Peaking?

Parents Forum
1

<p>I heard recently somewhere that just based on demographics, the classes of 2013, 2014 and 2015 are/will be among the largest ever but that this trend is peaking. Obvious implication for admissions is that the largest ever applicant pool is applying to undergraduate institutions for admission to these classes. Anecdotally, this seems to be the case. Just look at the number of applicants to most schools for the last two or three years. It seems to have gone up significantly. I wonder if others have any factual data to support this?</p>

2

<p>Supposedly the peak was actually last year’s high school class (2009). It’s falling slightly for the next few years, not enough to make a big difference though. Most of the insanity in the huge numbers of applications colleges are getting can be attributed to two things:

  1. kids apply to a lot more colleges than they used to, and
  2. more kids are going to college than in the past.</p>
3

<p>I wasn’t sure if we were talking about leaves or for a competition. </p>

<p>Darn.</p>

4

<p>I wonder about this one too. Haven’t seen hard data but I thought this class or last year was supposed to be the peak, followed by dropping numbers which could have drastic implications for many colleges outside of the top 10. I think net/net the bad economy has actually increased total college enrollment because many who could not get jobs are going to school instead. This has certainly added to community college enrollment and graduate schools, not so sure about undergraduate universities.</p>

5

<p>I don’t think it will have “drastic” implications for those outside the top 10. I think it will have implications for the colleges that expanded dorms and facilities to accomodate a surge in students. Colleges that have remained constant in number of students and constant in quality of education over the decades shouldn’t be drastically impacted nor should the strong regional private colleges that have experienced a surge in apps as they will simply “reject less” to fill their classes. The ones that will be adversely impacted are the ones that have been teetering for years.</p>