I do feel badly for the rising HS seniors if their admissions odds are lower due to gap years, but I don’t think it will have a truly noticeable impact. Not panic-worthy. At my kids’ college, gap year requests aren’t due until the 24th I think, but at last count they had 17% requesting gap years, so maybe it will end up around 25%+ (lots of chatter still on FB groups, kids finalizing plans and likely to make last minute requests), but they normally have a little over 10% taking gap years anyway. So that’s maybe a couple of hundred extra spots.
It seems like Princeton was the toughest of the schools regarding gap years/deferrals. On this thread and other reading, I saw that most colleges mentioned were permitting unlimited numbers of gap years with the harshest penalty being perhaps you may not get on-campus housing upon return. Being told you may not be able to even return when you want, like Princeton (and Bowdoin’s earlier announcement, since overturned) is definitely a big deterrent!
One nice thing for rising seniors…if they actually do feel the pinch from fewer spots available due to gappers returning, and they aren’t happy where they land, THEY can also take gap years, but likely during a year with more awesome options of how to spend their time. They can re-apply during their gap year, which will hopefully be (more) back to normal. I am a big fan of the gap year, so upon reflection, I see this as a win for the rising seniors ;-).
That depends on the state. In MA it is a suggestion, or more exactly an “expectation”. That’s is exactly the wording on the state website. There is no enforcement or fines. Maybe in other states there are laws about this. You can’t make blanket statements like that.
His spreadsheet and predictions are pretty interesting for sure. Makes us think more about D21’s list. We were already considering endowment per student as a way to make her list and it’s nice to have the stats all in one spot. I’m definitely sad for some schools here that look like they might struggle more than I thought.
I don’t think some (many?) colleges are going to be clear about whether or not fall 2020 gap years will impact the chances for fall 2021 applicants. Many kids (mine included) are going to be hesitant about applying to a school where their chances are now significantly reduced because of fall 2020 gap years. I don’t think colleges want a decrease in applications, so it doesn’t benefit them to be transparent about this.
We are definitely paying attention to which colleges allowed unlimited gap years without penalties or questions asked, what percentage of the student body requested gap years (wherever that data is public), and how each school is handling fall 2020. Not so much if they are having students return to campus or not, because so much of that is based on so many different factors, and I do think most (all?) colleges are doing their absolute best with all the moving pieces and variety of independent factors. We do want to know how the rules are enforced on-campus though, and how the online courses are put together. I am a fan of severe penalties for college students who don’t follow the mask rules, who try to get around social distancing, etc. The plan is to connect with current students who are on-campus at colleges of interest, AND connect with students who are doing classes remotely. Having student perspectives during the months of September and October will help D21 make her final decision as to which colleges get the ED/ED2 applications. If she is accepted to her ED/ED2 school and things are still not back to normal for fall 2021, then she’ll have a good idea of what to expect for her first semester/year of college (she would not take a gap year).
It depends on the school, but for almost all private schools the answer is no. They prefer to have a certain number for each year, but total enrollment is more important.
If the freshmen class is bigger, but the total is normal they can move some professors around and be fine. It’s not optimal, but they can make it work. The limiter is dorm space, but they can manage that with triples, renting apartments, or letting some students live off campus.
For public schools they need to get their OOS numbers back up to get the tuition revenue where it needs to be. They will probably just accept more and make it work.
I wonder about using Niche for data though, but I have not done a deep dive on the methodology.
The perish list includes Miami Ohio, Denison, Mt Holyoke,and Macalester, among many others. I don’t doubt that many schools are going to close over the next decade, but those ones? Not sure about that.
Many of the schools in his perish category I do agree with…especially the LACs that have been struggling to maintain enrollment numbers and offering large discounts.
He also takes into consideration percent of international (and presumingly full pay) students. Maybe those schools will just look for more domestic full pay students to offset that loss?
Princeton may be more upfront about students taking deferral (gap year or leave of absence). Many colleges don’t even allow it and many others are deliberately vague. Colleges are making projections on the percentage of deferrals in the coming school year (based on surveys, etc.), and if their projections are off significantly from actual number of deferrals, they’ll undoubtedly deploy other tools and mechanisms they control to discourage such deferrals.
