Harvard University (my alma mater) and other of the country's elite colleges have once again revealed a record low admissions rate this year, mostly hovering at 5% or so. Many parents bemoan that their prized children are up against a rigged system, slanted against them by foreigners taking up precious seats. Is that really what's cut the admissions rate in half, over the course of a generation? Our social media polling suggests yes. But the statistical data is not as sympathetic, which we'll review with a general example.
Let's say what you see in this simplistic graphic is a historic make-up for 100 students at a top 10 college. 12% acceptance rate for domestic students. But when the cream of the crop foreign students have applied, they had only a 6% acceptance rate. Domestic students didn't feel threatened as foreign students made up only a modest 7% or so on the incoming class, added something to the learning environment, and the low acceptance rate for foreigners allows the entire college's blended acceptance rate to boast slightly more competitive at 11%.
Fast forward to today and the 5% acceptance rate, which again is half what it was historically. In the bottom example in the above graphic, we show how this could be done if it were solely at the hands of foreign students (who now make up about 15% of the student body now instead of 7%). The number of foreign applications would have to swell by a factor of 11 in order to drive down the blended acceptance rate to 5%. That's not possible. And even if so, it has no practical bearing on the acceptance rate of domestic students since domestic students are still the bulk of allotments!
Now let's look at the top example of the same graphic immediately above. If there were no rise in the number of foreign applicants and simply the extra allotment towards them (15%, from 7%), then domestic student applications would have to grow by a factor of 3 in order to drive down the blended acceptance rate to 5%. And in fact many domestic students are carpet-bombing Ivy Leagues with many more generic applications versus before, given the ease of 1-click standard applications. One should only apply to 4 schools and would still have a >99% chance of being accepted to where is appropriate. If one applies to 15 or so colleges instead and their acceptance rate only gets cut in half (as is the case now), then for the most part this isn't a disaster. Basically they didn't do their homework in selecting schools, and so the school staff did it for them. And this scenario also implies they have an even lower acceptance rate of 4%.
Let's instead now assume it is some combination of both factors since the reality is more demographically diverse students are applying and being accepted. In this case, both domestic and foreign applications would grow by a factor of 2. Not unreasonable. And this would actually benefit domestic students since their acceptance rate would now marginally rise from 4%, to 5% since some of the selectivity is also on foreigners.
The paradox being domestic students should want foreign applications since it increase their own acceptance rate that "offline" works into the school's blended 5%. And even if the foreign student body and applications remained at steady from when they were 7%, the acceptance rate would only rise by 1 or 1.5 percentage points (again because there are simply more domestic students suddenly applying en masse to all sorts of dream schools that were never a good fit).
So domestic students go from a 12% acceptance rate a generation ago, to now 5% (a -7 percentage point tightening). But only -1ppt of that -7ppt tightening might be because of the student body shift towards more foreign students. Yes of course there are a lot of moving parts beyond what we described above, but for parents to think their children are suddenly being pushed out of Ivy League consideration because of foreigners, need to take a deeper look at whether their child really ever was at that level. Fearfully looking at published statistics in the news only bolsters one's false perceptions.
Now let's look at the top example of the same graphic immediately above. If there were no rise in the number of foreign applicants and simply the extra allotment towards them (15%, from 7%), then domestic student applications would have to grow by a factor of 3 in order to drive down the blended acceptance rate to 5%. And in fact many domestic students are carpet-bombing Ivy Leagues with many more generic applications versus before, given the ease of 1-click standard applications. One should only apply to 4 schools and would still have a >99% chance of being accepted to where is appropriate. If one applies to 15 or so colleges instead and their acceptance rate only gets cut in half (as is the case now), then for the most part this isn't a disaster. Basically they didn't do their homework in selecting schools, and so the school staff did it for them. And this scenario also implies they have an even lower acceptance rate of 4%.
Let's instead now assume it is some combination of both factors since the reality is more demographically diverse students are applying and being accepted. In this case, both domestic and foreign applications would grow by a factor of 2. Not unreasonable. And this would actually benefit domestic students since their acceptance rate would now marginally rise from 4%, to 5% since some of the selectivity is also on foreigners.
The paradox being domestic students should want foreign applications since it increase their own acceptance rate that "offline" works into the school's blended 5%. And even if the foreign student body and applications remained at steady from when they were 7%, the acceptance rate would only rise by 1 or 1.5 percentage points (again because there are simply more domestic students suddenly applying en masse to all sorts of dream schools that were never a good fit).
So domestic students go from a 12% acceptance rate a generation ago, to now 5% (a -7 percentage point tightening). But only -1ppt of that -7ppt tightening might be because of the student body shift towards more foreign students. Yes of course there are a lot of moving parts beyond what we described above, but for parents to think their children are suddenly being pushed out of Ivy League consideration because of foreigners, need to take a deeper look at whether their child really ever was at that level. Fearfully looking at published statistics in the news only bolsters one's false perceptions.
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