College applications back in the old days

[LAblondeGPhi]

Originally Posted by melindawarren

Yeah. Mailers need to stand out. I saved every piece of correspondence I received from colleges--even schools that just sent me lookbooks and such--and I got rid of over 300 pieces of mail when I finished high school (not admissions packets or anything. Just "come check out Hole-in-the-Wall U!" stuff). There were only a few schools that sent truly nice-looking mailers. One looked like another and another after that for the most part (I could only tell schools apart if they had snow/sun/mountains). The more a school can do to make printed information stand out, the better. My favorite was CalArts. SOOO pretty!

Oh man, at one point in high school one of our teachers had us fill out some kind of college survey something, and from then on I was DELUGED in random mailers from every random college. I think I got the most mail from St. Olaf College, which I had never heard of, and have heard very little of since. I vaguely remember being sent random bits of schwag, too. I think St. Olaf sent me a compass key chain. Ya, not winning any points with that one.

Originally Posted by PeppyGPhiB

I'm OK with my school spending it on nice mailers, because I know that's one way they reel in students/parents/alumni. But I dislike how much they spend on palm trees and landscaping, and stupid stuff like speakers in the planters around campus!

But the Pepperdine campus is goooorrgeous, and I can't even imagine the landscaping costs for that big lawn off PCH. I especially think the national flags display every fall is very pretty.

[IUHoosiergirl88]

In the 2006-2007 admissions cycle, I applied to 4 schools: Purdue, Miami of Ohio, IU, and Yale. I got in to 3 of the 4 and made an easy decision to go to IU. The Yale admissions decision was months after my other one, so I waited to commit until I heard from them

[Still BLUTANG]

in 95-96 i applied to maybe 8 or 9 schools. I attended a public school with a fairly competitive magnet program. I was middle of the pack in that program, but when compared to the total school population I was high achiever (by no means top 10, though).

I paid application fees and test reporting fees out of pocket, and recall thinking I have to really pick carefully where I'm applying...this isn't free! It was easy to get carried away because we started doing online applications around that time - otherwise I probably would have applied to 15 schools.

random side note: I also recall friends who applied to ~30 schools just so they could SAY I was admitted to X, Y and Z... and I was awarded ____ in Scholarships. Some classmates (including my godbrother) were offered totals of close to $1M. I'm still salty a little bit about that. LOL.

[pshsx1]

I think it's really weird that most students at my school (Lawrence Tech) did not research any other schools nor apply to any other schools.

I did research on 30-40 schools and applied to 5 (Lawrence Tech, Michigan State, Texas A&M, Texas Tech, and Baylor) with a wait list from A&M.

I wish school was a lot less expensive, though. I have had a rough undergraduate experience (from an academic stand point) with two major changes and I feel nothing but pressure to graduate right now. I want to enjoy my experience and take my time to absorb as much info as possible so I can make an educated decision about what I want to do for the rest of my life.

But that's not an option. I just need to get a diploma, pay my debts, and suffer. I wish colleges (and families, for that matter) realized that the incentive to finish college becomes lessened as the financial burden makes it seem like it isn't worth it. :/

[pshsx1]

On the note of automatic acceptances, I'm not sure how I got into Michigan State... I turned in half an application and got an acceptance letter a few days later.

Not upset and I kind of wish I went there, but still perplexed. lol

[NutBrnHair]

At the beginning of my senior year in high school (1978) I was going to:

Southwestern at Memphis (now known as Rhodes College) -- I put the decal on the back window of my 1977 Pontiac Sunbird. I was ready. A couple of months later, I remember thinking perhaps Southwestern was too small and decided to go to:

Samford Univ. in Birmingham, AL -- I scraped off the SAM decal and replaced it with a red and blue Samford decal. All was decided. It was Samford for me. Later in the Spring of 1979, my college counselor mentioned that some of the students who went there from my high school were unhappy there and felt that Samford might be a bit too strict (read: Baptist). I then decided to go to:

Mercer Univ. in Macon, GA -- I removed the Samford decal and placed the bright orange bear decal on my car where it happily stayed for the next 4 years!

[psusue]

I researched hundreds of schools (it was actually my graduation project, I had a rating system and everything). I really wanted to go to a Christian school with a good language program, preferably (I was a French major at the time). I applied to Philadelphia Biblical University, Houghton College, Penn State, and Wellesley College. I also half applied to Middlebury College but never finished my application when I realized I had no desire to go to school in Vermont. I was rejected from Wellesley but got into the others.

In the end though my mom came down with an ultimatum; she would not pay for a Christian school (we do not share the same faith). As such, it was Penn State for me! Honestly though, I look back and wonder why I didn't apply to other schools, but because my mom works for Penn State and I get a discount I knew that I couldn't really justify going to another school unless it gave me something Penn State couldn't (i.e. a faith based education or an excellent language department).

