Talk:College admissions in the United States

message: "In addition, colleges such as Hampshire College, Beloit College, Pitzer College, Sarah Lawrence College, Bennington College, New College of Florida, and Reed College offer experimental curriculums."
Is this an exhaustive list?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 220.255.250.44 (talk) 06:12, 29 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Experimental Curriculums 

message: This subsection should only be in articles that deal with college rankings, so I am removing it. 71.232.140.185 04:54, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I reverted this edit as the section is both notable (since it is a current event) and clearly related to college admissions. Please discuss on talk pages before reverting information which complies with Wikipedia policies. -Classicfilms 05:50, 19 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  2007 rankings 

message: Why are these sections needed? The Overview section now reads like a poorly written version of the Higher education in the United States article that distracts from the actual purpose of this article, and the List section is merely a link to the actual list. I propose deleting them and putting the Application process section below the lead. Also, a section on the history of the process in the U.S. and more flesh about how different colleges view it, not to mention the huge amount of controversy over the 'applications frenzy' is necessary.Classicalclarinet (talk) 14:44, 26 December 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Overview / List 

message: As more and more young people are applying to college, the competition for admissions has increased greatly. I hear people say things like, "I would have never gotten into that school nowadays" because of the increase in applicants. This article (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/education/17admissions.html) from the NYtimes (Jan '08) makes some good points about increased admissions.
It points out that the population of college-aged people is swelling. In 2009 the largest group of high school seniors in this nation's history, 3.2 million are going to graduate. 
It's now common for prospective students to apply to several schools. From the Nytimes article, "There was a time when kids applied to three or four schools, then to six or seven schools, and now, 10 or more is not uncommon,” said John Maguire, a higher education consultant."
I think this significantly increased compeition is highly notable and not even touched on here. It's a recent development, I feel sorry for kids now, more and more are going to college but less are accepted by the schools that they want to get into.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.167.40.9 (talk) 04:11, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: No mention of competition?

message: The two topics -- College admissions in the United States and College admissions counseling in the United States, have much in common content-wise; both cover the admissions process, players (guidance counselors), application process and choices (ie Early decision etc). The first article (May 2012) is only 16K in length, with few references; the second (to be merged in) is about 100K with many references. So the combined article may be 116K -- that is, not too long. I think having two separate articles confuses people, like, what's the difference between them? (possible difference => more focus on admissions counseling, but I am thinking is this could easily be part of the combined article). I proposed merging this "counseling" article into the shorter-titled one. I wrote much of the "counseling" article but also I think it needs a better organization plan somehow, so if a merger is approved, then I would like to do it, but I will try for a more-sensible and workable outline. --Tomwsulcer (talk) 11:01, 2 May 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: Update. Merged in new information. I kept most of the material from both articles but trimmed a few places where there was some duplication. There were sections on the criticism of the college rankings in the shorter article which I tightened considerably, since I felt it was mostly off the topic, and the ranking-criticisms is better handled in-depth elsewhere. In addition, there was a whole paragraph on the Common Data Set in the shorter article which I reduced to a sentence, since it seems that it is again mostly off the topic of College admissions in the US.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 22:00, 3 May 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Proposal to merge in content from [[College admissions counseling in the United States]] 

message: Nice photos guys! But, um, wtf?Thedarkfourth (talk) 17:48, 11 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  pictures down top right 

message: I did not write the below; I found it in an HTML comment on College application.  It needs sourcing, but otherwise is an interesting kernel to start a History section on this page.  (From my limited familiarity with other countries' admissions processes, it appears to apply to the U.S. only.) -- Beland (talk) 20:37, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
replies: text: If the information is already in another article I don't think it needs to be in this one, too.Flyte35 (talk) 23:55, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  History 

message: In the 1800s, college admissions requirements included subjects such as Greek and Latin, which were taught by very few public schools; the pool of applicants was effectively limited to students who had graduate from "preparatory schools" whose role was specifically to meet college entrance requirements. Around the end of the 1800s, the College Entrance Examination board was formed and colleges, notably Harvard under Eliot, began to use entrance examinations that evaluated an applicant's academic potential. In the 1920s, interviews and essays were added in order to shape the pool of entrants to fit the social and ethnic preferences of the schools and their alumni. Photographs were required on applications from about 19xx to 19yy, to assist admissions officials in determining the race and ethnicity of applicants; this requirement was dropped when advances in the civil rights moment made open racial discrimination unacceptable.... Nope, I guess I'm wrong about that, "optional" photographs are apparently still solicited by colleges...
:If the information is already in another article I don't think it needs to be in this one, too.Flyte35 (talk) 23:55, 27 August 2014 (UTC)
thread_title: Draft content

