“Look. If we’re higher on the USNews Rankings then we get more alumni donations, simple as that. And I mean, who doesn’t want the clout of being the hardest school to get into. That’s why we started our new policy – we were heading in this direction anyways and it was just inevitable. We’re just the ones who started it.”

We spoke to the head admissions counselor at one of the top ten universities in the United States about their new changes to the admissions process. With college applications increasing year after year, increasing class sizes in the face of limited faculty, classroom, and living accommodations has long been a primary thorn in admissions team’s sides across the country. Some colleges have recently realized acceptance rates lower than 5%, with the numbers only going down as time goes on. Negative acceptance rates, the counselor argued, was the natural next step.

“When kids see these low acceptance rates, they know prestige follows. But that feeling of feeling better than others only lasted until everyone was situated in college. So now that we have negative acceptance rates, we can kick out those at the bottom of the class. Now the feeling of dread that accompanies a fabricated loss of self-esteem when comparing yourself to others can be extending into your college years. And, of course, we will have the lowest acceptance rates in the country. Think about that for a PR boost.”