WaPo: Georgetown becomes lone Common App holdout among top universities
Posted by: Sam Buckley in News, Vox Populi, tags: Admissions, College Admissions, Common App
Updated 6/23/11
Many current Georgetown students who haven’t repressed their memories of the college admissions process likely remember being frustrated to some degree by the number of colleges – including Georgetown – that refused to accept the Common Application.
Over the past several years, however, schools such as Brown, UChicago, UVA, Michigan and Columbia have joined the growing number of schools bowing to the pressure to give up signature applications in favor of the universal online application. With USC and Howard joining the pool of Common App schools, the Washington Post‘s Daniel de Vise reports that Georgetown is now the last top tier university refusing to accept the app (de Vise’s headline isn’t technically accurate, since MIT also insists on its own application.) According to Post, USC adopted the application after feedback from college counselors, noting that the Common App can make it easier for disadvantaged students to apply to schools.
However, Georgetown’s dean of admissions Charles Deacon has long been an opponent of the Common App, having previously stated that the App tends to encourage students to spam schools with applications and that the schools are being forced to change their process to keep their application numbers up with other top colleges. The Office of Admissions could not be reached for comment.
In an interview, Deacon argued that forcing schools to adhere to a common application diminishes the personal nature of college selection.
“We do feel that [the Common App] makes applying too easy, too homogenized, and not personalized at all,” Deacon said. “[...] In the end, students are being asked to differentiate and yet the process homogenizes them.”
Deacon stated that several schools that have recently adopted the Common App, including Columbia and Michigan, have had substantial difficulties with the ballooning application pool, with Columbia’s admissions office in particular being forced to hire outside readers in order to handle the increased load.
“We [...] are able to keep the size of the pool within some reason,” Deacon said, noting that Georgetown is able to review all applications with a full-time staff member and an alumni interviewer.
Deacon reiterated that by keeping a signature application, Georgetown reaps the benefits of a higher-quality applicant pool and better yield, with Georgetown’s Class of 2015 yield of 49% being the best in the school’s history.
“A lot of our policies would be different if we were focused on numbers or metrics,” Deacon said.
h/t: WaPo. Photo: Common App
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Glad the admissions office is sticking to it’s commitment and not subscribe to the Common App in an effort to game the process primarily for the sake of our USNWR ranking (ie a bump in applications almost assuredly would equal a drop in the overall acceptance rate). It should be conscious decision to apply to Georgetown and not simply involve checking another box.
HOWEVER, if Georgetown is going to continue to operate it’s own application, the admissions website needs to be completely redone. It’s downright embarrassing that the website is the exact same as it was five years ago when I applied and even then it was hard to use and severely out of date. I’m astonished that the admissions pages weren’t the first to be updated with the recent website overhaul. Get with it Georgetown.
I don’t remember the admissions website from five years ago (when I applied, too), but I do remember having to submit a paper application. Since the school now accepts online applications, this has to be some improvement at least, yes?
Also, I hate the common application. I liked that Georgetown forced me to consider whether or not I wanted to go to Georgetown and that it wasn’t just fishing around for as many applicants as it could find. I know fall semester senior year is stressful for high school students, but if you can’t handle taking a (really very) little extra time to complete a separate application, you probably don’t actually want to go to Georgetown and should find somewhere else (preferably cheaper).
Hurrah for Georgetown for standing up for their principles. The Common App is a cheap tool to boost applications without any significant improvement in the quality of the average applicant. Georgetown doesn’t need to stoop to this level to attract students.
@Eileen
Common Application = garbage in; garbage out. Most schools are factories. Learn a trade like plumbing and you’ll have a job when you graduate. Unless your daddy is a partner you’re probably screwed if you want to be a lawyer. Even lawyers are being replaced by software which scans for words and phrases. I’ll bet the majority of kids who graduate from college these days can’t even change their own oil or even check it for that matter. Too many women taking all of the jobs that men need to feed their families. What’s wrong? June Cleaver was happy. Great house, plenty of milk in the fridge, and if she was good she’d get the occasional pearl necklace from the hubby. I’m telling you life was so much better back in the day.
If that’s the regular “Beltway Greg” posting, wow…you’ve just lost any (small) amount of respect I ever had for you. Nevertheless, you’re engaging me directly, so:
1) I don’t want to be a lawyer, but thanks for the career advice.
