The College Admissions is Raising its Bar

 This year, the looming anxieties that seniors must face when applying to colleges didn’t budge, and neither did the privatized aspect of most Ivy and UC institutions. It seems as though highly regarded colleges are only accepting students who have essentially accomplished career-level achievements, such as writing books and creating start-ups, and even then, these kids are being rejected from their dream schools.

The typical high school student is only a legal adult for about six months of their pre-college education; they are still kids. Being accepted into college is many people’s first true step into adulthood, as the overwhelming stigma and expenses around university are making that first step wobbly and unstable- it’s making them trip. High schoolers are children for the majority of their high school career and won’t have fully developed minds until, typically, they are beyond their college years. Assuming that kids can achieve world-changing success by the mere age of 18 is unrealistic to every student and an unfair burden to place upon the shoulders of teens everywhere; especially when the outcome that it affects is their pursuit of higher education. 

As students enter their high school years, two parallels emerge. Some students dedicate all of their time to proving themselves worthy of a higher education. These students go above and beyond to excel academically and, by Senior year, are captains of sports teams, and extracurriculars, and might have written a book. When high schoolers try to meet the unrealistic expectations of the Ivy Leagues are exhausted if and when they are deferred, rejected, or fall anything short of what their hopes lead them to. On the other hand, the students who try to maintain some aspect of work-life balance are left in a puddle of imaginary mediocrity because they haven’t devoted their time to converting to impossible standards, though they might uphold strong grades. Mira Wagabaza (’24) gives her opinion on whether or not colleges expect too much from their applicants. 

“I think that colleges do expect a lot from their applicants,” Wagabaza said. “Now, everybody who's applying is of such a high caliber because everybody applying has done so much. Colleges expect so much and it just keeps increasing every year, how many APs you have to take, your extracurriculars, and stuff. It's just out of your hands.” 

Colleges are advertising their low acceptance rates so heavily that students feel as though it is impossible to get in years before they even apply. Hundreds of thousands of applicants scramble to apply to handfuls of colleges each year, while, colleges, creep their numbers lower the more students apply.

According to Forbes, Harvard had increased their acceptance rate from the previous year, moving from 3.41% to 3.59%. However, many other Ivy League’s such as Yale, Dartmouth, and Columbia all decreased their numbers, and Dartmouth has reached a record low. Dartmouth drew the largest number of applicants they’ve had in years- deciding to drop the acceptance rate by nearly an entire percentage.

Some could argue that marketing a college as exclusive challenges students to prove to themselves and others that they can get in. But, ultimately, over-competitive and hyper-exclusive mindsets don’t fester healthy foundations for education- or teenagers’ first steps to adulthood.