As far as most college admissions are concerned, White and Asian applicants are in the same “bucket”. Being White is typically neutral from an application perspective whereas being Asian makes it more challenging if applying to STEM majors at highly selective colleges.
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I think colleges may be in for a wild waitlist goose hunt this year. The number of applicants appears to not have significantly changed, just the volume of applications has increased, dramatically. It could be that colleges will have both low acceptance rates and low yields this year, causing them to try to fill the class from the waitlists. With so many students waitlisted at multiple schools, it may be tougher for colleges to get commits. Will be interesting.
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What about TUFTS ?
Yes. This. While I’m semi-retired, I have already begun to hear this from the HR department at our firm. They used to set out for a select 5-6 colleges for the majority of recruitment, wanting/needing the prestige as well as the knowledge that the kids they’d be hiring were the cream of the crop in terms of intelligence and readiness for their roles.
That list is now close to 50…in 2 years. There’s a “No Harvard, No Penn!” meme going around, basically meaning that they believe those two schools have downgraded their applicant pool and the kids applying are no longer what they were two years ago.
When one of the partners reacted negatively to this (thinking it was potentially racist, etc.) many responded that it had absolutely nothing to do with the makeup of the kids. It was that, in years’ past, the kids they were hiring were capable of doing extremely high level calculations in their heads and applying them. The current crop is not even close to that level. So they’ve broadened the search.
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Great! That’s what I like to hear.
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My husband told some friends of ours who are senior partners at a top consulting firm that this is exactly what the firm would have to do. They all looked a little stunned.
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The trend has been unmistakable for a while. These firms (certainly not all firms) were too lazy in the past that they essentially outsourced their recruiting to colleges. The (few?) firms whose fortunes are more highly dependent on and more immediately reflected by whom they hire always perform their own tests.
Great! They were stunned because ?
I always think that people get more enthusiastic about recruiting outside ivies/t20 when their own kids don’t get it to these schools.
I’m used to the pivoting of folks who say things like - oh, look at so and so who graduated from ivyX, brilliant - then stop saying things like that when their circle of kids don’t get in.
The truth is that there is talent at every school.
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This was the strong feeling last year, that because of the huge increase of applications (but not applicants), colleges would be pulling kids of waitlists all summer. Instead, most selective schools were fully enrolled, or over-enrolled, by May 1. In fact, there seemed to be even fewer kids pulled than in previous years. Maybe it will be different this year, but I’m hopeful that students don’t wait for something that never comes to pass, as so many did in 2021.
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I agree, but I also think many class of 2020 kids deferred or took a gap year in 2020-21 and arrived on campus with the class of 2021, which contributed to over-enrollment and few waitlist pulls.
I am tentatively hopeful that there won’t be so many class of 2021 kids starting with the 2022’s.
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I agree with you - both on the enthusiasm level being dependent on their own family experiences and especially on the statement that there is talent at every school.
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2 things come to mind for this year. Umich released its stats on applicants. Significant increases in applicants from underserved population - FGLI, URM. Umich also is not known for generous funding of OOS students. Assume every T50 school has had this corresponding boom in getting applicants from this pool.
- to what extent are these applicants the same ones? Are FGLI URMs sitting on multiple acceptances
- will said students attend, and take out loans if FA is not forthcoming
I’m assuming the Covid gap year bulge has mostly moved through the system.
I have plenty of anecdata for the 1st para
According to the common app update as of March 15, applicants have increased 14.4% over the past two years, while average apps per applicants have increased, but at a lower rate (6%) to 5.6 apps per applicants. Those two numbers combined equal a 21.3% increase in applications.
Common app reflects between 60% and 65% of application volume AFAIK, to my knowledge there is no aggregated data for all apps.
Part of the issue in the increase in applicants is HSs requiring students to apply to at least one college, even though they have no intention of attending.
Interestingly, even with the increase in applicants those attending college is down over the last several years, of course covid explains some of that but the largest decrease is in community colleges, so not necessarily a money issue (although some might have chosen to get jobs in the hot job market).
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Any data on international v. domestic applicants?
What about # of applicants across t50 schools?
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So I find this very fascinating. I have often wondered if selective colleges are now accepting students with lower stats, inflated high school grades, and so on rather than the 1600 kids then what actually happens when those kids arrive at school.
Does the college provide Algebra classes vs. Calc 3?
I sat in an accepted students program last weekend and the history chair was speaking that she had her classes focus on research papers vs. a traditional midterm/final format. I looked around the classroom and wondered how many of these kids had done a research paper or any type of paper for that matter? With most current seniors going online March of sophomore year, being online or quasi so for junior year, and lots of burn out for senior year, what kind of preparation are they getting?
At one of our prestigious private schools in our town, up until 5 years ago at the high school level no Alg 1 was offered. Students were presumed to have had Alg 1 in 8th grade and could test out of it. There was also no Spanish 1 course or non honors science track.
Fast forward 5 years and with the school trying to open the doors for more students, Alg 1 and Spanish 1 are offered and last year they introduced some science courses for students not ready for chemistry.
Long story, I wonder if colleges are dealing with more students ill prepared for college and the rigor. I truly think the 2022 kids are likely going to have the hardest transition.
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I do think though that the applications rose at a much higher clip to T20/T50 …
Many schools have summer “bridge” programs for students to catch up if they are missing some core classes that should have happened in HS.
But, that isn’t anything new. My H’s Ivy acceptance 30 years ago was contingent on him getting a B or higher in intro physics which he had to take at the university over the summer.
They will be there for a rude awakening .
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Quite possibly the app volume has increased relatively more for those. One would have to go get the data and do the math.
Or they’ll rise to the challenge and be just fine.
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