Elite Colleges are Getting Harder to Get Into, So There's An Excuse

Did you ever dream of attending a top-tier university with insanely valuable credentials and a diploma that infinitely more valuable than the wall on which it is hanging? Chances are you’re still dreaming about it because those top schools are accepting less students.
The Los Angeles Times reported that some of the most prestigious colleges in the country are accepting a smaller and smaller pool of freshmen applicants, some of which are at historic lows. Brown University’s campus in Rhode Island, for instance, only accepted 9.2 percent of those who applied for freshman admission last year. Stanford University only accepted 5 percent of applicants, a 15 percent drop over the last 20 years. Other top-tier universities reported similar dips in enrollment, according to the report.
So what’s to blame for this sudden drop in elite enrollment? Good students are always trying to enroll in as many schools as they can but students seem to be blanketing the enrollment system with multiple applications across a wide spectrum of possibilities. The schools themselves are also blaming the drop on higher than usual enrollment tryouts due an influx of overseas students.
We’re no economic experts but we suspect money may have something to do with it. It would be interesting to see how many students with the money and influence to buy their way into the system are part of those percentages. We’re not saying that the system is unfairly skewed to those with the kind of money it costs to get through four years of college. If we could wrap our heads around those kinds of numbers and statistics and understand the basics of economics, we probably wouldn’t be doing this for a living.