Quote from the article:

"In fact, Abbott said he was pleased Stanford did not receive a double-digit increase in applications.

'Any increase in applications only impedes access to Stanford and increases the level of competition for admission that already necessitates that we deny more than 90 percent of those who apply,” Abbott said, referring to those who will be denied admission as 'thousands and thousands of applicants who are more than qualified.'"

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I cannot imagine that I am alone in feeling concerned about the direction in which Shawn Abbott, Dean Shaw and others are apparently wanting to take the Stanford Admission Office, particularly with regard to how this direction will affect undergraduate life at Stanford. Lately, the message coming out of Admissions has been that increased numbers of applications are a bad thing. Further, we are told that the solution to the "problem" of more applications must be to admit more and more applicants. But, of course! It seems university officials are gearing up to, in some way, relax standards and significantly increase the size of the student body. Though, of course, they will flatly deny any correlation between a much larger freshman class and admission standards lowered from what they ought to be.

Instead of viewing more applications and greater selectivity as a positive, Abbott complains that, "any increase in applications only impedes access to Stanford and increases the level of competition for admission." Hmmm... very interesting perspective for a so-called Director of Admission. Hey, someone's gotta keep that level of competition for admission from getting too high!

Rather than admitting only the very best applicants each year (which is what we expect him to do), Abbott seems to believe that his role is to "give access" to as many students as possible. Too often, applicants' "compelling personal stories" and having politically correct skin colors take precedence over legitimate academic ability and achievement. Partly for this reason, and as much as I hate to admit it, being admitted to Stanford is not necessarily the great accomplishment it is widely believed to be. Yes, this subject is supposed to be strictly off limits, but surely most people at Stanford know it is true, even if they will not admit it. I believe that the Stanford community ought to very seriously reconsider the direction in which we want to head. Stanford may not be a democracy, but that does not mean that we (current students and, especially, alumni) should not make our voices heard.

In any case, let us take heart in the knowledge that, although today's Stanford students may not all truly be the best nor the brightest, and although the quality of undergraduate life will likely diminish with ever-increasing freshman class sizes, at least more people will have Stanford degrees, and many skin colors other than white will be represented on campus. After all, skin color and awarding as many degrees as possible is what really counts, right?

I stand by my comments that any increase in applications will further impede access to Stanford. It is a simple fact. While sure, I get a satisfaction out of the idea that Stanford received more than 24,000 applications in its history, 24,693 (actually the number is now closer to 25,000) applications are more than enough to fill a class of 1650. If you don't think 24,000 applications is enough, you should spend 1 season as an admission officer and read more than 1200 applications, fall in love with half of them, and watch 90% of them fail to clinch a spot (and most for really no good reason, other than the reality that we have no room).
I have no involvement whatsoever in whether or not Stanford increases the size of the student body but the suggestion that we are moving in a direction to "relax standards?" You have to be kidding. If you analyze every quantifiable variable we publish on our website (G.P.A., class rank, SAT score, ACT score), you can see that our freshman class only gets stronger and stronger every year! More than 70% of our admitted students now score higher than a 700 on the SAT and 90% of them graduate in the top 10% of their graduating class.
Trust me, I am not "complaining" that applications are too high. I enjoy representing an institution with a 10% selectivity rate (probably 9% this year) and to competitively do everything possible to steal students away from Harvard, Princeton and Yale every April. But yes, the human side of me includes a little bit of empathy for the kid who is valedictorian of her class, has perfect SAT scores (literally), is captain of 3 varsity sports, works 20 hours a week, and is a brilliant writer, who calls me to ask "What more could I have done to get into Stanford." With an ever-increasing arms race for more and more applications (for no good reason other than a macho attitude to "get more"), I more frequently have to say "I am so sorry. I have no idea what more you could have done to get into Stanford."
Shawn Abbott ("so called" Director of Admission)

First, thank you for using the Common App and moving to the 1/1 deadline. Long overdue changes. It used to be a real pain in the posterior to apply to Stanford, especially the 12/15 deadline, which came in the middle of exams for most students.
Keep the Early Action option. Its only bad if it forces an early choice like Early Decision, and EA does not.

