
For Sale: Sat-Takers’ Names. Colleges Buy Student Data and Boost Exclusivity - andygcook
https://www.wsj.com/articles/for-sale-sat-takers-names-colleges-buy-student-data-and-boost-exclusivity-11572976621?mod=rsswn
======
Kludgist
This article isn't about the fact that colleges are buying SAT scores. Yes,
that has been done forever. The article is about colleges using mass mailing
to dramatically boost applicants and decrease the number of people admitted.

They have some interesting interviews with college admissions staff and
information about Vanderbilt specifically using this tactic to decrease their
admit rate (which makes them look better in ratings).

This certainly isn't the only thing driving the massive increase in
applications. There are far more students taking the PSATs, more students
sending out far more applications (out of paranoia? Pressure?), and more
foreign applicants.

To some extent, I think it's a positive feedback loop that doesn't require
advertising at all to drive it. If you know the admit rate is low (because of
all the applications being sent), then it's in your best interest to send out
lots of applications -- throwing spaghetti at the wall. Then the admit rate
gets lower...

Personally, I'm not entirely against this trend. Growing up in a rural area
with parents who didn't go to college, I had no idea what was out there. I
figured I'd probably go to the state university (which was a good school!),
but didn't think much about it. When I started getting mail from colleges, it
was a huge help and broadened my horizons. I ended up going to a field-
specific college across the country, and really loved it.

Not only that, but it was exciting and inspiring that these colleges I had
only heard about in movies and books were reaching out to _me._ I just never
thought that would happen. I'm sure I'm not the only kid from middle-of-
nowhere West coast who was really inspired by that.

~~~
therealx
How long before someone writes software that walks you through a series of
questions (a la turbotax, but more in depth and less shit), and then spits out
a series of applications. Of course you'd hand check each one, but until
colleges collude on their into process, it seems possible.

~~~
myoldaccount
This exists; the Common App centralizes applications for 800+ Colleges

~~~
meddlepal
This may have changed in the last decade but I remember while the Common App
had mostly the same basic fields the College's using it could still attach
several custom supplement applications to it (eg essays). So it's not a truly
common system.

~~~
kop316
In talking to the parents of some students applying this year to colleges, the
common application is truly one common app, including the same essay.

The consequences of this is now it is truly much easier to apply to a bunch of
schools for undergrad.

Note, this is not the same for grad schools. I have been applying to graduate
schools, and they seem to have their own systems (but there seems to be a
common platform called "Applyweb").

~~~
collegespam
I've written between three and ten custom answers for each college to which I
have applied. For the schools with more, there are usually three extra essays
plus a bunch of short-answer questions. I've also applied to a good few honors
programs, which have about three additional essays apiece.

The only thing the common app does is standardize the name/dob/address form
that's two pages of paper anyway. The essays, which are by far most of the
work, are mostly different. Oh, and the schools all still charge full
application fees.

~~~
CydeWeys
It makes sense that the essays might be different since the schools are
different and are looking for different things.

------
collegespam
Throwaway account. I'm currently working on college applications, and found
pretty annoying. I've been getting well over a dozen e-mails a day as well as
two or three items of physical mail every day, all on colleges, all for the
past three months. I've been getting a lower level of the same thing since
early high school when I first took the SAT. I made national merit scholar and
did well on the SAT; that's when it really picked up. None of them have really
convinced me to apply (except for Vanderbilt; they put their financial aid
stuff right up front). However , I did get a few useful ones. Most of them
were notifying me about info sessions for the colleges. There's also a box on
the SAT where you check whether or not you want this or not, though I don't
remember if it's opt-in or opt-out.

Most of what I get is useless (though as national merit results get processed,
I've started getting serious scholarship offers). What I don't like is that
most of them are just send stuff to drive up application numbers and drive
down acceptance rates, because yes, that's a thing (even though it sounds
horrible, and every rejection makes a kid feel like garbage). Mail is cheap, I
guess, but I wish colleges would relegate their communications to those they
actually wanted.

~~~
utdpromospam
(Throwaway account to respond to your throwaway account) If you’re interested
in CS, Engineering, Entrepreneurship, with National Merit, check out UT
Dallas. They have a full ride for National Merit, and especially if you’re
interested in computer science, there’s a honors program just for CS. Its not
a top school or anything, but if money is at all a concern, definitely look
into it.

~~~
acollins1331
I don't need to make a throwaway account to tell the parent that they probably
don't want to live in Texas.

~~~
social_quotient
Geez, what’s wrong with Texas?

~~~
texasthrowaway
I think a lot of people will find Texas (and many other states, with a few
exceptions) to be very American, for lack of a better word.

