<p>This goes out to the counselors and admissions people. Have there been fewer applicants in general this year than were expected? I know as our kids were growing up we kept hearing about a mini-baby boom, but lately my S has been receiving all sorts of last minute e-mails from great places like Emory, Vanderbilt, Tulane, etc., saying he'll have priority admission, just complete a form, etc. Also, I know a couple of the colleges listed at the beginning of this forum have extended their deadlines, and at least one has done away with the filing fee. Any news from the college front?</p>
<p>I very much doubt that there are fewer applicants this year. I think we are still in the boom phase of applicants. In fact, on top of that, given the Common app, students apply to more schools than they used to apply to and so that means more apps per school. </p>
<p>Please do not confuse the promotional "please apply" materials, calls, and emails with fewer apps. Schools want to get as many apps as possible. When they do, that makes them more "selective," which in turn, helps them with reputation and rankings, etc. They are not doing this promotion because they are short on applications! If you look at how many applications were received in the ED round at the very selective colleges, there was no dirth of applicants.</p>
<p>There are definitely not fewer apps this year - either in MT or to colleges and universities in general. We are also in the middle of a trend of admissions becoming more competitive, so students are applying to many more schools in order to ensure that they have choices come April. As Susan mentioned above, the common app makes the process a little more streamlined. From the college perspective, more applications doesn't necessarily mean more qualified applicants. There is the same desire on the part of institutions as there has always been to attract top candidates, therefore academically strong candidates will receive the promotional "please apply" communications in volume.</p>
<p>For MT the applicant volume is up across the board. One of the indicators I use to gauge at my institution is how fast the audition appointments fill up. (We limit the number of audition appointments in order to keep our admit percentage at a reasonable level.) There was a huge jump this year and we filled up three weeks earlier than we did last year. I believe it is because candidates are auditioning for many more schools then they have in years past. I know when I meet with prospective MT families I advise that, given the odds no matter how talented the student, they make sure the audition list is broad enough to be sure of at least one acceptance. I'm not sure I emphasized that as strongly five years ago.</p>
<p>Well, I guess I have to give my S a big kiss then! He's had non-audition MT schools tell him, "just send an app and your transcript and you're in", but to have some of the top colleges tell him that--well, I'm impressed!</p>
<p>Happymom, I think you have missed the point that Susan and All4FSU were trying to make. The type of mailings your S is getting is very typical, and has been for years. My D graduated in the spring and she, and her friends, all received this type of promotional materials years ago. Most, if not all, colleges send these mailings out to thousands of kids every year, usually triggered by SAT scores or National Merit. None of them provide any guarantee of admission. I have a niece who is receiving similar mailings from law schools all over North America, due to a very high LSAT score. At first it's flattering that they want her application, but now it's just gotten ridiculous as the mailings arrive in her email inbox and in the actual mailbox almost daily, and she's already made her decision where to attend from the three offers she's already received. Colleges want lots of applications, especially from academically strong candidates, but none is an offer of admission.</p>
<p>Yes, I was really curious about post #4 that implies that sending in an app means "you're in." Is that your interpretation or does it STATE those exact words? I can't imagine Emory or Vanderbilt (which you mention) ever telling ANY candidate in an email that if they just apply, they will be "in." Selective schools do NOT do this. What they DO do is screen for qualified candidates (such as through test scores) and send promotional materials and encouragements to get them to apply as they would like a large pool of qualified candidates to choose from. They may have incentives like waiving the app fee, etc. I have had students who get letters encouraging them to apply and they call it "being recruited," but I don't think of it that way. Thousands of such letters go out. They are NO guarantee of being admitted. It is promotional in nature but there is a screening of which types of candidates to send such materials to. This is not new. It is not just this year. It is definitely not due to a dirth of candidates! This just gives the colleges more qualified candidates to pick from and also makes them more selective in terms of admit rate as well. So, I'm afraid you are interpretting such materials as guarantees of admission. If these schools are the likes of Vanderbilt and Emory, that is not the case (unless it actually states, "you will be admitted.") Otherwise, you are inferring and misunderstanding those materials. Also, schools such as those two, do not admit based on a student's stats alone, as way more candidates have the requisite stats to get in than they will be able to take. They would need to see the entire app materials to render a decision.</p>
<p>The demographic boom in college age students is supposed to peak in a couple of years and then plateau. Other factors such as increased international student recruitment should keep things highly competitive for some time after that. It's a big world and it does not take much of that market to have a major effect on the US educational market.</p>
<p>The 'ranking' obsession has gotton out of hand. USWN's rankings, in particular, are front page news, and students/parents, as consumers, often use the published data as a proxy for insitutional/educational quality, etc. Knowing this, colleges do what they can to influence the measures/formulas used by USWN to base its rankings (i.e., college abc is ranked 40, compared to college xyz, which is ranked 38; and gosh, college xyz was 37 last year - what happened? what do we have to do to alter our competitive advantage?). My sense is that colleges make some decisions to influence the measures deployed by USWNs. One of the important measures is acceptance rate. Also, as consumers, we assume tat acceptance rate is a proxy for quality. As any business person will tell you, its relatively easy to decrease the selection ratio; just increase recruitment and the applicant pool. Recruitment is a relatively low cost investment (mailers, early response policies, testing-optional policy, etc.). It does not matter whether they get a lot of applicants that they are not interested in. They want a larger applicant pool. I am not saying that yhese practices are unethical, but, remember, the performance (hence the career and earnings) of admissions VPs is assessed and acceptance rate is a hard measure used to evaluate performance effectiveness.
From what I have heard, if you are a HS senior, there are more of you than any other age cohort in US history. Apparently, the trend line will start to decrease over the next 10 years. I would also think that, given the popularity of MT over the past couple of years among HS students, that MT applications are up. Someone did a study (controlling for demography, etc) a couple of years ago, and found that the number of pre-law and pre-med applicants could be predicted by the number of popular TV series about Lawyers and Doctors on the air while those students were in their formative years.</p>