Ok I swear I’m going to work after this, but FINALLY some admissions people and counselors are starting to talk about this on Twitter. Just a couple of examples so far, but yeah, both high income and low potentially put down multiple deposits. The high so they can travel, consider financing, and take their time to decide. The low so they can appeal financial aid and see how that turns out -plus some of those admitted students were not required to make a deposit anyway, so free to them at multiple schools.
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I know of a couple of kids who graduated last yr, decided not to enroll at any school and reapplied for this yr. Could be a lot of kids in this situation and I don’t think you need a official gap yr request granted by a school to do that.
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No but that is never advised. Unless they did something great with their year off, that doesn’t play well. If they took community college class, then they are considered transfers. We don’t know one person out of of giant school who did that and from all of the banter here on CC last spring, I doubt many kids did that. It was interesting to watch, but the vast majority of kids applied and went to college last year.
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I think taking care of younger siblings or working to help your family was seen as a valid reason not to enroll last yr.
We are all just speculating and it could well be double deposits or something else, who knows.
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There’s a significant difference between gap year and deferring.
There are 130 gap year students in the Williams class of 2025.
That sounds like an awful lot, right?
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Sounds like a pretty high number for a place like Williams with small classes.
@CRHeel94 It is a lot. They aim for about 550 students per class. They accepted 200 fewer students compared to the last couple of years. (Last year they accepted about 50 more students than the prior year).
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24%. The article says they have 130 gap year students. They expect most of them to attend.
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I teach at a medium sized public institution that is about 1/3 first gen and tends to take kids who were pretty middle of the road in high school. The pandemic has hit enrollment hard, and I think that’s been the case with a lot of smaller and less selective schools. Kids who may have been a little iffy about heading to college (and paying for it) opted to sit out, go to community college, etc., and I’m not seeing a big increase in admissions this year to reflect those students coming back. Every time I hear about a big school over enrolling I think about how that trickles down to the smaller schools further down the food chain who will take the hit.
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Do those numbers include other gap yr students that are not first yrs?
No it says they were originally members of the Class of 2024.
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D21 got an email from her committed college today - " As a reminder, the deadline for requesting a gap year or deferring your enrollment has been extended to June 15. To be considered, submit a written request to the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid". Does this indicate over enrollment?
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Sorry? What’s the difference? To me, that’s the same. You defer going to school by taking a gap. Most kids who take gap years apply to college, accept a spot and then request a gap year.
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Yes the NESCACs had a lot of kids defer. Kids who go to those schools are looking for a very personal experience and many didn’t want to go during Covid (including our Bowdoin son who took fall off). As for Williams, they adjusted how many kids they accepted this year to offset the gap year kids. But, again, this does not explain most colleges that are overenrolled. Most colleges did not have a big jump in gap year kids.
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I’m sure that number is just for Williams freshman. I think Bowdoin had something like 80-100 per class take some sort of gap (either a semester or full year). Doesn’t explain over enrollment for class of 2025. Like Williams, I’m sure schools like this (of which there were very few! It’s been documented!) did whatever they had to do enrollment management wise so they don’t have 650 freshman. These schools typically sit more like around 500 per class. They couldn’t absorb a 500-person class on top of 150 class of 2024’s who will start school this fall.
None of this discussion really has anything to do with all of the overenrollment/not going to WL stuff we’ve been seeing.
200 not accepted at Williams had to go somewhere else and it could be throwing off the yield management at other schools.
I don’t know what UTs numbers look like, but lets assume they predict loosing 50% of the auto admits to other schools every yr. This yr because some top schools took less kids or different profile kids, 60% of the auto admit kids enroll and they get their usual yield from the other groups=over enrolled.
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It’s not that simple. We will have to wait for the CDSs to come out but we don’t know how many fewer Williams accepted to get to the number they wanted in the end. And wasn’t it 100-something not 200? That’s just not that many kids in the whole scheme of things. It’s not why Purdue or any other school is way over their expected class.