1. Highly Selective Admissions: Then and Now
Josh Bottomly, Casady School
Marshall Gray, Heritage Hall

2. Josh

3. Josh

4. Josh

5. Josh: Last 10 years there has been pronounced spike in admission volume and drop in acceptances.

6. Josh

7. Josh

8. Josh: 70% of high school graduates applying to college
Josh: 70% of high school graduates applying to college. Stanford got applications from 10,400 high schools – most in US.
32% are 1st generation college students. Major impact on community colleges!

9. The Common Application
Josh: 58% are women; 42% men. 32% are 1st generation college students!

10. Josh: International applicants are a CASH COW!!!!

11. The formula drives so much of the insanity that is going on in highly selective admissions today.
Tufts – wait listed everybody! (“Easier for our kids to get into Stanford than Tufts” – Philips Exeter)
“Yield” question – Demonstrated Interest comes into play – especially at EA schools and Regular admission.

12. “90% could do the work.”
Josh: Dr. Doug Christenson, Dean of Admission and Financial Aid at Vanderbilt: “Insiders Guide to Writing a Great Recommendation Letter.” Here is the Youtube video link:

13. If 90% can do the work that means 27,950 are admissible…BUT 23,600 admissible applicants will get wait listed or denied!

14. Josh: If 90% of Yale applicants are admissible, but 83% are not getting admitted, and if that same statistic is true at Vanderbilt but only 14% are getting into Vandy, then where do these Ivy admissible applicants go?
This also helps us understand why there has been a proliferation of scholarship, resources and high intellectual quotient expanding well beyond the Ivies! Example: American’s 25 New Elite Ivies:
This is why SMU is seeing their average ACT in early spike to 30!

15. Marshall: this will be your 1st slide.
Recent study showed that 70% of deans of enrollment have a background in business marketing or finance.
The challenge then within the admission committee room is for these deans of enrollment to triangulate the goals and objectives of the institution.
So many institutional and political forces in play behind closed doors!

16. Marshall: Most admission decisions at highly selective schools are made below the surface!

17. Marshall: example of “below the surface” metrics at Princeton.

18. Well Angled + Well Rounded
Marshall: Bill Fitzsimmons, Dean of Admission at Harvard, told us that like 85% of their admitted students were “well rounded.”
The issue then is if “well rounded” is enough. On occasion it IS. It seems that in most instances it IS NOT.
Well angled = Native American, female, engineering (admit to Duke and Rice) OR female who interned at OU publication, chief editor of Logos (creative publication), who wants to study Literary Publication at Yale (admit) …

19. Marshall: New financial landscape and realities…the money for high achieving/low income students is at the top!

20. Marshall: We really try to help our students/parents understand that the college world is divided between “need” based school and “merit + need” schools…and that the list of schools that meet “full need” and do not gap kids is shrinking. No loan schools, specifically, seems to be getting smaller and smaller each year. For a list of “no loan” schools visit this link:

21. Marshall: Common Data Set helps us see what a very selective school offers in terms of need AND merit.
But there is a difference between a very selective school that admits 50% and a highly selective school that admits single digits!

22. Common Data helps us see the clear difference between “need based” monies offered at highly selective schools and “non-need” (aka merit)

23. Marshall: Deans of Admission at Public Ivies made it unambiguously clear at the Harvard Institute that they are looking for “full pay” out of state kids. For an excellent article on “nonresident” realities at highly selective publics go to this link:

24. Marshall: There is always a tension as to WHEN a student applies in relationship to highly selective schools.

26. Discussion Time!

27. For a copy of this power point, along with links to the packet of articles and statistics, please Josh Bottomly at