22-23 Admissions Cycle Projections?

Answered

Short answer - It will be the same or harder next cycle and the following cycles for most colleges.

Long Answer -

As the world starts moving toward a post-COVID 19 epidemic state into an endemic one, we will see more applicants applying to top colleges both in the UK, Europe and US. Why? There will be less health insecurity and more willingness for countries to encourage and support travel and grant student VISAs. Also, here in the US, those who were concerned about leaving home for out of state schools will be more willing to get on a plane, train or bus to extend their college net and apply to more schools.

Keep in mind though that overall college admissions have seen a reduction in applications and enrollment so that will continue. They greatest threat to higher education is lack of enrollment for Community Colleges and Small private colleges that are poorly ranked. I feel that the community colleges will weather the contracting market but small privates will continue to close. Some will be lucky to merge if there is a nearby thriving college that wants to expand in the same town.

We are entering the 3rd cycle of hyper-competitive admissions with no sight of reprieve. During the 2019-2020 cycle, admit rates were soft because of the unknown ??? so many colleges were hedging themselves and over admitting in full knowledge that 10% of the class might take a Gap Year because of health insecurities and an unwillingness to attend college online. In 20/21 and 21/22, we saw that in spite of COVID-19 peaking in many parts of the world, the number of students wanting to attend top colleges increased sometimes 50%-100% over the previous cycle. This was driven in part by the "test-optional" policies, and almost a morbid attitude, that "one better shoot their shot while they can". Similarly after the 9.11 attacks on the WTC buildings, many people booked around the world trips, bought luxury cars, got married, had kids and made other more costly impulsive decisions as if to say "you only live once, let's do this."

There is no indication that I can see that would make the 22-23 cycle any different for the most part. I think colleges are doing a very good job of admitting the right amount of people to maintain their yields and their dorms are filled to capacity. I do think some colleges are gaming the system because of poor planning and have found themselves bumped up in rankings/prestige with no measurable increase in the quality of product they are putting out. I think NorthEastern, Boston University, Tulane and Emory benefited a lot this past cycle with super low admit rates because they did a horrible job the previous cycles of managing their supply chain. NE and BU had over-admitted students in the previous cycle and had to put up the overflow in privately owned hotels spread across Boston. I do not think NE should have a 6.9%-7.0% admit rate and see that softening up a bit over the next couple cycles. NE, BU and BC should all be around the same admit rate and Tufts and Wellesley should be harder schools to get into but in this market, that hasn't been the case.

With regard to public universities, I think the price advantage even for out of state applicants makes applying to UCLA, UC Berkeley, UVA, UMich, GeorgiaTech, and various Florida colleges attractive enough to keep getting record amounts of applicants, forcing admit rates even lower. Even at 10% admit rates, if UCLA, UCB are 1/2 of average Ivy rates, I can see why they are attractive to so many people.

I think the most crowded and competitive arena will continue to be in the Top50 schools. Ivys, Elites and Top Liberal arts colleges will continue to pound expectations with lower admit rates. Eventually these schools will all be in the 2%-7% ranges within 3 more cycles. And I see at least 50 colleges with less than 10% admit rates as well.

There are basically 4 consumer groups for colleges and this is how they rank to me on the food chain:

ALDCs - Recruited Athletes, Legacies, Development/Donors, Faculty Children. These 4 sub-groups have the most entitlement when if comes to college admissions. While a couple schools like Amherst, MIT, CalTech do not consider Legacies in their admissions decision, almost every other private college does. As long as private boarding schools and private day schools are thriving with record applicants and lower admit rates, to me that means that feeder schools play a big part of the college admissions equation. What most HS students and their parents fail to understand is that there are 15 million high school students. Each year 3.7 million compete for about 90,000 seats at Top 50 schools. It's probably even lower because I figured an avg. yield rate of 56%. If you look at the Top 50 Private schools in the US, that accounts for about 12500 seniors and I'm pretty confident that 10% of all the available seats or 9000 seats are filled by these feeder schools. (((Let me repeat this, yes a tiny fraction of private school applicants take 10% of the available seats))).

BIPOC/Low Income/Marginalized/First Gen - Recruiting from this group seems to be in vogue right now for all Top 50 colleges. It's very important to these schools that they appear to be leading the charge with DEIA applicants and market themselves as being flexible, open minded and fair. Plus there are many students in this group that get admitted from community based organizations like Questbridge, Posse and about another 20 others. I do not see this trend stopping. As long as colleges are permitted to use Race as an acceptance criteria, they will admit more Black, Hispanic, and Indigenous applicants regardless of their lower grades/test scores and ECs.

Domestic Full Paying Over-represented minorities- The can be either White or East Asians or Europeans. There is more competition in this group than ever especially if you attend a public high school

International Full Paying Over-represented minorities- The can be either White or East Asians or Europeans. There is more competition in this group than ever especially if you attend a public high school

Last but not least, I think the hardest demographic to get admitted into top 50 college will continue to be low income International students. There just isn't enough budget for most of these schools to fully fund full ride scholarships. Plus since Int'l students do not qualify for Pell Grants or many private American scholarships, nor can easily secure low interest educational loans, they require even more $$$ from the same Top50 schools than domestic applicants. Plus there are many more endowed scholarships dedicated to Americans because the donors were Americans and wanted their legacy to be giving a hand up to the kid from New Jersey, or the best Hockey Player, or the best Waterpolo player, sports that are typically not found in Int'l High Schools.