Sophomore year when we all took the PSAT for the first time, we were asked whether or not we wanted to provide our information to colleges in order to receive emails from interested colleges. Of course, we checked yes, but not knowing the real reasoning behind this question. It was found by the Wall Street Journal that College Board had been selling student information to elite colleges for 47 cents a name. About 2 to 2.5 million names are sold a year. Last year, Tulane bought 300,000 names and Vanderbilt bought between 100,000 and 200,000 names.
Information sold includes names, ethnicity, approximate PSAT and SAT scores, family college history as well as personalist lists for each school to “recruit”. Colleges use this information to boost their exclusivity to students and raise their national ranking. Most of us and our parents see colleges with low acceptance rates as more prestigious than those with a mid acceptance rate. Along with it, they encourage students to apply by sending automated emails. Even if a student isn’t in their range, they still apply and pay a 65 to 85 dollar fee, only to be rejected. These emails have increased the number of applications the top universities get and in return, lower their acceptance rate to make the appearance of being selective. The fear of rejection also pushes students to retake the SAT until they get what they consider to be a good score. This cycle only produces more profit for College Board and individual universities.
A College Board spokesperson defended this practice saying, “Search helps launch a student's future by connecting students with college and scholarship opportunities at the time when they begin thinking about postsecondary education, so they have time to get to know various colleges and make informed college choices”. While this may be true, I personally think that Search is a way for College Board and universities to make more money than ever. Considering how low admissions have gotten, Stanford with barely 4%, I wonder how "competitive" it will be years from now.
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I agree, in the end College Board is just benefitting itself by sending this information. Furthermore, I've noticed that colleges are beginning to send students emails giving them "priority status." I've certainly started receiving these, but upon further research, I realized that colleges send these to everyone, regardless of their academic achievements. Like you said Meera, colleges just want people to apply only to be rejected, which leads to a lower acceptance rate. Watch out for "priority status" everyone.
ReplyDeleteThis is really interesting, as I hadn't actually known that colleges bought information from the College Board. It makes sense, though, because that way both the College Board and universities can profit. I've definitely noticed tactics colleges use to get lower acceptance ranks, and these practices benefit colleges greatly as they gain the application money and more prestige. These may be some of the reasons why the UCs may start not accepting College Board tests, and trying to get other colleges on board as well.
ReplyDeleteThis is very interesting. I believe that the college board and the whole system of standardized tests are a corrupt system that we are going to see become obsolete in our lifetimes. Since the college board is the only firm that I am aware of that specifically sells info to colleges through the use of AP classes, subject test, and standardized test, would that mean they are violating the antitrust act?
ReplyDeleteThis was an eye-opener to me because I honestly had no clue that colleges and universities were making money while sending these emails. Now I am not surprised that my inbox has been full of colleges reaching out since my sophomore year. Similar to Tripp's question, if College Board is selling this information, can they sell other information too? At what price was College Board start sending test scores? I feel like when we were younger checking that box was meant for colleges to see us BETTER students, but do they really?
ReplyDeleteI agree. We are essentially being marketed to schools by the College Board, which certainly benefits the College Board but it also benefits the schools. As you mentioned, the schools get more applicants from people receiving letters which come with application fees. In reality, both the schools and the College Board are benefitting from this, since colleges don't have to accept any student they don't want to, they get more applications, reject more applications, and boost their image by having a lower acceptance rate. The only people who aren't benefitting is the students who aren't guaranteed spots at schools that advertise to them, and they have to pay to take College Board tests and their information is sold to a third party.
ReplyDeleteIs this really the case? Since I created the CB account, I have been receiving many emails from colleges. Now 90% of my emails are from different colleges. To be honest, there are so many that I don't even bother to read them. I always thought these colleges were sending a message to everyone? Because some colleges in my eyes are "good colleges" that are difficult to be admitted at my level, they should not send emails to me.
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