13
3 years ago
Admissions Advice

Are admissions rates going to keep going down?
Answered

Apparently, many school have had lower admissions rates this year because of grade inflation, and making up for over acceptance last year. Does this mean that colleges are going to continue to lower their admissions rates, or are things going to be back to normal for the class of 2023?

11th-grade
AcceptanceRates
2023
13
4
🎉 First post
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@ThatWorriedHighSchooler3 years ago

There are 2 answers. 1. No one really knows. No one can get 100% inside admission officers’ heads and realize what they are thinking in regards to accepting students to their school. 2. Although, we do know that rates will most likely go farther down as more people apply to colleges and colleges want less people because of the things you stated above.

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3 answers

10
Accepted Answer
3 years ago[edited]

@jessogb thanks for your question.

The short answer is YES, rates will continue to go down for the next foreseeable cycles, and there is NO indication that they will return to pre-covid rates. Sorry but this is the new normal like $5 bread, $5 eggs and $5 milk.

The detailed long answer:

Admission rate will continue to go down in general for Top 100 schools. What we have seen in the past 2 cycles is that there is an overwhelming demand at the Ivys, Elites, and Top Liberal arts colleges prompted by these factors:

-Test options policies at 80% of the schools increased the application pool because everyone is shooting their shot.

-More wealthy families around the world are looking to prestigious campuses to safeguard their precious college bound children. This is also evidenced by increased applications at top boarding schools which are feeder schools into top 50 colleges.

-Even without test optional policies, the T50 becoming more like the hype luxury goods marketplace where young people are seeking attention, validation, clout and bragging rights so we find that more and more students are insecure about their self-worth and applying to top schools to belong to something bigger than their own perception of themselves.

-Colleges, especially private colleges are making a huge concerted effort to improve their image by fundraising to improve their sense of fairness quotient. Schools like Amherst eliminated "legacy" admits at a cost of nearly $150,000,000 and this week WashU in St.Louis announced a $1 Billion dollar program to admit more marginalized applicants who are low income or first gen. Also, in recent years, many top schools have eliminated loans altogether like Colgate University and also many colleges have increased the Caps on full tuition scholarships from say $65K to $75K or $80K. What this means is that more and more low and middle income students that were previously locked into thinking they could only apply to State Colleges are also now shooting their shot.

-The other factor that most people on CV are not considering is that, more and more applicants from community based organizations like Questbridge or mentoring partnerships like Matriculate are getting admitted into Top 50 colleges. This year Caltech's acceptance rate is supposed to be sub 3% or 432 Students (application pool is undetermined) however 35 students came from Questbridge. I find this incredibly impressive or shocking because typically Questbridge Match students do not have the highest test scores, GPAs, honors, ECs and often do not have access to best HS and resources. So the fact a Top STEM school in the US will take that many 35 out of matriculation class of 230 is unprecedented. (All QB have to attend if admitted because QB admits are ED admits on a full ride) that's 15% of the entering Freshman class.

-The other factor is the colleges historically were able to predict consumer behavior better and they knew what the incoming freshman class Yield Rate would be within a couple % points like 33% or 36%. These days many schools are getting this completely wrong. So colleges like BU, BC, NorthEastern, Tulane, Emory, CMU and the list goes on, do a poor job. Therefore they missed the mark and over admitted in the past cycles and now admit rates are dropping because they just cant fill up Hotel Rooms with overflow. Also Ivy's are getting this wrong, and yield rates are going up for Ivys and Elites like Stanford, UChicago, and Duke.

-But there are schools like Middlebury and Williams and Bowdoin that are not going down in admissions rates but either going up slightly or holding steady. This is because they are very small schools with freshman enrollment at around 500 so they have more flexibility to admit an extra 1 or 2%, that's only like 10 kids.

-I don't think High School students are inherently smarter or more talented than previous cycles. I do however think that HS student feel it necessary to tap into their inner nerd, or inner artist or inner athlete or inner leader earlier and earlier because of their fear of failure of not getting into a top college. Therefore, you see more and more 8th and 9th graders taking advanced maths and loading up on ECs like never before. I think high achieving students are working harder and harder than ever. And the unfortunate thing is many students are burning out before they get to college. Therefore mental health will be a bigger and bigger issue going forward. What is the price you are willing to pay on your mental, physical, and emotional health in order to keep up with the grind your peers and friends are embarking on just to get into a good college. Clearly this is a calculation that many HS student are not making and blindly causing harm and future harm to themselves.

For other schools I think its a mixed bag because overall there are fewer high school students entering colleges than previous cycles. So the phenomenon is that there is overcrowding and over-demand at T100 schools but that's not the case at the rest of the 4200 colleges offering 4 year degrees. The average admit schools in America is something like 55% better than a coin toss so there is no lack of getting in to a decent school. But if you are applying to an Ivy where the avg. admit rate across all 8 colleges is 4.96%, that's a different story entirely. I think if you just want to get into a very good college, there are an abundant amount of choices and you can find an awesome school with great teachers and students.

Be aware that just like consumer banking, there is a consolidation process happening because at the bottom there are some horribly managed schools that can not sustain operating. These schools will shut down and go bankrupt and the creditors will sell their land and buildings to other property developers for projects like Assisted Living campuses, Private Corporate Offices or subdivide them into housing tracts for big builders. The lucky ones will be bought out by other colleges and combined as a larger institution. According to a higher education article from last summer 8/21, 579 colleges have closed in the past 3 years. There are some new colleges that are coming online but that will never offset the hundreds of colleges that are slated to close.

10
-1
3 years ago

It really depends on a ton of factors. If inflation slows and the over acceptance problems smooth out I think this change will reverse. More likely though with all the new students who are super motivated it will get harder and harder to get in. For 2023 I would guess things will be pretty similar to 2022 so true to stand out from the crowd. Good luck, I'm applying for next year as well.

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-1
3 years ago

I think they will. Every year, more and more students are taking a crap ton of AP and College classes, more students are getting internships and research positions, more students are getting 34+ on the ACT. I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that many of us were at home for a good portion of our Highschool years due to COVID and are now tryna make it up.

With the number of extraordinary students going into the admissions pool, the admissions officers can’t pick them all. So yea, the admissions rates are going to go down. If Harvard has like 7k spots (Just an example), but there are now 100k students applying instead of the previous 50k, obviously the acceptance rates are going to be smaller.

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