United States: Rush for blue chip varsities

On April 21 1,000 high-school students flocked to Yales Old Campus to be greeted by a three-storey, inflated statue of the universitys bulldog mascot, Handsome Dan. With their admission to the university just secured, it is their turn to be feted during Yales ‘Bulldog Days with everything from meetings with famous professors to pizza parties and yes, the handsome hound in the flesh.Admissions season has just concluded, and it has been another record year. The big four — Harvard, Princeton, Stanford and Yale — all took less than 10 percent of their applicants for the first time ever. Harvard accepted just 7.1 percent of those who applied. Explaining the absurd competition at the top is easy. A (peaking) population bump has increased the college-aged cohort for the past 15 years just as higher percentages of students have decided to enter university. Add to that two other factors: an intensifying obsession with big-name colleges rather than the ones that are cheapest or nearest to home, and the rollout of big new financial aid packages at the best universities. These trends have profoundly altered the selection process in lower ranks. So-called almost-Ivies such as Bowdoin and Middlebury also saw record low admission rates this year (18 percent). It is now as hard to get into Bowdoin, says the colleges admissions director, as it was to get into Princeton in the 1970s. This has boosted the cachet of what used to be safety schools for Ivy-league rejects and the selectivity of universities even lower down the pecking order — which, after all, educate most American undergraduates. Rarer in lower tiers, though, are good financial aid programmes. Fees will be an even bigger worry this year as the sub-prime mess savages family finances. And lenders are now unable to raise cash in uneasy debt markets. Even federally guaranteed student loans may become less accessible: Sallie Mae, the largest lender, has just announced that it will charge fees for loan applications. Some congressmen want the government to buy up securities backed by student debt, and the federal education department may step in as a lender of last resort. Even so, outside the top tiers, the big winners in this years competition for applicants will be the ones who cause students least anxiety about how they are going to pay for all that learning. History curriculum battles Three years ago Bob Huff, a newly elected Republican assemblyman, voted for a Bill that would have pressed schools to teach pupils more about Filipinos role in the Second World War. What could be wrong with that? he remembers thinking. More knowledge is no bad thing — and besides, California contains more than 1 million Filipinos. But then Huff, who sits on the states education committee, realised that almost every group was pushing its own history. Indeed they are, now more than ever. No fewer than seven Bills that would alter how history is taught are currently before Californias legislature. One is another measure about Filipinos. The others would…