number of prospective college students is growing. But he is quick to add that the number of spaces in elite colleges is increasing at a nearly identical rate. [This fact is critical to his theory and merits further substantiation.] But moving on…so what’s really happening?

Carey illustrates his theory with this example. Imagine 20 students, each of whom applies to five schools and gets into two. Now imagine if the same 20 students each apply to ten schools and again get into two. The outcome for the students is the same: two acceptance letters. But the “additional” schools in the second example will report lower admission rates, and the odds of admission will be reported as numerically lower, but in reality be the same!?
Somehow I feel like I just fell victim to a shell game. I would be interested to hear your thoughts. At a minimum, even if the outcome is same for this student, the increase in number of applicants must necessarily add uncertainty as to the qualifications of the other students applying thereby lowering any given student’s chance of acceptance by one of Carey’s two basic assumptions. Put another way, if there are more balls in play its more difficult to predict the outcome.

It certainly FEELS like more than a mirage! Ask high school seniors.