Getting In Gets Harder

The international students being sought seems a bit unfair but I think it has many positives. If domestic students need financial aid, hopefully the college can grant it. But colleges are sort of businesses too; they need money to run everything and a reputation to keep attracting students. There is definitely a squeeze cause by int'l students, but they foster a broadening mind, in my opinion. Most colleges keep their international student level below 9%. Now what about legacies and sports applicants? I'd like to know just out of curiosity. It's curious that the article mentioned students from Asia and Latin America. Oftentimes, these students have had a much more rigorous high school curriculum than many Americans, so they are perfectly qualified.
All that aside, I agree that the whole process is hectic - but only if you're applying to top schools. As a senior going through the app process, I am a bit anxious about getting in, but I think I'm mature enough to handle rejection too. It's a fact of life. By the way, applying to top schools like Northwestern and assuming you will get in is the wrong mindset.

As a student myself at a respected, large University, I believe I've seen first-hand how this call for diversity has in some ways backlashed on the college admissions process. Although diversity creates a wonderful environment for academics as well as acquiring much needed 'soft-skills' for a globally competitive job environment, forcing diversity can often create its own problems. Sometimes it almost feels like reverse discrimination against the average middle-class, suburban, yet intelligent student. This I feel is not exactly fair, since we have very little control over our backgrounds, ethnicities, and places of origin. Being as diverse as a country as we are however, I feel that college admissions should trust in the fact that when picking that top pool of applicants based solely on credentials and merit, the diversity will naturally follow. Enforcing and advertising diversity is the problem, and I think it's time that college realize recruiting it isn't the answer, when they should instead be focusing on the already existant diversity at hand from the American applicant pool.

Buried at the end of the article is a large part of the reason why U.S. kids are having as much trouble as they are - International students. The diversity reason given by universities doesn't cut it - the U.S. population is the most diverse country in the world and there are plenty of "diverse" kids in the U. S. that could be recruited. The universtities are simply making the international students pay "full boat" for their education to get the increased revenue. It is reverse nationality descrimination based purely on greed and should be prohibited for any university recieving any state or federal funds.

It seems that American youth increasingly perceive college as "post-high-school high-school school," to paraphrase from "The Onion"--the taken-for-granted stage of education succeeding high school, to which even mediocre students feel entitled. It's no longer reserved for the most motivated and the best prepared. It's just what everybody does. How often do you drive through the fraternity ghettos of a big state school and wonder how this gutterball element of the population could possibly be affiliated with an institution of "higher learning?" So it's good to see colleges becoming more selective, re-asserting their rigor and purpose amid this flood of schlubs invested in it merely for the social experience, for the prospects of higher-paying jobs, or because Mama wants 'em to go. -Carl Willis