In California they certainly are. We’ve featured that issue on these pages, and an important commentary was published in today’s LA Times. Other places? Not so much, if at all. Let’s look at numbers for Big Ten schools.
It’s extremely difficult for California-based students to gain admission to the U Cal school & the field of their choice–even after the system reduced the percentage of out-of-state students it will accept as a total of all students. Is that the situation elsewhere?
Among Big Ten universities, we found (via a simple Google search of 2019-2020 acceptance rates) that rates vary widely, even among peer institutions.
9% Northwestern (private)
23% Michigan (Ann Arbor)
37% Wisconsin (Madison)
39% Maryland (College Park)
52% Minnesota (Twin Cities)
54% Ohio State
56% Penn State (State College)
60% Purdue (West Lafayette)
61% Rutgers (New Brunswick)
62% Illinois (Champaign-Urbana)
77% Indiana (Bloomington)
78% Michigan State
80% Nebraska (Lincoln)
83% Iowa.
The public needs to ask questions, and public institutions need to be transparent about the numbers.