Highlight is this is not going to be a good year for even the elite universities!
Harvard 20% Deferred from the incoming class! Overall enrollment down by 1,470! Overall undergrad registered 5,231
MIT - 8% of freshman deferred (normal 1%)
William College - 90 students took a gap year (25 usually)
Bates 10% took gap year instead of 4% in normal times
This was a splendid opportunity for those who wouldn’t be admitted in any other year.
Have any schools indeed said there will be less spots available for the class of 2021 because of all th kids taking gap years?
Don’t know if they’ve said it officially but it’s hard to imagine it won’t have varying degrees of impact on spots available for the 2021 class.
Situation for Notre Dame:
“Admissions received around 60 summer cancellations this year, in comparison to around 30 cancellations in past years. While this number was greater than in past years, Bishop said admissions prepared for an even greater loss. In addition, the number of students electing to take a gap year increased to around 60 to 100 students as opposed to the usual 15 to 20 students.”
Source: Notre Dame Observer
No official numbers here but every day my son (a rising senior at Amherst) hears of another friend (juniors and seniors) who are now taking gap years.
Purdue just announced a jump in enrollment as they are mainly targeting in-class. Let’s see how long that will last
Seems to me private schools will get a hit as the cost cant really be justified online
Harvard and MIT could “replace” the kids that deferred with kids from their waiting list but decided not to. And coming next year they can (if they wish) accept more transfers to go back to their numbers. I do not think they are “hit” with anything. Now other colleges that are not Harvard or MIT yes, that would be more of a problem.
For high school class of 2021 I think they could be more spring admit type programs to perhaps help colleges spread the kids than having a giant class start in the fall.