The Admissions Process Is Not Necessarily About You!
At this time of year, social media is filled with posts of X kid with XY stats who did not get into Z college. Ivy day is a blood bath because, hello, the HUGE majority of kids do not get accepted to these colleges. Harvard’s acceptance rate last year was 3%, and more colleges than ever before have acceptance rates that are in the single digits. Kids are asking, “What more could I have done?”. We have spent a lot of time talking about all the things students can do to help their chances of admission to highly selective colleges. Today we are going to say that after you have done all of those things, studied hard in rigorous courses, participated in activities you felt passionate about, worked to be helpful to others you care about, spent time preparing good applications, studying for, and excelling at your standardized tests, the answer is NOTHING. Yes, I said nothing. It is time to cut yourself a break and realize this is not all about you. It is about these colleges and their institutional priorities. Colleges are businesses and operate like such. They are concerned about putting together a whole class. Highly selective colleges are filled with tons of qualified applicants and can literally fill their classes ten times over with incredibly accomplished, amazingly smart, and wonderful students. At colleges like Harvard, the majority of applicants often have perfect test scores and grades. This is the elusive part of college admissions that makes so many students and families crazy. This is not a simple equation of hard work = reward. So what does this all mean? What are often some institutional priorities?
A) Colleges need to manage their enrollment.
Colleges have had a huge spike in applications since the pandemic. From Jeff Selingo’s latest article in the NY Times, ”The number of college applications filed through the Common Application, the single online application now used by more than a thousand institutions, has jumped 30 percent over the past three years. That equates to some 1.56 million additional applications sent by this year’s class compared to their counterparts in the class of 2020 — although the classes are roughly the same size.” Students are applying to more colleges than they did three years ago.
Colleges might have over-enrolled or under-enrolled last year or for more than one year. So they need to take fewer or more students overall this year. This year applications were down fairly significantly at both Tulane University (down by 11,231, which is 26%) and Williams College (down by 3,859, which is 25%.) Both colleges took fewer students, Tulane took 200 fewer, and Williams took 160 fewer, so their acceptance rates only rose slightly. Tulane’s acceptance rate last year was 10%, and this year was 13%. Williams went from 9% to 10%. American University had an appreciably lower drop in applications this year (down by 1,704, which is 8%), but their acceptance rate rose more significantly because they accepted 416 more students than last year. Their acceptance rate went from 38% to 44%.
So, why would a college take more or fewer students than in previous years? A college is managing its yield. Yield is the rate at which a college’s accepted students choose to enroll. Tulane’s yield rate dropped significantly in the past few years. In 2016 their yield rate was 26%, and in 2021 it was 45%. Tulane simply needs to accept fewer students because more of the students they are accepting are enrolling. Another example is Boston University. BU’s acceptance rate fell to 10.7% this year, down from 14% last year. Their applications were actually slightly down. They had 80,792 applications last year and 80,484 applications this year, but they accepted 11,434 students to the Class of 2026 and only 8,612 students to the Class of 2027. That is a 25% drop in the number of admitted students! According to Admissions Blog, Kelly Walter, BU’s VP for Enrollment and Director of Admissions, said, “ since we have been significantly overenrolled for each of the past two years, it was absolutely critical for us to plan for yet another increase in yield. As a result, we had no choice but to significantly decrease the number of students to whom we offered admission.”
Other things can come into play when a college over-enrolls - a college might not have adequate housing for so many students. A good example of this is the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. They have overenrolled in the past couple of years, and they have a huge housing crisis going on. They have students sleeping in a town that is 30 min away. St. Andrews cut their offers by 5% this year, and they are working on increasing housing for the future.
To control enrollment, a college might enroll a large percentage of their class ED I or ED II. Washington University in St. Louis, Tufts University, and Bates are three I often think of that take somewhere between half and two-thirds of their class in their two ED rounds. It simply becomes way harder to get accepted regular decision.
Colleges must balance their budgets.
Some colleges may need to accept more full-pay students.
Some colleges are prioritizing letting in Pell-eligible students.
Some colleges prioritize letting in the majority of students with some type of tuition discount. This is the very concept of merit aid. An example is Lake Forest College which offers 100% of applicants merit aid.
Some public colleges must prioritize letting in-state students. For example, the state of North Carolina mandates that any UNC campus can only have a maximum of 18% of its incoming class coming from out of state.
Some public colleges may need out-of-state students or, moreover, need money from out-of-state student tuition. A good example of this is the University of Vermont. Vermont does not have enough students, in-state, to fill its university.
Some colleges prioritize certain groups like military families with things like yellow ribbon benefits and children of academic employees with tuition exchange programs.
Colleges will often accept students with connections to VIPs or Development.
Some colleges will prioritize Legacy students.
B) Colleges have athletic teams, school bands, school choirs, debate teams, and theater productions.
Colleges might need to fill an athletic spot.
Colleges might need a student who plays an obscure instrument.
College might need a student with all sorts of special talents.
C) Colleges want students in all of their different majors.
This might mean that certain popular majors are much harder to get into than others. For example, Computer Science is one of the hardest majors in the country right now.
Some colleges might need to consider that a department is understaffed or unprepared to take students at this specific time.
Some colleges will prioritize certain genders or cultural groups for certain majors. For example, male students might have a strong advantage in fine arts and fashion, and Black and Latina women might have an advantage in STEM.
D) Most colleges want to have a diversified class of students.
Colleges want students with diversified interests in and out of the classroom.
Some colleges will prioritize ethnically underrepresented groups. Nine states currently ban affirmative action: California (1996), Washington (1998), Florida (1999), Michigan (2006), Nebraska (2008), Arizona (2010), New Hampshire (2012), Oklahoma (2012), and Idaho (2020).
Some colleges want a regionally diverse group from all 50 states and multiple international locations. Colleges might be trying to expand their footprint regionally, nationally, or internationally. They might prioritize one location over another. Every time I am on a college tour, I laugh at the requests for students from the Dakotas.
Some colleges want a good gender balance and prioritize men over women or vice versa. This article shows how at Brown, men have an advantage in the admissions process because Brown simply gets way more applications from women.
Some colleges want a class that is diversified in sexual orientation, so they might prioritize underrepresented groups like LGBTQ students.
Some colleges prioritize first-generation students or students who are re-entering college. The UCs are a good example of this.
Some colleges, especially religious ones, may want a certain percentage of their students from their specific denomination/churches.
Some colleges prioritize students who were in the military.
E) Some colleges prioritize their relationships with certain high schools.
F) Some colleges are prioritizing rankings and making decisions to try and maximize their place on US News and World Report. This is part of a larger conversation and probably best left for another day, but when you have time, look into how US News and World Report ranks colleges. Much of that data can be manipulated through enrollment tactics, including yield protection.
The true trick to acceptance for many students is when they fulfill multiple priorities of a college. For now, maybe when you start looking at colleges, you can also consider their institutional priorities. First, do those values line up with your own? Check out a college’s mission statement. Does it resonate with you? If you think a college’s priorities align with yours, maybe you are a good fit. If so, then yes, please do apply. Spend time on your applications and essays. Put your best foot forward, but realize you can only worry about what you can control. A college will consider the whole class. If the decision is no, remember it is often not you, it is them!