
College admissions officers rank prospective students before they apply - pseudolus
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2019/10/14/colleges-quietly-rank-prospective-students-based-their-personal-data/
======
skywhopper
This article is pretty sloppy, mixing up students in different parts of the
process. And given the headline about ranking students "before they apply",
the opening anecdote is seriously misleading. The student visited the
university website _after_ applying, so the tracking software linked the visit
back to the profile full of information the student had directly provided to
the school's admissions office. That feels skeevy, especially if they aren't
clear about it when you are applying, but the implication given the headline
is that this detailed profile just popped up the first time the student
visited the university website, which is not the case.

None of this is remotely new, of course. Colleges have been collecting
information from standardized test companies and market researchers and
building profiles of individual students for decades. I got mailboxes full of
solicitations to apply to X or Y school 25 years ago when I was in high
school, and now my daughter is dealing with the same.

Later, the article gets around to actual conflicts of interest and ethical
issues. But the headline and the opening story are grossly misleading.

~~~
mnky9800n
as someone who is on the research side of university education, i think its
rather outrageous how easily the admissions people can collect data on
students without any sort of informed consent whatsoever. If my research group
did it this way, we would be out of job, and even tenures could be in
jeopardy.

~~~
lukeschlather
It's kind of outrageous the hoops we make nonprofit researchers operating
transparently jump through when for-profit researchers who hide their results
can basically do whatever they like as long as they make money.

Of course, I guess that's the thing here: the admissions officers are working
for a nonprofit but they are a key part of revenue generation.

------
Merrill
2018 Cost of Recruiting an Undergraduate Student Report

Benchmarking data for recruitment and admissions costs and enrollment staffing
levels for four-year colleges and universities, based on a poll of campus
officials

[http://learn.ruffalonl.com/rs/395-EOG-977/images/RNL_2018_Co...](http://learn.ruffalonl.com/rs/395-EOG-977/images/RNL_2018_Cost_of_Recruiting_Report_EM-005.pdf)

Median cost to recruit a single undergraduate student in 2017 was $2,357 for
private 4-year institutions and $536 for public institutions. But there is a
lot more data in the report. The institutions reported on do not seem to be
the ones likely to have the most expensive recruiting campaigns, either
academically or athletically.

~~~
jfengel
Why on earth are they spending so much? Are seats going unfilled? Are the
"best" students that more profitable for them?

~~~
joncrane
They are trying to get students who can:

1) Pay 2) Stay the full 4 years

So yes, the "best" students (the ones who will pay full price for 8 semesters)
are very profitable for them.

~~~
nataz
This is the right answer for many small colleges in the US. Rate of attrition
and individual discount rate are what keep up the revenue and the lights on
year over year.

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simlan
Waste of money imho. But i guess if higher ed is strictly a business...

~~~
skywhopper
It's a business in that in the long run revenue has to exceed expenses, and if
it doesn't, eventually the institution will cease to exist.

I agree with you that most of these schemes are wastes of money, but spending
money on recruiting itself is a required part of operating a higher education
institution.

~~~
onion2k
_It 's a business in that in the long run revenue has to exceed expenses, and
if it doesn't, eventually the institution will cease to exist._

Or it needs to be subsidised by another source of money (tax, benefactors,
patents, research, sports, etc) if the benefit to society makes it worth
keeping around even if it runs at a loss.

~~~
Merrill
Those are all business revenues acquired by the government affairs department,
the alumni affairs department, the intellectual property legal group, the
provost for research, the athletics department, etc.

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JoeAltmaier
Your High School student receiving mail from colleges? Then they have been
'ranked' by a college before they applied.

The OP linkbait title is not actually surprising or new. Been going on for
decades.

~~~
nimajneb
This was my first thought. I just thought that this is how it works.

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dillonmckay
This (‘affinity index’) has been going on for at least twenty years, late
1990s.

The software seems a bit ‘better’ now.

------
gboone
Is it just me or are others also seeing a pdf file download unexpectedly from
this link?

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sysbin
College is becoming or already became what religion was thought to be a couple
decades ago. Necessary. The recruitment stage will block new developers with
potential unless already financially secure with a past 4 years of work
experience in programming. I cannot see the tide changing as more college
degrees flood the market and recruiters just take degrees as entries with
coding algorithm sit downs.

~~~
forgottenpass
There's multiple factors at play, and the everybody-must-go-to-college
bandwagon is certainly a big one.

I'd add a second one. It used to be the case that you could hire programmers
without screening based on degrees. But that was back when programming was
offputting and unappealing to anyone but nerds dedicated enough to become good
at it.

Now STEM is hot in the collective conscious, programming is seen as a well
paying job that's easier than becoming a doctor or lawyer, and corporate
efforts are trying to recruit as many people into the candidate pool as
possible.

~~~
sysbin
When did programming become seen as easier than becoming a doctor or lawyer? I
would say that isn't the case unless just creating basic websites.

~~~
joncrane
LOL in terms of bang for buck, being a Developer/Cloud Ops person is way more
lucrative more quickly than law or medicine.

Also keep in mind it's much more egalitarian. In law yes you can eventually
make partner at a white shoe firm and make millions (and make FAANG money at a
Xth-year associate) but the competition is staggeringly intense.

Let's say I'm 18, intelligent and ambitious, I live in the USA, and I want the
quickest path to making $500k per year and my choices are law, medicine, and
computer science.

I sincerely hope that for everyone on HN, the answer is a no-brainer.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
Mid-career quality of life is a thing.

The doctor making 200k stitching up chainsaw mishaps in some small city can
live on several acres (or in the nicest suburb of that city if that's his
preference), send his kids to private school, he drinks $2 milk and fills his
car up with $2 gas. Try living like that in SF or any other "tech hub" on
200k.

I'm not saying tech isn't easier and doesn't start off making big bucks faster
but doctor probably takes the lead around age 30 or so. If you wanna make big
bucks without going into management doctor seems like the better route.

~~~
lotsofpulp
I suspect most MDs will never take the lead versus a programmer making FAANG
level money. Just the health toll and lower quality of life alone from the
studying and work requirements in residency, as well as having to work off
hours and nights and whatnot put them behind. But also compounded returns on
investment from income in 20s would require a lot of income to makeup for in
30s. Which doctors do make, but in the recent past, not enough to surpass top
programmers.

Also, doctors have to deal with the byzantine paperwork nonsense in the health
field, and work with the general public as well as in places that have
infectious diseases floating around. And can't work from home as easily. I
wouldn't trade not having to work with the general public for a couple hundred
thousand.