This globalized world seems to give many an international perspective on
things, and it's hard not to want to live in a place with cultural diversity
and influences. Places like New York, Seattle, LA and SF feel way more
international and diverse, and once you're there, you don't imagine yourself
going back to, say, a place like Dallas. Nothing intrinsically wrong with it,
but different strokes for different folks. I'd personally feel like I had
traveled back to the 20th century if I had to move there.

~~~
selimthegrim
There was a tweet going around about the recent ALCS to the effect of “The
Yankees are losing to Houston because it’s the most diverse food city in the
country and New York has 23 chains named Sweetgreens”

~~~
CydeWeys
NYC is an unbelievably diverse food city though. You can get anything here. So
that tweet doesn't really land. I'm not saying Houston isn't good either
(haven't been), but NYC is great by that metric.

~~~
selimthegrim
[https://twitter.com/jon_bois/status/1185045786813448192](https://twitter.com/jon_bois/status/1185045786813448192)

------
currymj
I wish university rankings didn't exist, or at least were never taken
seriously by anyone. Failing that, I wish the people making the rankings would
just outright admit they're making a subjective list, so at least universities
wouldn't waste resources and make these sorts of bizarre decisions trying to
game the metrics.

~~~
ineedasername
Rankings are awful. They give the impression of constant distance between the
ordinal values, e.g., #10 is as far below #1 as #310 is below #300. In
reality, things are much more tightly clustered. There are about 20 truly
superior schools, and they are much closer to each other than a 1 through 20
ranking would imply. There's not much difference between a 20 and a 10 or even
1.

Then there's about 100 second-tier very, very good schools that are similarly
clustered. After that, something like 1000 schools are good, solid schools
with little tangible difference between number 900 and number 300.

Ordinal rankings throw all of this out the window, and students & families end
up worrying about choosing between a school in the top 25% or top 27% etc.

Non-ordinal _ratings_ instead of rankings would be better, and better show
this sort of clustering, but it would still ignore extremely important
differences. For example, there may be a school that's fairly middle-of-the-
road, okay but not great on an all-around basis, but their proximity to New
York City makes their performing arts programs a stand-out top 5 program in
the region. But all you get from a US News ranking is that they're rated #768.

~~~
CydeWeys
"They give the impression of constant distance between the ordinal values,
e.g., #10 is as far below #1 as #310 is below #300."

I don't think most people interpret rankings like this. It's generally
understood that the distribution of large ranked lists is not linear, and that
there's more room between the entries at the top than in the middle.

~~~
ineedasername
No, with respect, you're incorrect. They do interpret rankings like this. My
job is in higher Ed analytics. I have quite some years in it, and before that
was my primary job I spent a decade of working in college admissions offices.
My first role was in a 50/50 position handling technology and analytics needs,
and the other half in customer-facing operations. My comment here is base on
many hundreds of conversations with families going through the college
selection and application process. This is indeed how most of them look at
rankings. "Why should we choose your school when school X half an hour away is
ranked 10 positions higher?" This is often the thinking.

~~~
CydeWeys
Fair enough, you're in a better position than me to know. I guess I'm making
an is/ought error.

------
dpcx
I don't think this is new - I'm pretty sure it's how colleges have been
getting the names of potential students for _decades_.

~~~
dsr_
It's a major profit center for College Board. It's how I applied to five
schools and was accepted at seven of them -- more than twenty years ago.

