As of 10:55 am, I've already counted five "re-tweets" of the article published by both The Times and The Chronicle.
It's the hot-button topic of the season.
Application inflation and the pressures that college admissions are under to increase their applicant pool and decrease their acceptance pool.
Here's a little sampling from the article, entitled, "Application Inflation: Bigger Numbers Mean Better Students, Colleges Say. But When is Enough Enough?"
The numbers keep rising, the superlatives keep glowing. Each year, selective colleges tout their application totals, along with the virtues of their applicants.
For this fall's freshman class, the statistics reached remarkable levels. Stanford received a record 32,022 applications from students it called "simply amazing," and accepted 7 percent of them. Brown saw an unprecedented 30,135 applicants, who left the admissions staff "deeply impressed and at times awed." Nine percent were admitted.
To read the rest of the article click here. (Cautionary note: For senior parents and students who just filed applications to some of the schools mentioned in this article, I am fearful this article will only raise anxiety levels from orange to red. But at the same time, this article speaks the harsh truth about what's happening in selective college admissions. There are agendas in play that have nothing to do with education and nothing to do with the student's best interests.)
So what does all this application madness mean for Casady students?
That's the question I will attempt to answer carefully and thoughtfully in the next blog post.
Stay tuned.
