Part 1
The “College Crunch” is all about the Baby Boomer’s kids, right? Wrong!
Recently, much has been written about the admissions crunch at America’s top colleges and universities. The cause cited most often is that Baby Boomer’s created a mini population boom which is now reaching college age. This surge in the birth rate between 15 and 20 years ago has been labeled the Baby Boom “Echo” and it’s catching most of the blame for an unprecedented flood of applications to the nation’s most desirable colleges and universities. The unfortunate byproduct of this application flood has been a record increase in the number of rejection letters mailed out each April and the expected outrage of disappointed parents. It’s difficult to make it through a supermarket checkout line without encountering at least one magazine cover suggesting that your talented son or daughter has no chance of being accepted at the college of their choice. The current college admissions crunch hasn’t managed to eclipse Brad and Angelina for headline superiority just yet . . . but it’s giving them a run for their money. There’s just one problem, an examination of the facts simply doesn’t support the recent media hype!
It’s time that we removed the exciting media exploitation of this issue and take a cold hard look at the facts. Not only is it simplistic to blame the population bulge. . . it’s downright misleading. All of you who were making babies 18 years ago, relax. You’re off the hook; it’s not your fault. Well, at least it’s not entirely your fault or even most of your fault. Probing for the actual causes of the current admissions crisis, it turns out that it’s not anyone’s fault and it’s certainly not a crisis. Today’s admission crunch could be better described as the incredible success of several much smaller culture changes. Individually none is particularly dramatic but taken collectively the impact is more revolutionary than evolutionary. Headlines need an easily identified villain but the truth is that today’s college application explosion is simply the result of a dramatic, and generally positive, change in the admissions environment.
|
|