message: Universities where Americans can study, in English, outside the U.S. Source here.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:09, 6 November 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  Saw this 

message: Adding an entire section with this change based on a list of party schools seems to violate WP:UNDUE and WP:BALANCE; maybe trimming it to one line?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 21:33, 17 April 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  additions about list of party schools 

message: There are dozens of SFN references to some source named "Mamlet" but there is no actual citation for these footnotes.  In other words, they are all (probably 50 of them) technically unsourced citations.  Hopefully the person who added these citations is still watching this page and can provide the source.  I would volunteer to fix it but I have no idea who that reference could be. LaurentianShield (talk) 21:07, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok I might be able to fix it, but editors who have been traditionally editing this page need to pay attention because it is kind of a mess.  Apparently what happened is there was a list of references using the SFN citation procedure, although evidently even that was faulty.  I see some old revisions in 2014 where the references are listed, but on first glance it appears there is not "ref=harv" parameter -- or for some reason, anyway, the link does not "drop down" as it should.  Then in the mean time evidently someone else deleteded these references altogether.  So I think I can pull them up, but I don't have time to check each citation against the text. LaurentianShield (talk) 21:17, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: The Mamlet and Vandeverde source I read in a bookstore; it is here. Problem is, the reference was listed in a "Further Reading" section, which got chopped by some editor after a while, along with Dunbar's book and a few others. The reference is reliable.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 22:22, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks Tomwsulcer!  I never doubted the reference BTW.  I added in the ref=harv so that the SFN works the way it is intended.  I did see that there was some good faith edit a while ago that merged in the suggested reading, which was improper.  The way I have it now is the way the SFN template recommends doing it.  Please comment further here if there are any issues.  Some of the other references ,ay need to be added back also, I will investigate. LaurentianShield (talk) 23:06, 6 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks  for your astute handling of these issues.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 00:07, 7 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: This article has a major problem which someone else needs to fix

message: I myself am far from a subject matter expert on this page, but I am watching it based on an edit I did. Tomwsulcer made a good faith edit of what I thought was a good general point, and it was immediately deleted with the comment "an op-ed is not a good source for anything other than the author's opinion".  I definitely disagree that this is a criterion for not being a "reliable source", which is what matters here.  Furthermore the Op-Ed piece refers to another study, and I think the point that Tomwsulcer was making is an important point in general.  I don't want to get myself involved in an edit war (like I say I am not an SME by any means) but I like the edit and want to make a statement in support of it. LaurentianShield (talk) 01:45, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, it was in the NY Times, and yes it was an op-ed, but it was based on a solid study, and there are additional sources now. Personally, I'm rather cynical that there will be any change of policy by college admissions departments, but who knows.--Tomwsulcer (talk) 12:13, 21 January 2016 (UTC)
thread_title: Recent quick deletion of an edit

message: The recent changes here have removed some colleges (eg TCNJ, Rutgers) while adding others (Bates etc). I think it's important to keep the dates of the data in the title -- the results were from roughly 2012 and are getting old. I think what is needed is a rationale for inclusion -- some easy-to-agree-on criteria for what qualities or attributes of a college that suggest inclusion. If criteria are too broad, the list might become so long to be unmanageable (or we could make the list into a separate article). Ideally the statistics should be up-to-date and referenced -- with a reference for each college right in the chart (not at the top of the chart -- MIT's reference is on the table title and it really doesn't belong there. A minor issue is using decimals, like in Bates College have a decimal point -- ideally all numbers are all rounded to a whole number (best bet in my view) or have one decimal point to allow for easy comparison. I used to work in market research and the decimals, in my view, are distracting and suggest a level of precision that is not warranted. Any thoughts here?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 12:57, 7 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problems with recent changes 

message: This article basically reads like a booklet written by a private citizen to force opinion on college admissions. The entire article featured unclear charts (now fixed), and outdated information (partially updated but there is more work to be done.) Here are Wikipedia guidelines to be considered when editing this article.
::: To see how articles are supposed to sound and read as per Wikipedia guidelines click here.
::: To see how to properly and concisely covey information (especially statistical information) click here.
::: To see how charts are supposed to be formatted, with regard to the previous colorization, (should more be added), click here.
::: To see how to stay on topic and avoid extremely detailed and obsessively noted subtopic of college admissions click here.
::: Overall check out: Wikipedia:Writing better articles, and make sure this article is easy to navigate.
Thank you. Wentworth Washington (talk) 18:26, 15 June 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Edits to better the article 