2) I can so change my own oil. I can also change a tire and jump start a car. (I can also cook, clean, and care for children, which is probably important to you since you seem to be particularly attached to your gender binaries)
3) It’s the twenty-first century. Women also might like to feed their families; men are under no obligation to do so independently. Hey, if the wife gets a job, then the husband can be the one to hang around the great house all day drinking milk; wouldn’t that be swell!
4) June Cleaver was a fictional character. But if that’s allowable, Anna Karenina, Emma Bovary, and Edna Pontellier were all so unhappy that they had affairs and then killed themselves.
That can’t really be the normal Beltway Greg. If it is, then this is proof that the only reason you’re on this blog is to provoke students into arguing with you. Did your HBO subscription run out?
Whoa, spoiler alert(s)!!
I like the concept of requiring that applicants make a conscious choice to apply to Georgetown, but aren’t there some disadvantages to staying away from the Common App? I realize the concept of “gaming” the system to have a lower acceptance rate is stupid, and in the short it feels righteous to stand against that, but aren’t there long-term consequences for Georgetown’s applicant pool if the prevailing metrics value acceptance rate? If our ranking suffers (in itself not an important turn of events), won’t we get worse applicants and eventually our falling ranking, which began as an illegitimate comparison to schools that are dubiously improving their acceptance rate, will become legitimate with our falling quality of student? Just an idea. It may suck that this is the system, but do we benefit in any way from abstaining, except in some abstract moral argument that no one else is participating in?
Also, I can’t change my oil and who gives a shit. That’s about the worst measure of an effective society. Lots of people could change their own oil in the 1950s, right between getting home from their employer which practiced racial discrimination, and going inside their houses to beat their wives. I’m sorry if it makes me hopelessly effete, but I’ll make that trade any day.
Ahh, sorry! I (perhaps naively) didn’t realize there was anyone who didn’t know how those books ended.
Does anyone commenting actually remember what the Common App was like? Every higher-tier school that I applied to that used the Common App also had a pretty sizable supplementary application with essays. It’s not really like you can just check a box and apply to a million schools in a second, but it does at least save you the time of typing your life story over and over again (Name, Address, Parent Stuff, high school coursework, whatever).
@Eileen.
You seem like a good egg and yes I’ve read all of those books. Here’s the deal. Keep the noise down and pick-up the trash and nobody really cares. I lived in Foxhall Village in the late 80s early 90s and we never had a problem with the neighbors. We told them when we were having parties (even invited them) and ended the festivities by 11. We also picked up the trash and cut their lawns and shoveled their walks when it snowed. Once again, no problems. I’m pleased you can do all those things. Most problems/conflicts come down to a few easily identifiable finite resources. THe resource is peace and quiet. People don’t want to spend a $1M+ for a home and have to deal with Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch living next door.
Great point. Georgetown could easily add its school-specific essay as a supplement to the common app essay. Not to mention that Georgetown’s “about me” essay is pretty much the same as the common app essay. Why make everyone type out their personal info all over again?
Outside of JustSaying’s very valid point, let’s weigh pros and cons of switching to the Common App.
Pros
-Get more applicants, raising selectivity rate
-Said raised selectivity rate leads to increased prestige and higher ranking
-Higher-quality applicants become interested in GU
Con
-Lose this barrier to entry that perhaps means applicants want to go to GU more
I’d rather have more prestige than an honestly rather silly metric of interest which no other schools seem to concern themselves with (or even law schools, which are even easier to shotgun than undergrads that use the common app). Plus, if a student is decided as good enough by the university, what does “interest” matter? If they’re good enough to the University’s gatekeepers then obviously they’re a good addition. Plus, it’s not like we don’t have people transferring out as it is.
I think Deacon also mentioned when they interviewed him about this issue last fall that he doesn’t necessarily want more applicants because he wants to make sure admissions has enough time to devote to each applicant. I’m not sure how much time everyone gets now, but it is true that if GU had more applicants there’d be less attention to each one.
lol, get more admissions officers.
Honestly we are losing quality applicants because we refuse to take the common app. If Georgetown really wants to ensure people really are interested in GU, just add a large supplement. It’s what all the other schools do.
I think it has more to do with GU being cheap and not wanting to give them part of the fee…