Changing policies

With more children of baby boomers graduating from high school and applying to college than ever before, it's likely to be another year of intense competition for admission, especially at highly selective schools.

Cornell's applications are up 7.5 percent this year and an incredible 57 percent since 2004. North-western's applications have climbed almost 14 percent this year and 54 percent in just the last three years. University of Chicago has 14 percent more applications this year, and Amherst is up 17 percent. Harvard has had a 19 percent increase in applications this year, which will lower last year's 9.1 percent acceptance rate to 7.7 percent this year.

Harvard's new financial aid policy, which is designed to make the school more affordable for middleincome as well as lowincome families, probably encouraged students who never thought they could afford Harvard to apply to the school. Families with incomes under $60,000 would not be required to contribute to the cost of their child's education, and even families with incomes up to $180,000 would only be required to pay 10 percent of their income toward college costs. Yale has also just announced a similar expansion of financial aid, which may result in more applications to that university next year.

Is this new generosity motivated by the desire to make a private college education accessible to nonwealthy families? That's probably part of it. Perhaps the fact that Congress is asking why universities like Harvard and Yale spend very little of their huge endowments is also encouraging wealthy institutions to voluntarily make changes before they are imposed.

Here in California, University of California campuses have received 121,000 applications, an increase of 9 percent. Applications to Cal State campuses are up 11 percent. The combination of more applications and tight funding because of the current state budget deficit means admission to popular UC and CSU campuses is likely to be tougher than ever.

There's another development that may also impact UC admission. The UC is considering some changes in admission requirements, including lowering the minimum GPA from 3.0 to 2.8 and no longer requiring students to submit scores from two subject tests. Because some students, particularly those in families or schools where there isn't a strong college-going culture, are not always informed about the subject test requirement, eliminating that requirement would enable more students to be UC eligible and diversify the applicant pool.

However, as currently proposed, the new policy would end the guarantee that all eligible students would be admitted to at least one UC campus. Instead, all students who meet basic eligibility requirements would be guaranteed a review at all campuses. Admission at many UC campuses could become even more selective. The new policy is not a done deal yet, so stay tuned for updates.

Americans are not the only ones obsessed with getting into college. Students in other countries are also competing for limited spaces at their most prestigious universities. In England, an acceptance rate of about 25 percent at Oxford and Cambridge is higher than Harvard and Yale, which in recent years have accepted fewer than 10 percent. But students may apply to as many American colleges as they want. British students need to choose carefully, as they cannot apply to both Cambridge and Oxford.

They may be on to something, requiring students to be more thoughtful and deliberate in their choices. In the U.S., anxiety about getting into college is leading some students to apply to 15 or 20 schools. Admissions decisions can seem arbitrary, and sometimes a student does get into one school after being denied admission at three similarly competitive schools. But applying to a lot of colleges doesn't guarantee that you'll be admitted to any of them. Choosing schools that are good matches and taking the time to prepare strong applications still yields the best results.

Audrey Kahane, MS, MFA, is a private college admissions counselor in West Hills. She can be reached at (818) 704-7545 or audreykahane@earthlink.net