LOL. Gordon could have saved himself a lot of trouble and bandwith just by publishing the endowment per student numbers since that always seems to be the biggest surrogate marker in all of these ranking systems.
@JanieWalker : “I don’t think colleges want a decrease in applications, so it doesn’t benefit them to be transparent about this.”
I think you are right that many will not be totally transparent. And I think most haven’t even had their deadlines pass yet, so it will take a while for them to know the true numbers. Clearly it’s true that overall there will be a significant increase in gap years requested/taken this year due to the pandemic, but I’m not sure it will be significant enough to warrant changing application plans (but perhaps!). I mean, if a perfect fit/dream school that typically accepts 2500 students now might only accept 2000 students, that’s a bummer but I don’t know that I wouldn’t apply if I thought it was the right place for me.
I guess I do see two places that it could come into play with application strategy. I suppose if I had a dream school I was applying to for ED and it was already a super reach and I was very unlikely to get in, and now I’m 15%-20% even LESS likely to get in, maybe it’s not worth using your ED “shot” for that place. So I can see with the ED school at least wondering about how much your chances are now reduced, but if it was the perfect school for me, I’d probably still go for it! But otherwise, I guess the biggest impact might be that I’d still apply everywhere I otherwise would have, but now I’d add 1-2 more safeties? I hope too many kids don’t let slightly reduced chances dissuade them from applying where they see themselves fitting in best.
I would actually embrace the schools that were generous with gap year allowances (assuming I got in to those schools), because I think it demonstrates a strong commitment to their students. It would make me feel better knowing that if I enrolled somewhere, they had my best interests at heart. I think the schools that are being stingy with gap years are not prioritizing the well-being of their current students as much as they should, and I would think twice about enrolling at those schools really.
As far as enforcement of restrictions, I agree, I’m glad my kiddos’ school is suggesting a pretty strict protocol (particularly the testing part). And it sounds wise that you will be paying attention to this. But I hope for everyone’s sake that we get lucky and the vaccine comes through, and for next year these protocols aren’t needed!! Fingers crossed!!
It’s fascinating to me that the gap year requests at Williams are double that at Bowdoin. I would have thought they would have been more similar or that Bowdoin would have more requests given that Williams is having everyone back and Bowdoin just freshmen. Maybe the difference is athlete related as Williams athletics are such a big part of campus culture
I think his spreadsheet is very helpful! His predictions for public schools is vulnerable to how the state government reacts. A lot of states will find the funds to keep their state flagships open for business.
Wesleyan (A Category Survive Institution) hosted a zoom meeting with alumni about a week ago and the VP for Finance gave some interesting feedback on “attrition” in the wake of the pandemic which I presume includes requests for deferrals. He said that his office was predicting between 50 and 60 first-years would be staying at home. That’s 8% of the freshman class.
It looks like Williams enrolled about 10% more students this year to help absorb the extra melt and gap years.
2254 students this year
2050 students is normal enrollment (I think)
2019 students enrolled and not taking a gap year (my estimate based on 11% taking gap year)
My guess is that Bowdoin threw it out there that, if freshmen took a gap year, it might have to be two years. The details weren’t quite as harsh but I’ve already found one mom who thought her D would be stuck with two years without having a choice. The policy actually said that freshmen should request a gap if they like and then Bowdoin would get back to all students who requested a gap year and let them know if the gap would be one or two years. Then, at that point, the students who requested the gap could still decide if they wanted to enroll or gap. No one was ever going to be forced into a two year gap. And, in the end, all who requested a gap year have been promised re-admittance for fall 2021.
I wonder about this too. Williams is even giving 15% discount for 2020/21 because students will take fewer classes (no Jan plan, recommending 3 instead of 4 classes each semester).
Perhaps Bowdoin’s messaging…not guaranteeing when students could come back, and also saying those who do gap/take leaves would be disadvantaged in course registration and housing selection, scared students from requesting leaves.
But, once was all said and done, it turns out all Bowdoin students taking time off can come back when they want to, and Bowdoin also changed the timing of course registration and housing selection so those returning students aren’t penalized.
The proportion of varsity athletes is about the same at Bowdoin and Williams (~36%), not sure there’s much of a culture difference wrt athletics.
Purdue accepted more students this year too and and had a higher than expected yield. They were lucky enough students opted to study remotely/fully online to make housing work.