I empathize with Dean Abbott's unhappiness about turning down well qualified students (I judge HS students often in various competitions; not all the good ones can win), but at the end of the day getting the best pool of applicants is best even if you have to turn down more good ones because the resulting admitted class is stronger, and that has a big part in driving the quality of the education.

The most important issue is not the number of applications received. Rather, it is the criteria applied in accepting applicants.
Stanford, like other elite American universities, seems to have some odd acceptance criteria. One is to penalize applicants for factors beyond their control, such as their PARENTS' educations, successes and ethnicities. Another is to charge accepted applicants more for tuition and fees if their PARENTS (not the applicant) can afford it. No other American institutions, outside of academia, discriminate against customers based on criteria applied to their parents!
If an applicant can demonstrate that he/she has parents who never attended college, who are proletarian instead of bourgeois, and who are non-white or non-Asian, then he/she gets preference in admissions. On the other hand, if the accepted applicant's parents have enjoyed economic success, he/she is charged a higher price!
To discriminate on the basis of who one's parents are seems to be contrary to the American ideals of equality and equal protection of the laws. In fact, such discrimination seems very close to a corruption of blood under a bill of attainder, which are unconstitutional in the part of America outside of academia (see U.S. Constitution, Article I, Sec. 9 and Article III, Sec. 3).

I appreciate Mr. Abbott's response, and I am glad to hear that he is not ashamed of Stanford's competitiveness. Still, while it is understandable that Mr. Abbott finds it personally difficult to have to turn down so many applicants, that's just life and the nature of the whole college admission process. Not all applicants (even if they are highly competitive) are going to get into their top choice schools, and, if they are rejected from a particular school, it's not as if their lives will end or that they necessarily won’t find happiness and success elsewhere or become productive members of society.

Also, I am sick and tired of hearing complaints focusing on what supposedly benefits students from wealthier families vs. what helps those from more modest backgrounds. It seems that we have gotten to a point where it's acceptable to put down an applicant's accomplishments if that applicant happens to come from a relatively affluent background. Whether or not an applicant comes from a modest background should have absolutely no direct bearing on that applicant's chances for admission. As with skin color, legacy status, etc., class should play no role in individual admission decisions, nor should it be an important consideration in setting overall admission policy and goals.

The Admission office should always strive to admit only the best and should make no apologies for it. If a particular applicant doesn't have the means to pay for a Stanford education but is otherwise among the most competitive applicants in the pool, then, by all means, very generous financial assistance should be provided. However, when we start hearing that the Admission office is tweaking policies and deemphasizing the importance of academic ability and legitimate achievement in favor of so-called “holistic” approaches in order to yield more so-called “diversity” (whether that means with regard to skin color or class status), then Stanford students and alumni should rightly feel concerned.

A previous commenter sarcastically throws around disparaging terms like “riff raff” and “proletariat” in attempting to both draw attention to financial differences and also to wrongly and offensively suggest that some want to “keep out” certain people based on financial status. The Admission office should reject this tendency to dwell on class, and should instead focus on applicants' legitimate merit-based achievements, such as academic excellence and special talents.

To Skeptical: I suppose that the disportionate numbers of "bourgeois" students at this university completely proves how difficult a time they have in getting to Stanford over the "favored proletarian students."
If your argument is that Stanford should make its education affordable for every 18 year old to take loans and work for, and in the process will accept no money from parents, then I agree with you. That system would be fair, but a system in which the cost of the education would inhibit lower class individuals from attending while upper-class individuals can get funding from their parents is not fair.
To both Concerned Student and Skeptical: If either of you is concerned that the lower class individuals, who have both the incredible drive and determination to apply and get admitted- against all odds- to this university are somehow unqualified to be here, I can personally assure you that we are fully qualified individuals who were/are at the top of their class/field. So I wouldn't worry that we are taking the place of any more deserving "bourgeous" children.

To assume that minority students were admitted on the basis of their skin color just because they are minorities is grossly unfair. As 'Proletarian' said, many of them are the ones setting the curve, top of the class, etc. And, as a minority, I can tell you that it gets pretty annoying to hear again and again about how I have received "special benefits" because of my race. I believe that I got into Stanford because I was highly qualified. Have I asked the admissions officers about this? No. But I believe that my exceptional performance and numerous accomplishments as a Stanford student testify to this fact. And I am frankly offended by those such as "Concerned student" who hold such militant attitudes when it comes to diversity. A (relatively) racially diverse student body does not mean that standards of admission for minorities are lower; perhaps it simply means that more highly qualified minorities apply to and choose Stanford. Correlation does not necessarily imply causation.