message: In consideration of the revelation that users Trenta5, Odwallah, Yorkshiremany, FirstLordofDowningStreet, Wentworth Washington and maybe more were all sock puppets of the now banned DonSpencer1, I am reverting this page back to 02:09, 29 May 2016‎ edit‎. This date was chosen as it reflects the last state of the page prior to DonSpencer1 engaging in sock puppetry to manipulate page.74.70.116.187 (talk) 02:35, 24 September 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Reverting Page 

message: This article doesn't give any info on whether US colleges have fixed enrollment limits or are flexible in how many students they admit, depending on how many interesting applicants they get. Interestingly the article has absolutely no charts or even any statistics on this and doesn't use the word "place" at all and the words "spots" and "vacancies" only once or twice. These terms also seem to be rare in US media whereas they or their foreign language equivalents are very common in other countries, including English-speaking ones. 
Does this mean US colleges simply admit more students and increase class size or hire more professors when they get and admit a larger number of interesting applicants, or is this only a vocabulary difference between US English and other kinds of English and other languages? In other countries there is a very real concept of (and even panic about) the existence of only a certain very precise number of university places, whose number is often publicly known, whereas this concept doesn't exist or is at least not talked about publicly in the US. 
US English of course does have similar expressions to those in other kinds of English and in other languages such as "she got a place at X" etc. when talking about individuals, but even then "she was admitted to X" is more common, and one never seems to hear talk about how many places any college has for freshmen.--Espoo (talk) 21:55, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Interesting question. Thanks for bringing it up. My (uneducated) guess is that class sizes, that is, the number of spots or places or slots open for students, is fairly fixed from year to year, and depends on factors such as dormitory space, classroom size, but that there is room for a little variation, most likely. That is, if an incoming batch of students looks particularly appealing, then the college may open up a few more slots, perhaps by doubling up some students in dormitory rooms? But my overall hunch is that the admissions department probably gets fairly firm limits from the college's administration about how many positions it can offer each year. It is perhaps strictest at the elite colleges, and maybe state schools too (which are guided by law?) but maybe varies more at second and third tier liberal arts colleges, which may be struggling to get enough incoming students for reasons of profitability. But this is my guess -- why not look into this issue and add to the article as you see fit?--Tomwsulcer (talk) 22:57, 12 October 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  enrollment limits 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified (January 2018) 

message: Here, it is even noted that it happened "Tuesday"  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:447:4101:41F9:8109:D7B1:C458:FB0D (talk) 14:58, 4 July 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Obama Policies related to Race Admission Have Been Repealed

message: I’d like to float the idea of adding a criticism section  to this article. Especially after Covid and the college bribery scandal in 2019, there have been countless opinion articles and books and statements by politicians regarding criticisms to the college application process in the US. There are some to do with racial and financial equity, standardized testing, essay writing, obsession over rankings and prestige, feeder high schools, and loads of other things. It literally could go on for so long. (Without saying too much and doxxing myself, I applied to a lot of selective colleges last year and am now in my first year of undergrad at one, so many of these issues are currently ingrained in my brain.)
The only thing is that this article is kind of bloated already and a few of the criticisms we would mention our kind of interspersed elsewhere. It would also be a challenge deciding what to include and what not to include. 
Also not helping is the fact that many relevant articles tangentially related to college apps are slightly underdeveloped in regards to the actual process (eg. Advanced Placement) so there is some info that exists but isn’t on Wikipedia, which we ought to track down somehow. 
Thoughts? Ultimatescapegoat (talk) 09:44, 30 October 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adding a criticism section (2021)

message: This article did a good job of being relevant to its topic. There was no point in the article were I felt that it distracted me with information different to its topic. I liked how this article was neutral and was broad enough to cover almost every college in the country. There didn't seem to be any claims, or frames, that appear heavily biased toward a particular college/university, which allows for freedom of choice by the reader to look into universities and colleges they prefer. Alvarez003 (talk) 06:46, 26 April 2022 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: Introduction to Policy Analysis

message: — Assignment last updated by Scottja22 (talk) 21:05, 16 February 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Wiki Education assignment: Introduction to Interdisciplinary Studies

message: Highbeam, now defunct, simply captured news stories from regularly published sources. (It was sort of an archive of those sources.) Those original sources, not Highbeam, thereby provide the WP:Verification of information posted. So when we say "via highbeam research" we are posting an archive of an archive. I submit that WP:DEADLINK is fulfilled when we tell the reader what the original source was and provide the archived Highbeam link. Adding "via" only clutters the citation.  – S. Rich (talk) 01:05, 2 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  "Via" Highbeam Research