As college applications soar, so does the pain of rejection
By Deb Kollars - dkollars@sacbee.com
Published 12:00 am PDT Friday, April 11, 2008
An unusual season of disappointment, confusion and heartbreak has settled over the nation's college-bound crowd this year.
In a domino process of memorable proportions, a record-breaking crop of high school graduates has led to a record-setting stream of applications to top tier universities. That, in turn, has triggered more students than ever being placed on wait lists or rejected.
For many, it hurts.
"I told my mom, no boy can ever break my heart the way the rejection letter did," said Stephanie Yu, a senior at Franklin High School in Elk Grove.
Yu has a 4.2 grade-point average and nine Advanced Placement courses on her résumé, along with a healthy lineup of activities including swimming. She applied to five colleges, four in the University of California system: Berkeley, Los Angeles, Davis and her favorite, San Diego. Her fifth application went to a state college, California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo.
Three weeks ago, the rejections started coming. In the end, there were five.
The disappointed teenager is now regrouping. She is writing letters of appeal. She is considering starting at a community college and transferring to the University of California later.
And this weekend, Yu and her parents will visit UC Riverside, which has turned up as a new option because UC guarantees all eligible California graduates a spot somewhere in the system. This week, UC mailed invitations to students such as Yu to attend Riverside or UC Merced, which are less crowded.
Other students have found themselves in an academic limbo this year: They have been accepted by some schools and must send in an acceptance deposit by May 1. But they have been put on wait lists at others and won't know until after May 1 whether they can enroll.
Sofia Cortopassi is a senior at Davis High School navigating these uneasy waters. She has a 4.6 grade-point average, strong test scores and numerous extracurricular activities ranging from opera singing to an internship in the state Legislature.
She applied to 18 colleges with strong music and political science programs. Ten said yes. Four turned her down. And four – including her first choice, Wellesley College in Massachusetts – put her on a wait list.
When the word from Wellesley came, it was such a letdown that Cortopassi waited two days before telling anyone.
She has since chosen a path both practical and philosophical. Next week she will visit two colleges that sent acceptances and that she finds appealing: Wesleyan University in Connecticut and George Washington University in the nation's capital.
"I figure, if they didn't accept me right off the bat, maybe it's not a good fit," she said of Wellesley.
Others at her school have taken things harder.
"At Davis this year, there are a ton of wait lists and a lot of rejections," she said. "Some of my friends had to take time off school just to deal with it."
According to college admissions directors and school counselors, the number of high school graduates has grown steadily as children of the baby boom era reach adulthood. The trend was expected to peak this year or next, but the intensity this winter came as a shock.
"It was the magnitude that surprised us," said Susan Wilbur, UC's director of undergraduate admissions. She said the growing count of graduates has been accompanied by an increase in students meeting UC's tough entrance requirements, creating even more competition.
Overall, freshman applications to UC rose 9.2 percent this year, from 87,213 to 95,201.
The University of California, Davis, which last year admitted nearly 60 percent of freshmen who applied, had the biggest jump – 15.6 percent. UCLA, where fewer than a quarter of applicants were admitted last year, saw freshman applications exceed 55,000.
At elite private schools across the country, the story has been the same.
Last week, Princeton University announced the most selective "admit rate" in the school's history – 9.25 percent. Princeton had a record 21,369 applications for the class of 2012 and offered admission to 1,976 individuals.
Stanford University said 2,400 students were chosen for admission out of 25,298 applicants this year, the largest candidate pool in the school's history.
Mary Hesser, guidance director at Christian Brothers, a private college preparatory school in Oak Park, said it has been a roller coaster year for seniors.
"We got some amazing admits," she said. "UCLA. UC Berkeley. West Point. Stanford. Duke. Georgetown." The big surprise, Hesser said, was how many rejections UC sent.
"There were lots of tears in my office," Hesser said. "It was heartbreaking. These kids are well qualified. I've been writing a lot of letters of appeal."
Besides demographics, applications also have been pushed upward by the ease of applying online and the growing popularity of the "common application," an online system accepted by 300 colleges.
"Kids can apply to 20 schools as easily as 10," said Scott Hamilton, whose Future Stars College Counseling Center helps students through the application process.
Students are aware of the growing competition, so they apply to more places, he said: "Part of the frenzy is feeding itself."
It creates a tricky situation for colleges, Hamilton said. Schools typically send out more letters of admission than available slots, knowing some students will decline. The goal is to match up the number of seats that need to be filled and acceptance deposits from candidates. Admission types call this their "yield."
With so many students applying to numerous schools, predicting an accurate yield gets tougher. As a result, some colleges are expanding their wait lists.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, for example, increased its wait list from 499 students last year to this spring's 739. Freshman applications to MIT were up 8 percent over last year – 13,396 for 1,040 slots, said Stuart Schmill, dean of admissions. He sent 1,554 acceptance letters; if that pool proves too small, he will turn to the wait list.
Walt Wild oversees college and career centers in the Roseville Joint Union High School District. He noted that the admissions crunch is only playing out in a top tier of about 75 schools. Most of the 3,000 colleges in the country have a more balanced entry equation, he said.
"The opportunity for college is definitely there," Wild said. "It's not that kids aren't getting into college. It's just more difficult with the more prestigious schools."
Despite the fierce competition, the past few weeks have brought joy and relief to many high-achieving students.
Vinh Bui, a senior at Franklin High and friend of Stephanie Yu's, was accepted at four top schools, including Stanford, and is on a wait list for Columbia and MIT.
When he learned Stanford said yes, Bui was jubilant: "I jumped around for 10 or 15 minutes."
At school, though, he hesitated to tell his friend because he knew how sad she was.
-From the Sacramento Bee
