Selective Colleges Continue to Become More Selective
January is a great time in college admissions. Most of the Early Decision and Early Action decisions have come in, and seniors’ college landscapes are starting to be filled in. The majority of students have finally finished all applications, and will be patiently waiting for those regular decisions to come in, most likely in March or April. Many students are receiving many acceptances, academic scholarships, financial aid packages, and students are finally starting to see themselves at one or two specific colleges…reality is beginning to set in! However, even though there are a ton of good things happening now, many students also received unpleasant decisions from colleges in the early round with either denials or deferrals. From my desk, the trend continues of schools becoming more and more difficult to get into, even for the most competitive students. With more students applying to college within our country and across the world, many college application numbers are going through the roof, meaning more students will be denied or deferred than ever before.
In addition to colleges being blessed with more students applying to college in general, the business of college has become increasingly focused on creating ways to bring in applications. Different marketing approaches have made the popular colleges even more popular, and have put the less known schools on the radar for many students. I have seen students this year who were deferred or denied from colleges that I know would easily have been accepted just 2 or 3 years ago. My hope is that students and parents understand this, in order to not get too disappointed if they do not hear positive news from every school! Many schools that would have been a target for a particular student may very well be a reach school now. The need to find schools that students are very likely (safety) to get into, and are happy with, is more important than ever in today’s world of college admissions.
To get a glimpse into what I am talking about, I have three schools and their admissions numbers from this year's early application round, that I want to show everyone:
University of Michigan: UM is a state school, and is already very tough to get into out-of-state. Overall they have about a 32% acceptance rate, which is very selective, especially for a state school. However, it appears UM will be even more selective this year than ever, as they have recently reported a 12% increase in Early Action applications this year with over 32,500 EA apps. UM tends to be a favorable spot of EA, as they look to enroll half of their class through the early round, but as the numbers show, it will be tougher than ever this year.
Georgetown University: Obviously GU is a very selective school, but they have always stayed pretty consistent with their application numbers. Part of this may be because they are not on the Common Application, choosing to use their own college specific application. However, even they have reported a pretty significant applicant increase, going up almost 1,000 applications through Early Action, and their admit rate has dropped from 13% to 12%.
Boston College: After showing a decrease in their Early Action numbers last year, Boston College went the other direction this year with almost 9,000 early apps, which reflects a 5% increase from the previous year. They had an mean SAT score of 1425 and ACT score of 33. Also, BC is known for being much more selective in Early Action, looking to accept less than 40% of their incoming class.
Joseph D. Korfmacher
Would it be fair to say that the high school population hasn't increased at the same rate as college applications? Would it be fair to say that because it is easier to apply to many schools, roughly the same number of students are applying to the same number of available slots, but are trying to increase their own odds by applying to a larger number of schools and therefore helping the colleges artificially inflate their selectivity numbers? Or, Did my sons' chances of getting into any college just drop 12% and do they simply need to apply to 12% more schools, thus helping to inflate the selectivity cycle?
ReplyDeleteHey Amber, thanks for the question. Students are DEFINITELY applying to more colleges today than in the past, and it is DEFINITELY easier to apply to multiple colleges because of online programs such as the Common Application, and now the Coalition. Instead of going to a new website for each college (or downloading an application) and answering school specific questions and essays, students can often basically use the same application for dozens of colleges. Additionally, there are more students applying to American colleges globally today. Also, colleges are doing much more outreach, using emails and social media to attract more and more students to apply. College is a business, and unfortunately, many colleges want to increase their applications, knowing that they can't accept many more, insuring a more competitive selection rate.
ReplyDeleteIn all honestly, I do think some students apply to multiple schools to hedge their bets, but a B- student applying to 12 super selective schools, doesn't mean he will get into a few. It is still important to choose the right colleges to add to the list, and ensure they there are a few 'likely' schools that the student would love to attend, and potentially receive scholarship money from.
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