Tom,

So would being a legacy. Let's see if you complain about that, too, when you have children. African-Americans were not admitted in any meaningful numbers to top schools until a few decades ago. Therefore, as long as school's provide preferences to legacies, then to not consider race would only embed the past's racism into admissions policies.

That said, you are wrong to assume that an African-American or Latino, even withose stats, would automatically be admitted to Stanford, Harvard, Yale and Princeton. I know an African-American with a 1560 (on the old SAT scale), and who was valedictorian of her class; she took every AP class offered in the county. If an AP course wasn't offered at her school, she arranged with the system to drive across town to take the courses there. She was denied admission to Harvard. Being admitted to top schools is exceedingly difficult, regardless of race.

I'd recommend that you cool your assumptions, and evaluate the root cause of those assumptions.

Thank you other proletarian for your support.
By the way, not all of the students who get into Stanford from lower class backgrounds are minorities. I am caucasian, as are a small minority of first generation, disadvantaged youth who get into this school. So you can stop claiming that it is all race based now.

We are not supposed to talk about it, but it must be obvious to anyone who has actually taught and/or attended classes at Stanford that, in general, Black, Hispanic and Native American students are much less impressive than Asian and White students. The disparity is so crystal clear that I might question the honesty of those who would attempt to deny this. I am speaking in very general terms here, and, of course, it all depends on the individual student.

Let me stress that I mean no disrespect against any students. I do not personally fault any individual students for being at Stanford, even if I think that many are likely occupying spots that ought to have been given to arguably more impressive and competitive applicants. When you have non-athlete students, many of whom happen to be Black, admitted to Stanford with SAT Math and Verbal/Critical Reading scores in the 500’s and low 600’s, then you know something is amiss. If many of these Black students had checked the “Asian” box on their Stanford applications, then I believe their chances of admission would have dropped significantly, and they would not even have made the short list. How can these Stanford students feel good about being at Stanford when they know that their skin color likely had a lot to do with their admittance?

Responding to criticisms of this kind of outrageous skin color advantage with comments like, “but, but, but… what about legacy!” is not going to cut it. It’s easier to point fingers elsewhere than to attempt to defend the indefensible skin color preferences. I say we end both legacy preferences and skin color preferences.

Prolet, your empty and desperate response perfectly reveals how difficult it must be for skin color preference supporters to defend the practice of skin color preferences. All you can offer are pathetic ad hominem personal insults.

Relax, prolet. No one is accusing you of anything but relying on pathetic personal insults. It seems that desperate and ineffective ad hominem attacks come quite naturally to you, as you apparently have no problem hurling shameful “racist” smears against skin color preference critics. Sorry, but I couldn’t care less about your skin color. Still, based on your very revealing posts on this board, there IS one thing on which I wholeheartedly agree with you: your self-identification as a “kid.”

Thank you for providing an excellent definition of the kind of racial and skin color preferences apparently employed by the Admission office. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

Of course, no one says that certain students are less impressive because of their particular skin colors or race. Rather, the point is that some students, who may have been less competitive applicants, were likely given preference because of their skin color. Obviously, not every student of one group is necessarily more or less impressive than every student of another group. Duh.

The point is that certain favored racial groups are, in fact, given preference in the admission process. Does anyone seriously deny this? Sadly, this preferential treatment has, generally speaking, led to a disparity in student quality between racial groups on campus. The disparity should be clear to anyone, whether or not they are honest enough or care to admit it.

Particular students are not less impressive BECAUSE of their skin color or race. In other words, it isn’t race or skin color that makes anyone less impressive. Skin color preferences in the admission process have created a disparity in student quality among racial groups.

There are students who, but for the color of their skin, would likely not have been admitted to Stanford. I believe that is beyond dispute. If skin color is such a small or unimportant part of the admission process, then why should it even be factor at all? I don’t know how to make this any clearer for you.

You said, “I disagree that there is any disparity, based on ethnicity, in achievement and competence between groups here at Stanford.”

