[Alumni-chat] Student Speeches; My Dream for Antioch's Future.

[Christian Skotte]

This article contains so many fallacies of logic that it's tough to figure
out where to start.

1) "The logjam is the result of supply and demand. The number of students
graduating from high school has been increasing, and the preoccupation with
the top universities, once primarily a Northeastern phenomenon, has become a
more national obsession."

Yes, the number of students graduating from high school is increasing, but
the increase is predominantly from low income students and students of
color: populations who attend college at dramatically lower rates than the
rest of the nation. Similarly, the "preoccupation with the top universities"
is a national obsession only in very small pockets. Applications at highly
selective universities continue to grow, but as a result of students
applying to more and more universities. The true growth sector in Higher Ed
(as measured by increases in enrollment) are at Community Colleges.
Unfortunately, most of the reporting that is done is about the stresses of a
relatively small number of students/families from very affluent areas. Look
through this article and many of the ones like it and you'll find students
quoted from places like Westchester County, NY; Bethesda, MD; or, if the
writer is truly interested in the "national" obsession, Grosse Pointe, MI or
Shaker Heights, OH. It is *not* a national obsession, it is an isolated
obsession that is geographically dispersed.

2) "Supply, [at the most selective universities], has remained constant.
Most of the sought-after
universities have not expanded their freshman classes."

This is a blatant fallacy. Although, as I mentioned above, most of the
growth in enrollments has taken place at community colleges, the most
selective universities have been increasing their offers of admission by
about 8% -- which roughly mirrors the rate of increase in the population
of high school graduates.

3) The "market" you identify is in applications, not in students. In that
market, Antioch is doing tremendously well. For the class that entered in
2006, Antioch had a 30 year high in applications, and Antioch has gotten
increasingly selective over the past five or so years. The problem is that
applications aren't what is important; matriculating students (and to take a
long view, generous alumni) are what is important. One can't assume that an
increase in applicants leads to an increase in students. Ten years ago, most
students applied to less than 5 colleges. Today, the average student applies
to over 8. That means that the number of applications has increased at a
dramatically faster rate than the number of actual college bound
students. These types of stories report on application numbers because they
are readily available this time of year. The actual number of students who
enroll aren't reported by schools for a few months. But the genre of
"college is so tough to get into" news articles are all published in April
and May.

4) Schools like Middlebury, Kenyon, and Pomona are not "getting more
selective." They've always been very selective. Again, increases in
selectivity at these schools is mostly a result of students applying to more
schools, not a greater demand for a liberal arts education. Antioch is
considered a "More Selective" school by the Carnegie Foundation, but even if
Antioch admitted every single student who applied, at most only 25% would
enroll. And as the number of applications each student completes continues
to rise, the percentage of admitted students who attend continues to go
down.

The one area that the author identifies that makes a bit of sense is this:

"There are other reasons, too, why these colleges and universities find
their stock climbing. To position themselves in the fiercely competitive
market, they have hired stronger faculty; built new libraries, science
complexes, dining halls, fitness centers and dormitories; and created
international programs and interdisciplinary majors. Many have also sought
to transform themselves from regional institutions to national ones,
recruiting across the country."

Antioch does not have the money to build new "libraries, science complexes,
dining halls, fitness centers and dormitories." A (more) interdisciplinary
curriculum has been instituted (of course its popularity among current
students may make it more of a liability than an advantage). But we've
always had top-notch international programs and we've always recruited
across the country, so no room for improvement there.

Considering all that Antioch has stacked against it, the place is doing
amazingly well. The truism at Antioch is that there's nothing wrong with the
place that a few hundred million dollars couldn't fix. Of course, every time
there's a budget cut, support staff are some of the first to go. To say that
the college has a skeleton student affairs staff is an insult to skeletons
everywhere. Without the out-of-the-classroom support that they need, our
students leave in droves. Check out Antioch's retention rates against its
peer institutions:
http://www.collegeresults.org/search1a.aspx?InstitutionID=201007 Pay special
attention to the student of color retention rates, because, as I mentioned
above, students of color are the fastest growing segment of the college
bound population. Those graphs are what scare me about Antioch's future.

In order to ensure Antioch's health, enrollment needs to increase. Yes the
admissions office needs to continue its hard work to increase incoming
student totals. But saying that Antioch is not doing well by virtue of this
very flawed article is misleading. In fact, by the standards set by this
article, Antioch is out-of-this-world outstanding. Application numbers have
doubled! Selectivity has increased by 20%! SAT scores and GPAs are up!
Quick, alert the media!

Instead of providing evidence of Antioch's inability to measure up, this
article simply shows how poorly reporters (yes even reporters at the New
York Times) understand and report on the phenomenon of college admissions.