Overall though I think it works out for the best. It feels amazing to be part of such an amazing family tradition (I'm a third generation Penn Stater, my grandma went here), I don't think I would have been any happier anywhere else, and in less than a year I'll graduate with about 17K in debt and a degree. Considering what some of my friends are going through (degrees to religious schools and 75K in debt), that doesn't sound bad to me.

[AUAZD2001]

Growing up I always knew I would attend college. My parents never put any pressure on me to get into "top" schools. Summer before junior year I went on a road-trip with my folks visiting state-school campuses in Alabama within 4 hours drive of my hometown. We visited Auburn, Montevallo and AUM. I remember the trip was very spur-of-the-moment and when we showed up to each campus we found out that because we hadn't made an advance reservation we couldn't get a campus tour. The admissions offices were polite enough to offer us some brochures, but I'm pretty sure they were laughing with their co-workers about how dumb we were for not making an appointment. We didn't even have reservations for a hotel! We just stopped at Holiday Inns along the highway until we found one with a vacancy.

Our fist stop was Auburn. As my dad and aunt had both graduated form Auburn I had visited that campus several times growing up. We went downtown and had a Toomer's Lemonade and watched students walking on campus. I listened to my dad tell stories of his days in pharmacy school studying late at night at the Kopper Kettle before it was reduced to rubble. And how the War Eagle Supper Club had the best pizza in town.

We moved on up US Hwy 280 to visist Montevallo, but by the time we arrived in the late afternoon (in the summer) the admissions office was closed! We managed to pick up some basic brochures in the lobby and drove around the campus. I was in love with the Old Southern Charm of the campus and my mom liked that it had a much smaller enrollment than Auburn and she thought I would feel more at home there and have smaller class sized so I could do better academically. My dad said he heard it was a "suit-case" college and everyone packed up on Fridays and headed home for the weekend.

We found a hotel with a vacancy and spent the night somewhere near Selma and the next day went on to Montgomery to check out Auburn University-Montgomery. Mom had heard they had a really good program for students with disabilities (which was important as I am ADHD). She also liked that it was a smaller campus than Auburn. When we arrived at the admissions office we were informed that we couldn't get a tour that day because it was Thursday and tours were only on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. The woman in the office took pity on us and arranged a meeting with the director of the Students with Disabilities office.

When I took the ACT a few months later I selected for my scores to be sent to the schools I had visited that summer, but when it came time to apply for college there was only one place I was interested in attending... Auburn. I applied and got in and never bothered trying to get in anywhere else. As far as finances were concerned my parents had not saved for my college, but the were able to pay for most of my tuition and room and board. I did take out a Stafford loan to cover some of my tuition expenses. I borrowed a little over $17,000 and I am paying it back slowly, but surely.

[ADqtPiMel]

I grew up in a working-class family in a rural, low-income area, and went to public school my whole life. I moved to a more suburban, middle-class area for high school -- but still, an area where maybe 70% of the students go on to attend college, and a large percentage of those live at home and attend the nearby community college. I applied to more colleges than anyone else I knew -- Harvard (reach), Miami Ohio, Butler and UVA (matches) and Dayton and Ball State (safeties).

I knew from the get-go that I was on my own paying for college, so I knew it was very likely that I would end up at Miami, since it was the only in-state state school I applied to. I applied to Harvard just for kicks and was rejected. I was accepted at UVA but liked Miami just as much, if not better, and Miami was cheaper. I basically applied to the rest of the schools just to see what they'd give in financial aid.

I had almost all of my tuition covered by scholarships and took out a loan to cover living expenses when I lived on campus. I moved off campus junior year and worked full-time to pay rent and living expenses. I graduated owing very little, and I know I got a comparable education to what I would have had at UVA for significantly cheaper. I think if more kids had to pay for their own education, they'd be a lot more practical in the college search.

[DeltaBetaBaby]

Originally Posted by Low C Sharp

I think the shocking new admit rates at the Ivies and their peers are over-hyped. ~20 years ago, let's say the admit rate was 22%, and now it's 7%. In practice, for the vast majority of applicants, there's no practical difference between those two patterns. It was tough to get in then, it's tough now. Yes, the numbers look very scary, but this group of schools has been a long shot for almost all high schoolers since the 70s. Then as now, most freshmen meet their classmates and think, "I must have been the admissions mistake."

The difference is that a lot of schools went to need-blind admissions, and made a huge effort to diversify their student body. Let's be honest, for kids from certain backgrounds, back in the day, 22% really meant something higher.