Ugh, the disparity is not “based on ethnicity” but rather is likely the result of unequal standards in the admission process. Still, I am not surprised that you are unable to see (or, more likely, that you are unwilling to admit) any disparity. Heck, you couldn’t even figure out what I was saying after I had repeated myself about four times.

I have not met anyone at Stanford who I felt was admitted solely because of their race. I have met people who had lower test scores but excelled in other arenas, and are fully competent in classes.
I have met people who are white, asian, black, latino, purple... etc. etc. who are completely incompetent at Stanford. People whom I've questioned how they got in, and it ran along all sorts of demographic lines.
I still do not see the disparity you express, and I have no idea how you have the inside knowledge to know what anyone's test scores, or educational background are. If you could please provide some evidence as to how you know that these students are less successful then you beyond "I swear I am smarter than them" that would make this whole discussion a lot easier.
As I've already pointed out numerous times, you have no idea whether or not the black or latino kids got lower scores. Not all of the black students come from the same sort of background, and the disparity you speak of in test scores typically comes from lower-class individuals, of which there are few at Stanford, and you probably wouldn't know who they are in class anyway, because most of them do excel when they come to Stanford.
Unless you had a perfect score, were valedictorian of your highly prestigious school's class and have cured cancer all while playing a varsity sport you probably got admitted over someone who was more qualified then you.
I am not denying that there are people here who probably benefited significantly from race based affirmative action or their legacy status and who probably wouldn't have been admitted otherwise, but they are few and far in between and not representative of all black/latino/native american or legacy applicants in the university. If you want to get rid of race-based affirmative action and legacy status in admissions that's fine, but I still think that the context of the environment of the applicant must be taken into consideration when determining who will be admitted.

The whole point of admission is diversity. Stanford can't just admit a class full of white and Asian valedictorians with perfect scores on the SAT; that would be boring. Stanford looks to admit people with differing thoughts and ideas, and that means different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, and part of that is ethnicity.
Asians and whites put much greater emphasis on excelling in school than blacks or Hispanics. From what I've seen, Asians especially find it imperative that their kids make all As and study all the time to make perfect SAT scores. Black and Hispanic families don't put this same emphasis on their children, so a black or Hispanic student who has still made all As and good SAT scores should be admitted. The only difference between a black kid with a 2000 and an Asian kid with a 2400 is that the Asian kid was sent to all kinds of test preparation and the black kid wasn't. Should they really be defined by how much time they wasted studying for one stupid test? Also, hen someone checks the "black" or "Hispanic" box, they are claiming that they are ethnically black or Hispanic, not just that they have darker skin; ethnicity implies a culture, not just what color you are.
As for legacies, I know a girl who is a double legacy, valedictorian and president of her class, perfect SAT score, 1000s of hours of community service hours, teachers who speak about her as the best student they've ever had: deferred. Stanford admits 20% of legacies, compared with Harvard's 40%; I would think most children of Stanford students would be intelligent and academically minded, and I would expect a much higher admit rate naturally. Some Stanford alums are actually complaining that their children are having too hard a time getting in. Even if there is an advantage, that one of the many perks of having a Stanford degree: your kids get in more easily.
Early action doesn't create an advantage either. The acceptance rate this year was 16%, compared with 10% for last year's regular decision. Keep in mind that 16% includes recruited student-athletes, who are basically guaranteed admission: they make up 1/3 of early admits, which drops the acceptance rate to 10% for those who are not recruits, equal to that of regular admission. Furthermore, the argument that early action favors the wealthy and privileged makes no sense. Stanford’s SCEA program is nonbinding, so financial aid shouldn’t be an issue – you can get your financial aid information after admission then decide whether to go. Furthermore, information about Stanford's SCEA program is available to everyone on the Internet, and those who lack the capacity to look it up and figure it out certainly lack the capacity to be admitted to Stanford.
It is true that many Stanford students come from wealthy backgrounds. I think, however, that this is a testament to the success of America's economic system: the smartest and hardest-working Americans make the most money and produce the smartest and hardest-working children, who are then admitted to Stanford.
Overall, considering the daunting task of selecting the best class of 1,600 students from over 20,000 applicants, the admissions office does a fantastic job creating the greatest student body of any university in the world.