Cheers,
Skooter




On 5/16/07, Mark Pomerantz <marklp2 at comcast.net> wrote:
>
> It's pretty sad that Antioch College is not doing better in this market.
>
> Mark P. '71
>
> May 16, 2007
> Ivy League Admissions Crunch Brings New Cachet to Next Tier
> By ALAN FINDER
> BETHLEHEM, Pa. - Lehigh University has never been as sought after as
> Stanford, Yale or Harvard. But this year, awash in applications, it
> churned
> out rejection letters and may break more hearts when it comes to its
> waiting
> list.
> Call them second-tier colleges (a phrase some administrators despise) or
> call them the new Ivies (this, they can live with). Twenty-five to 40
> universities like Lehigh, traditionally perceived as being a notch below
> the
> most elite, have seen their cachet climb because of the astonishing
> competitive crush at the top.
> "It's harder to get into Bowdoin now than it was to get into Princeton
> when
> I worked there," said William M. Shain, dean of admissions and financial
> aid
> at Bowdoin College in Brunswick, Me., who worked at Princeton in the
> 1970s,
> which is one of those benefiting from the spillover as the country's most
> prestigious colleges turn away nearly 9 out of 10 applicants.
> At Lehigh, known for its strength in engineering and business, about
> 12,000
> students applied this year. That is a whopping 50 percent increase in
> applications over seven years ago and more than 10 times the seats
> available
> in a freshman class of 1,150. The median SAT score of admitted students
> has
> climbed about 10 points a year in recent years, officials said.
> Students have generally been quicker to adapt to the new realities than
> parents have been, many guidance counselors said.
> "My sense is that parents are a lot more concerned with how the name is
> going to look to neighbors and family members, and there is a real sense
> among parents that it's almost embarrassing if your child has to settle
> for
> a lower-level school," said Carolyn Lawrence, a private college counselor
> and the author of a blog, AdmissionsAdvice.com.
> Some students who might have readily won admission to Lehigh, Middlebury
> College, Colgate University, Pomona College, Emory University or New York
> University just a few years ago are now relegated to waiting lists, left
> to
> confront the long odds that an offer of admission might materialize over
> the
> next month.
> John Dunham, a senior at the private Delbarton School in Morristown, N.J.,
> had trained his sights on Bucknell University and Lafayette College. He
> was
> rejected by Bucknell and put on the waiting list at Lafayette. His college
> counselor pushed him toward Kenyon College in Ohio, or as the counselor
> put
> it "the Williams of the Midwest."
> But Mr. Dunham, a solid student who played football and baseball in high
> school, decided to play baseball on an athletic scholarship at Central
> Connecticut State.
> "People are definitely broadening their horizons, because it's gotten so
> competitive," Mr. Dunham said.
> The logjam is the result of supply and demand. The number of students
> graduating from high school has been increasing, and the preoccupation
> with
> the top universities, once primarily a Northeastern phenomenon, has become
> a
> more national obsession. High-achieving students are also applying to more
> colleges than they used to, primarily because of uncertainty over where
> they
> will be admitted.
> Supply, however, has remained constant. Most of the sought-after
> universities have not expanded their freshman classes. The result, said
> Jonathan Miller, a senior at Mamaroneck High School in suburban
> Westchester
> County, N.Y., is that many classmates perceive institutions like Tufts
> University, Bowdoin, the University of Rochester and Lehigh in a new
> light.
> "I would say that high school students are looking more and more at these
> schools," he said, "the way they used to look at the Ivies."
> An A student with good SAT scores, Mr. Miller said that he considered
> applying to Brown University, among others, but that his guidance
> counselor
> discouraged him, emphasizing the tough odds. Mr. Miller decided instead to
> apply early admission to Tufts, and by December, had been accepted. He
> said
> he was delighted.
> Some students who have accepted offers from these colleges were rejected
> by
> the most prestigious universities. Others, keenly aware of the extreme
> competition at the top, decided at the outset to focus on colleges more
> likely to admit them.
> "I'm sure part of what we're seeing is people are saying, 'Well, if the
> Ivies and Duke are inaccessible, where do I go to get a similar academic
> experience?' " said Jonathan Burdick, dean of admissions and financial aid
> at Rochester.
> There are other reasons, too, why these colleges and universities find
> their
> stock climbing. To position themselves in the fiercely competitive market,
> they have hired stronger faculty; built new libraries, science complexes,
> dining halls, fitness centers and dormitories; and created international
> programs and interdisciplinary majors. Many have also sought to transform
> themselves from regional institutions to national ones, recruiting across
> the country.
> At Middlebury, applications have increased by 1,000 in each of the last
> two
> years; nearly 7,200 students applied this year, compared with 5,200 in
> 2005.
> At Kenyon, about 4,600 students applied this year, while 2,000 did six
> years
> ago. Colgate received 8,752 applications this year, compared with 5,852 a
> decade ago.
> And at the University of Vermont, a state institution, nearly 19,000
> applications poured in this year, compared with 7,400 seven years ago.
> Many
> of the most prestigious public universities like Michigan and Virginia
> have
> also become much more selective, especially for out-of-state applicants.
> The academic profile of students enrolling at these colleges is improving,
> based on average SAT scores and other data.
> "We're getting a remarkably gifted group of students," said Gerard P.
> Lennon, associate dean in the college of engineering and applied sciences
> at
> Lehigh, who has taught at the university for 27 years. The median SAT
> score
> in the combined verbal and math parts of the test is now 1,320 out of
> 1,600.
> (That is not counting the writing section of the test.)
> But the spillover at the second level has also created its own spillover;
> some students who not long ago would have won admission to these colleges
> no
> longer are.
> The admission rate at Pomona, in Claremont, Calif., was about 15 percent
> this spring; it was 38 percent 20 years ago. Bowdoin's rate was 18.5percent
> this year and 32 percent eight years ago. At Lehigh, 31 percent were
> accepted this spring, compared with 47 percent in 2001.
> High school guidance counselors have become the reality instructors,
> encouraging students and parents to think more broadly about colleges.
> "Now a kid who is applying to Harvard, Yale, Princeton is also applying to
> the Lehighs and Lafayettes," said Brett Levine, director of guidance at
> Madison High School in New Jersey. "It's the same tier, basically."
>
>