------
imglorp
Hint to test-takers and their parents: Opt out of all the contact options when
you sign up for the test. Otherwise you'll be receiving 10 kilos of glossy
school junk mail a month, hundreds of emails, and a slew of cold calls.

~~~
RandomBacon
Better yet, sign up with a new email address used only for college-hunting.
Same when buying a car, etc. The "spam" is crazy.

Maybe even get a VOIP number for the same reason.

------
droithomme
As is pointed out, there's a box you check if you want to opt in to this. It's
called the Student Search Service. It's not a secret and they tell you exactly
what is disclosed.

[https://studentsearch.collegeboard.org/about-your-
data](https://studentsearch.collegeboard.org/about-your-data)

If you previously opted-in and change your mind opting back out is simple.

[https://studentsearch.collegeboard.org/opt-
out](https://studentsearch.collegeboard.org/opt-out)

------
Bostonian
Harvard has been specifically encouraging unqualified black students to apply
to lower their acceptance rate for black applicants to show that they don't
discriminate in favor of blacks. I am _not_ saying all of their black
applicants are unqualified.

[https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/is-harvard-leading-
on-...](https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/is-harvard-leading-on-black-
applicants/) Is Harvard Leading On Black Applicants? By ROBERT VERBRUGGEN
National Review November 5, 2019 10:39 AM

------
lmkg
It's not just the SAT, either. I took the GRE in order to go back for my
Master's. I got a veritable deluge of emails telling me all about wonderful
programs all across the country.

MBA programs were disproportionately common in the advertisements I received.
I can guess a few possible reasons. I fit a demographic profile (returning to
school after 8+ years in industry). MBAs are profit centers for universities.
Business programs ought to be able to optimize business things like
advertising reach and market segmentation.

Most email blasts were short-lived, but a few schools still email me on the
regular, a year after I finished the program I originally took the test for.

------
bkudria
The company I work for is trying to make this process a bit better - it's
called RaiseMe: [https://raise.me](https://raise.me). These name buys are
pretty untargeted, and often include only superficial demographic information.

The application and admission process is difficult to navigate and not
transparent, and ends up disproportionately impacting the chances for
immigrants, minorities, and first-generation college students of finding a
good match.

Our hypothesis is that by surfacing available aid earlier, in smaller amounts
("microscholarships"), and allowing students to explore less-well-known
colleges, and opt-in to having their information shared, engages students
throughout their HS career, pushes them to achieve academically, and nets them
a college better suited for them. We found this to be the case over the last 5
years, given our 300+ college partners and usage in 3 of 4 US high-schools.

Our college partners find spending their acquisition budget with us to access
(opted-in) rich student data to find interested students that match their
profile results in a greater ROI than spending their budget on spamming
students and parents with glossy brochures.

(We've also found there to be opportunities to help transfer students navigate
the transfer process, and help enrolled undergraduate students from dropping
out.)

By the way, we're hiring.

------
wills_forward
Can we buy a list of colleges who are buying these names? Only seems fair.
It'd be an interesting data point to know which schools aren't so desperate.

------
gumby
This is a very clever externality attack. The benefit to the institution is
described in the article.

But it costs the institution nothing: the recruited, unqualified applicant
pays an application fee which presumably completely, or more than completely
defrays the cost of dealing with the application (a significantly under
qualified applicant can be removed from the pool very quickly, at low cost).

The applicant not only pays the cash fee but invests some actual time (and
emotional energy)*

Really little different from popular contemporary business models such as
Amazon not paying for the time spent in loss prevention queueing, Macdonalds
and Walmart paying "wages" so low that their employees need government
financial support, not paying drivers wait time or door dash et all stealing
their employees' tips. Now these colleges are shifting the externality onto
people they _don 't_ plan to do business with!

* Perhaps the new common application reduces or eliminates the wall clock time?

------
the_watcher
Is this not opt-in on the part of the students? When I took the LSAT, it was
_definitely_ an opt-in (possibly default opt-in, don't remember specifically),
and it was pretty clear to me that the reason to opt-in was that schools might
offer application fee waivers. I did well enough on the LSAT that I was able
to apply to only schools that waived the application fee, plus two others that
I really wanted to attend.

While I think this practice should definitely have an opt-out, I'm not really
sure if I think it's a problem that colleges market themselves aggressively.
This is probably hard to rigorously study, but my hypothesis is that
application rates (particularly to better schools) are going up because
applicants are realizing that there is _extremely_ little financial cost to
being rejected from a "stretch" school relative to the total cost of a degree
and substantial upside, should one get in.

------
yellow_lead
At least when I took the SAT, there was a checkbox giving permission to spam
you with emails. The wording is of course nondirect and the exact type of
thing you would need good reading comprehension to detect.

------
musicale
It is an amusing paradox that the same set of colleges, sharing the same set
of applicants, can become more "exclusive" by the simple mechanism of having
applicants submit applications to more schools.

Conversely, if each applicant simply applied to a single school (the final
accepting school), it could produce the same attendance result, but with a
100% acceptance rate for every school.

This makes me think that acceptance rates are fairly meaningless.

------
Hitton
Am I only one annoyed with the design of the first graph in the article? What
happened to simple web design?

------
jimktrains2
Why is SAT not capitalized? Another one of hackernew's automatic title editing
gone wrong?

------
_raoulcousins
What's new here? I took the SAT in 2001 and checked a box saying it was ok to
be contacted. Got tons and tons of junk mail from overpriced colleges I'd
never heard of.

------
zenit-mf-1
What about the opposite effect : College may loose some good candidates who
auto-censure themself because of the admission rate is low?

------
musicale
> "Why did you recruit me if you weren't going to let me in?"

"To boost our exclusivity" seems like a poor answer.

------
peter_retief
This is simply disgusting, imagine the amount of hurt and harm to those people
deliberately chosen to be rejected!

------
kome
When people will stop using standardized testing?

