Has the NACAC opening’s list changed drastically from previous years?
I’d be curious to know if there are some colleges out there bemoaning under-enrollment, but I don’t think they would want to advertise their low yields. And I don’t mean schools that have chronic low yields, rather colleges that usually have typical yields.
Local CCs are under enrolled this year compared to last. We’ve been told state directionals opened enrollment further (to lower scoring students)…no clue how this relates to the higher end schools being discussed in this thread.
This may be a stupid question but will the significantly overenrolled schools be able to determine what caused the problem to the extent that they can modify their selection models to prevent the problem next year? Or am I making this too simplistic?
Affected schools will obviously try to prevent the problem from recurring, which could mean:
However, modification of your selection model does not guarantee that the problem will be solved next year. Selection models are never perfect; if they were, then there wouldn’t be an overenrollment problem to begin with, right?
@JustGraduate @Corbett The environment is constantly changing. As I mentioned in my initial post there were predictions that international applicants would be scared away from the US, which does not seem to have happened. Also universities that are striving to rise in/maintain their rankings were not likely to have lowered their acceptance criteria in order to fill their classes due this this perceived threat.
While the reasons for over enrolment will vary by college, it will be interesting to see the explanations.
It’s a far cry from a few years ago when Loyola University New Orleans exhausted their waitlist and had to resort to the embarrassing task of contacting rejected applicants to offer them admission.
Aside from Mizzou has anyone heard of major colleges being under enrolled or having to go deeply into their waitlists?
Was at GaTech yesterday for orientation. They indicated they were a little over enrolled. They were redoing some break rooms in their dorms and making them rooms. They also said they were FULL in the dorms so no rooms changed. But it did not seem like they were panicked about the numbers.
@TomSrOfBoston I don’t know why people really though students would flock to Canada – there are plenty of moderate families around
@toomanyteens That was the hype. And most Canadian universities did have large increases in American and international applicants.
I know of specific instances at UMD and Brandeis where some of the overflow students were invited to start in spring semester (and UMD still does this), once the schools got through fall melt. Our young friend who attended Brandeis was offered the chance to do a study abroad through Brandeis before she ever got on campus. Took the opportunity, had a great time, led to her choosing her major. It also helped that her parents had just moved to the country where she went to study, so had some local structure and support. (not typical, I know) UChicago also had overenrollment the first year they went to the Common App.
UMD was turning doubles into triples and using hall lounges as quads for a while, too. (No discount.) This was whwn my kids and their friends were applying – during and immediately after the 2008 crash.
Overenrollment isn’t new.
Spring start is not necessarily due to general overenrollment; it can be done to balance fall versus spring enrollment. If everyone starts in the fall, then the fall semester will have higher enrollment than the spring semester, since those who graduate one semester early or late will have one extra fall semester.
@CountingDown Was the Brandeis student offered study abroad at time of acceptance or after being admitted for fall entry. Many fall applicants are offered this program which they must take in order to be admitted.
Just read the UGA is offering freshmen $1000 to live at home if they are local, and upperclassmen $3500 to give up their dorm rooms. Very over enrolled.
University of Toronto bought a hotel in the early 2000’s to handle the double cohort. It houses about 1000 students currently. The university doesn’t assign room to upper years before they accommodate the freshmen. Freshmen have guaranteed housing, upper years don’t. Course enrollment for freshmen was last week. I looked at the numbers (they were available online) and there was plenty of room in the most popular courses. So, although U of T may have more freshmen than last year, the system can absorb them without too much difficulty.
One factor that may have led to a greater yield than expected for many higher end universities was the cap on out of state admissions at the University of California system.
I’m not sure, though she knew in the spring she’d be going overseas.
UCB, UMD started the spring deferral after an overenrolled class. They’ve kept it since. This is our local flagship and we were very familiar with what was happening.
@CountingDown then that’s not due to over enrolment. It is one of the “alternate freshman entry” programs that many universities have.
The spring deferral cohort was started due to over enrollment. UMD has since institutionalized it, but its origins were a higher yield than expected, exacerbated by a notorious lack of housing (no guarantee after freshman year unless a student is in honors).One of S1’s friends spent first semester in a hall lounge converted to a quad.
So to clarify, people on this thread are saying that many of the “top” (are we talking US News top 100-150?) schools are over-enrolled? But did I not read a stat that said fewer students are graduating from high school and going to college?
So if we dug deep, we would expect to find plenty of colleges in the remaining 1500-2000 schools that aren’t over-enrolled, correct?
I’d be very curious about schools that offer really strong scholarships for top students (UTD, UAH, Baylor, and so on). I wonder if they are starting to become over-enrolled yet.
So is this all about the money, end of story?
I live in Texas and even the regional schools are experiencing over enrollment. My sons school has had a record freshman class six years in a row. The expect this years freshman class to break last years record. They continue to build new dorms but they are having a difficult time keeping up. Only freshman are promised a room.