What are your predictions for admissions next year?

Admission rates will be slightly lower than this cycle. Why?

1.) Since everyone is still test-optional or blind, the record # of apps will continue.

2.) Many students are taking Gap Years, myself included because they are not 100% sure that campuses will be back to normal this fall. With all the COVID-19 variants and anti-vaxxers, herd immunity will be spotty and not all states will achieve this. Therefore, like this cycle, colleges next cycle will have to accommodate those who have already been reserved a spot in the Class of 2026. Until all campuses are perfectly safe, there will always large numbers of "admits" taking GAP years, reducing available spots.

3.) There is pent-up demand from Int'l applicants who couldn't apply because of student visa restrictions or blockades. We will witness many more Int'l applying and vying for the limited amount of spots at top colleges.

The college's admissions process is getting more complicated for admissions officers as well because they know that there is a very limited supply and everyone is asking for special consideration. The spotlight is on them and they know if they admit someone under false pretenses and get caught, it can be extremely costly for their careers and possibly fundraising. USC had a dip in applicants and raised the admission rate a year ago & now back to pre-Varsity Blues Scandal rates.

It's a balancing act for all the best colleges in America because not 1 school is a pure meritocracy. When top colleges still give preferential treatment to 1.) recruited athletes 2.) legacy 3.) development candidates 4.) sons/daughters of employees, 5.) VIP candidates like actors, activists with social media followings, 6.) the college deans' list of special friends/etc and lastly at their discretion 7.) anyone they feel is marginalized because of their personalized circumstances like race, or other factors, then all the consumers feel it's not fair.

So if an Ivy has 1500 spots to fill, then perhaps 1/3 or 1/2 of them are pretty much spoken for if you do not fall into any of these categories.

The applicant pools were unarguably massive this year. That was due to quite a few factors: one of them being the test-optional status many colleges took on. Although it does seem that colleges will start going test-optional permanently, many of the other factors that made this year's admission race so extraordinarily difficult will not be so firmly returning. For example, due to the pandemic, many schools made fee waivers super easily accessible. Also, certain students who were going through the application process 2019-2020, who decided not to attend school 2020-2021 because it was online, for example, were placed back into the college application pool this year, making the pools much more competitive. Those sorts of things will not be nearly so prominent this year, so I do believe the next years of college application will not be nearly so record low.