Ignore college statistics

By Grant Calder

'It's a Great Time for Applying to College!"

This isn't the kind of headline that captures readers' attention, although it is true. Articles on college admissions these days are much more likely to have titles such as "Top Colleges Reject 90% of Applicants."

For the most part, articles focus on the staggering numbers of applications some colleges are receiving, students' steadily climbing grade-point averages and standardized test scores, and the insane lengths to which they - and often their parents - will go to improve their standings. The statistics may be accurate as far as they go, but they mask much more important points.

The students I work with at a Quaker day school are attending essentially the same colleges as their predecessors did 20 years ago. We still send kids to private universities, private colleges and state universities, and a few to art schools and conservatories.

In 1987, 13 students, or 21 percent of the graduating class, went on to attend so-called Ivy League colleges. In 2007, 17 students (18 percent) attended ivies. Given the horror stories about how much harder it has become to gain admission to these particular institutions, the numbers are pretty close.

Generally speaking, small colleges, because they are specialists, provide the best undergraduate programs. Small colleges are entirely, or almost entirely, undergraduate institutions. Their classes are smaller. Professors tend to know their students, and the students tend to be those who have actively chosen a more intimate, personalized style of education.

I have been visiting colleges for 20 years: wandering around campuses, poking into the corners, and talking to students, admissions officers and professors. Many colleges and universities have substantially improved their programs and facilities in that time. Almost all of them offer a much wider range of courses, majors, activities and services than they did 30 years ago, when I was in college.

In the small-college category, in particular, there are more excellent alternatives than ever, and many of them are still in the business of admitting students, which is to say that they have moderately competitive pools and can offer spaces to most of their applicants.

In 1987, 32 percent of the class at my school went on to attend small colleges. In 2007, 31 percent did. Here is an area of still-untapped potential. I hope to see more of our students choose small colleges over the next two decades.

Part of the reason small-college attendance rates have not increased for my group of students is that attendance at state universities has gone up - almost 22 percent of the Class of 2007 compared with 16 percent of the Class of 1987. This strikes me as a general trend and seems to be primarily a function of the escalating costs of higher education and its impact on middle-class families.

State universities - especially their honors colleges, which compete directly with the private colleges and universities - are a particularly good deal. Honors colleges in some ways attempt to create a small, liberal-arts college environment for a select group of students within the large state universities, strong evidence that the small-college model works.

There is a lot to be said for being a bigger fish in a smaller pond during one's college years, whether in a small college, an honors college, or some special program within a larger public or private university. There will be plenty of time to swim in the open ocean in graduate school and in the job market.

The numbers of college applicants are up, but so are the numbers of spaces, programs, scholarships, and opportunities in general for all sorts of students to study and earn an undergraduate degree.