In Florida specifically I have seen many people applying for UF (of course), FIU, and UCF. Almost all of my friends that are Juniors have UCF as their top choice right now. Not as many people are talking about FSU or UM which surprises me.
At my school Florida Polytechnic is usually very popular but not so much this year as UF and UCF. Not many are planning on going OOS, a few plan to continue at the technical school connected to our high school. To be honest a lot of my classmates aren’t talking about college as an optional at all.
Dartmouth seems to be trending at our HS, many of the kids who a few years ago would have wanted Brown chose Dartmouth for their early round (which seems to be an odd swap to me).
Wesleyan and WashU are down.
Hamilton and Bates have risen in popularity as first choice schools.
Statistically, the UC and California State campuses have seen significantly surges in their applicant pools, as have NYU, Ohio State, University of Alabama, University of Chicago, University of Kentucky, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and University of Washington.
Most of those universities have seen a doubling in their applicant pools over the last 7-8 years.
I know people in several different regions (Mid-Atlantic, New England, West Coast) who’ve said there is a lot of local interest in Elon University. It used to be a small regional LAC. The school leadership has done a terrific job taking advantage of a great location and turning it into an attractive school–very nice campus, desirable local community, social and qualified student body, and terrific weather.
Like many here on CC, I thought I had an encyclopedic knowledge of colleges and universities and considered myself an amateur guidance counselor of sorts. Up until a few years ago, however, I had never heard of Elon!!!
In response to why a top student would feel least “ashamed” of attending the U of Vermont among public flagships in New England, I agree with MYOS1634’s comparing of UVM to Miami U in OH. UVM is a very popular choice (and has been for a long while, I believe) for students who want a private-type experience but for various reasons cannot (financial, brutal competition). UVM is small for public flagship (10K undergrads), has two-thirds of its students hailing from OOS, features a pretty campus, and is located in a cute town, Burlington, also home to Champlain College (with Saint Michael’s College 15-20 minutes away).
I live in Orlando, and someone mentioned UCF as a hot school. This could be. I don’t know. When a school has 55K undergraduates, is that a sign of buzz or a president trying to turn the university into its own metropolis? Several of my work colleagues attended UCF, and one laments its ever-increasing size, which had half the number of students when she attended a decade ago.
Northeastern is always on this list. BTW, I mean no insult toward N’eastern, but can someone tell me if it is truly a high-calibre school? Many of us know the story of NE, languishing in the rankings (as silly as they are) at #162 until a new president came in and made it his mission to “game the rankings” (http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2014/08/26/how-northeastern-gamed-the-college-rankings/). During one eight-year period, NE jumped fifty spots in the US News list. I would hope that when a school leaps a whopping 120 spots (#162 to a peak of #41, if memory serves) that the the school would have improved drastically as well (read: improved academically) and that it isn’t all just smoke and mirrors. Can someone answer this?
@Hapworth from what I know about UCF, they are trying to change from a commuter school to a destination for OOS’ers who want to attend school in FL and may not want UF or FSU. I believe they are giving merit aide to OOS applicants.
Elon is a wonderful school and is pretty well known in South and Mid Atlantic and NJ. I am not quite sure though if its one of the new "hot schools " though.
The FL public universities have grown considerably in recent yrs. We’ve lived in Tampa since '93. State population has grown from 12M to 20M in that time frame! UCF and USF were definitely commuter schools and are now building new dorms. Of the four (UCF, USF, FSU and UF), FSU has the more traditional college campus. The other three are massive and somewhat disjointed. More importantly, resources are scarce. Hard to accommodate the number of instate students.
@Hapworth, while Northeastern may have maximized their USNWR ranking, they are attracting a stout student profile with a median ACT of 32-34 and median SAT of 1400-1500 for the Class of 2021, and so its likely that the positive feedback loop will only continue to lead to even better days to come.
Northeastern is very competitive when it comes to the admissions process and they attract candidates who value the co-op experience. There is value there and Northeastern also understands how to prepare their students well for the working world. Student advisement is outstanding. Northeastern’s rise also relates to the build out of the campus, which at one time was merely a parking lot along the commuter rail line in a bad part of Boston. Northeastern’s rapid rise may have spiked and it may not be for everyone, but they established their own niche and their formula works. If you’re looking for a great liberal arts school, look elsewhere. This school works well for students who know what they want going in.
@sdl0625 I know a prof at a prestigious school in New England who asked me what was up with Elon. They said they had 3-4 colleagues who were including it in their kids’ NC college tour with some of the much better known schools in that state. The prof knew it from the 80s-early 90s and was surprised that so many from a New England college community were looking at it as an OOS destination. It is one of the most popular OOS destinations in our area, and we know several students, including some very highly qualified ones, attending and really enjoying it. One of mine visited friends there and loved the community.
@Chembiodad
Positive feedback indeed. However, there is a ceiling that cannot be broken with just higher SAT scores. Once a 32-35 middle 50% is reached a school must actually improve their outputs( research and student development /achievement) to excel further. Davidson and Chapel Hill, and UCB have lower test avgs than Northeastern. In fact Northeastern’s test avgs are bout the same as Northwestern’s ( they might have already past them I’m not sure). I’m sure you can see where I’m going with this. You can’t “Merit-Aid” your way to the top.
Maybe not the top, but Northeastern and USC have shown that using merit scholarships to attract students with high test scores can be helpful in moving up significantly in the USNWR rankings as well as the general perception that it is a “highly selective” school (since most people seem to lean on test scores more than any other admitted student characteristic to make a quick judgment on a school’s selectivity).
The University of Michigan is insanely popular with my son’s 475-person class. Roughly one quarter of the kids applied there, with 97% getting deferred. Penn State routinely enrolls 5% of our high school. Cornell is the perennially hot Ivy.
Overall yield is decent, with in state being extremely high (52%) while OOS is extremely low at 8.6%.
Seems, based on yield, UCF is becoming more and more the top choice for many Florida residents, while it is becoming a popular “option” for OOS students, but not their first choice.
In state applications are also up in 2017. We had ** 19,348** applications in 2016-2017 Summer and Fall (not including spring results; UCF uses rolling admissions), as compared to ** 23,631** applications in 2017-2018 Summer and Fall (Spring results are not yet posted).
In-state applications are up 22% (comparing Summer and Fall terms) for the 2017-2018 term.
On the east coast, I’m seeing Northeastern (but not Northwestern…why don’t folks talk about that school as much as they used to?) as well as UChicago, Ga Tech, Lloyla, GW and - oddly - a music industry school in Nashville called Belmont. This is in addition to the usual schools that the kids always want to get into.
Northeastern’s pre-professional leaning (curriculum built around co-ops) may also be a marketing point, since many high school students and parents, seeing the high cost of college, want it to offer as much as advantage as possible in finding a good post-graduation job that can justify the high cost of college (and pay back any associated debt).
Of course, co-ops are not unique to Northeastern; Drexel and Cincinnati have co-op-centered curricula, and many colleges have optional formalized co-op programs (though sometimes mainly for certain majors like engineering majors). Even in the absence of a formalized co-op program, many colleges’ withdrawal and readmission policies allow students to build their own “co-ops” (though they need to check on whether financial aid and scholarships require continuous enrollment). But awareness of such options may not be widespread among high school students and parents.
Tech schools are going to be hot, I think. Econ and business used to be the big majors of interest on CC, but now everyone professes an interest in CS instead. Trends come and go.