Essays

Does CC (or any other college’s) essay prompts change from year to year? Is it too early to start working on the essay for next years’s application?

I highly doubt the “Design Your Own Bock” essay will ever change/drop- no reason not to start brainstorming different ideas for that one if your student is up for it. But Junior spring is intense- I know my older two never gave any serious thought to their essays during junior spring semester since they were way too busy already.

My question is a little off the topic of this thread, but I wondered if the Office of Admission has released any information yet about the application season for the class of 2023. The College Kickstart blog has been updating the admission statistics on this year’s applications, and the results are sobering, to say the least. https://college-kickstart.com/blog/item/class-of-2023-admission-results.

Schools that a year or two ago were admitting 15% of applicants (the same admission rate CC had for the past two admissions cycles) are now admitting between 11% and 14% of applicants. I am assuming that CC’s application pool is now approaching (or possibly has surpassed) the 9,000 mark, and more and more students seem to be applying ED I or II or EA. That makes the competitiveness of RD admission even more intense.

I don’t know what to say about this trend. It’s encouraging to know that a Colorado College education is valued by so many students and families. It’s also a source of pride to see CC’s commitment to increasing diversity as evidenced by its participation in the QuestBridge program. In general, though, I wonder what the result of this incredibly competitive trend ultimately will be. Stanford stopped reporting admission statistics after its admission rate reached something like 4% last year. It said it wanted people to realize that there are many excellent schools available to students. Perhaps they are going to start a trend? Does anyone have thoughts on this topic?