As May 1 approaches, graduating seniors are busy mailing in their deposits for National College Decision Day. Many are still recovering from the toll of application season as they review their acceptances, rejections, and financial aid award letters. While they have a big decision ahead of them as they select their future home and academic path, rising seniors graduating in 2024 are just starting their college application journey.
College applications are more competitive than ever.
Here are a few things students preparing for the application season should keep in mind as they begin making their college lists.
Test-Optional Policies Continues
In March 2023, Columbia University was the first Ivy League school to announce that they are going permanently test-optional. The university, along with 1800 other universities and colleges across the nation, have made submitting SAT or ACT scores optional.
Some schools, like the University of California System, California Institute of Technology, and Reed College, have gone to the extreme and are test-blind, meaning that even if students wish to submit their scores with their application, the schools will not consider them in the review process. It’s important to check the requirements carefully; Cornell University’s School of Agriculture and Life Science, Architecture, Business and Hotel Administration are all score-free, but other schools within Cornell do require SAT or ACT scores.
Luckily, students not submitting test scores don’t seem to be at a disadvantage. Colgate University released that for its 2027 Class, 56% of admitted students included test scores. For Emory College’s 2027 class, 36% of admitted students included test scores.
As students solidify their college, they should look at the test-optional policies and how long they have been extended. Johns Hopkins University will stay test-optional until the 2025-26 application cycle, whereas the University of Michigan has only announced that its test-optional policies will remain in place for the 2023-24 admissions cycle. On the other hand, Massachusetts Institute of Technology has reinstated the SAT/ACT requirement for all its applicants.
Optional Covid-19 Question Remains
For the past several years, the Common Application has had a place in the additional information section for students to share how the pandemic has affected them. You could share disruptions in housing or employment within your family, access to a safe and quiet study space, or new obligations such as part-time work or care for siblings or family members. This optional Covid-19 essay will remain for at least the 2023-24 application cycle.
Early Applications – Very Popular
Applying early through Restrictive Early Action, Early Decision and Early Action remains popular with students. These various early application deadlines tend to give students a boost in acceptance rates, with Early Decision usually providing the biggest advantage.
However, this year, early applications tended to skyrocket in popularity. New York University received 22,000 Early Decision applicants, an increase of 14% from the previous cycle. University of North Carolina’s Early Action applications increased by 10% to nearly 38,650.
While students will usually have a higher acceptance rate when applying early, that advantage is starting to dwindle because of the increasing interest in early applications. In addition, students should ensure they have realistic expectations; just because the acceptance rates might be higher for Early Decision, it doesn’t necessarily mean they have a better chance of getting accepted. If a student isn’t a competitive applicant, they likely won’t see a significant bump in their odds of acceptance.
Application Volume Increases
Not only are early applications becoming more popular, but application volume in general to universities also continues to increase. According to the Common Application, the total application volume increased by 30% from 2019-20 to 2022-23. More students are applying and they are applying to more schools on average.
For example, NYU had more than 120,000 applications for its first-year admissions, a 13% increase from the previous cycle. The University of Georgia had more than 43,700 applicants, signifying a 10% increase from its last cycle.
More Deferrals And Longer College Waitlists
Because of the increasing number of applications to top schools nationwide, more students were deferred or placed on the college waitlist. When students are deferred during the early application process, their application will be re-evaluated during the regular decision round. Vanderbilt University deferred 300 students for its class of 2026 and 500 students in the following year.
One school is bucking this trend. Yale University deferred 56% of its early action applicants for its Class of 2024. However, for its Class of 2027, it deferred just 21% of its applicants and rejected 67%.
Rising Tuition And Fees Costs
College costs have been rising for most of the last twenty years at private and public universities. In 2023, in-state students at public universities paid 175% more for tuition and fees than in 2003. Tuition and fees at private national universities have grown 134% in the same period. This puts families in a difficult predicament when students get into their dream school but barely get any financial aid.
As younger students begin to build their college lists, they should check the price of the university to make sure that it is affordable to the family. Students can find net price calculators online to help them with this decision.
No SAT Subject Tests, But Increased Importance Of AP Exams
The College Board stopped offering the SAT Subject Tests in 2021. Students who had taken the exams could still submit them with their college applications, but all SAT Subject Test requirements were eliminated.
As younger students have aged, they might not have had access to taking these exams before they were canceled. While they won’t be penalized for this, that might mean that other standardized exam scores, like the Advanced Placement (AP) scores, might take more importance, especially if they aren’t submitting SAT or ACT exam scores.
Legacy Preferences Are Decreasing
Traditionally, in college admissions, a “legacy” student was someone whose parents attended the university. According to an article from the Guardian, these policies tend to favor white, affluent students, with 56% of the nation’s top 250 institutions considering legacy in their admission process in 2020.
However, legacy policies have become less of a factor in the admissions decision after the Varsity Blues Scandal in 2019 and litigation brought against top universities like Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. Schools like Cornell University and Amherst College are examples of schools where legacy students won’t get a preference over non-legacy students when applying.
BS/MD Programs Are Even More Competitive
Direct medical programs, also known as BS/MD programs, allow students interested in medicine to apply to undergraduate and medical school simultaneously. Once accepted to the program, they will have a guaranteed spot at the partnered medical school. These programs have always been competitive but have gotten even more so in the last few years.
Brown University's Program in Liberal Medical Education had 4,192 this admissions cycle, compared to 3,827 in 2021-22. Drexel University’s Early Assurance Program saw a similar increase, going from 2298 applications in 2020-21 to 2,705 for the 2021-22 application cycle.
Increased Changes To Accommodate Trans And Non-Binary Students
In the past two years, the Common Application has changed its platform to be more accommodating to trans and non-binary students. The platform now allows students to share their preferred first name, added “legal” to the first/given name question and added a question when students can share their pronouns. In the upcoming cycle, students will have to write their legal sex, but they will be able to distinguish if they are non-binary or write in another gender.
Other college application platforms are working on making similar changes to be more inclusive to trans and non-binary students.
ChatGPT: How Students Should (and Shouldn’t) Use It
ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence chatbot that was released in November 2022. At a basic level, it means people can ask it any question, and it will respond for free. Because it has been trained on text data from the internet, it can understand and create human-like language. While some students might be tempted to use ChatGPT to write their college application essay for them, it isn’t recommended. ChatGPT lacks the ability to convey empathy, growth and introspection. Ultimately, it won’t be able to produce high-quality essays that will help students get into top universities.
With the exploding popularity of ChatGPT, colleges might turn to different ways to evaluate students, including having them submit video responses so they can ensure the student is the one producing the work. Schools like Brown University, Washington University in St. Louis and Bowdoin College already have an optional video introduction that students can submit. There might be an increase in this requirement in response to ChatGPT.
Colleges might also be able to use AI detectors to see whether or not the students have actually written the essays themselves; if the colleges do discover the student used ChatGPT, or another service, the student would likely be eliminated from consideration for enrollment.
However, students can use ChatGPT during the college search. Students could type in a query like “Best schools for biology with an acceptance rate of over 30% in the state of New York,” and it will generate a list for you. While students should research the schools' websites to verify the information is accurate, it might be a good starting point.
Final Thoughts
College admissions are more competitive than ever, and rising seniors should spend their summer wisely researching to ensure they find colleges that are a good fit for them. By looking at the trends from previous cycles, they can be armed with information to help them enter the application cycle prepared.
