Kindling a Fire: What's New in College Admissions? A lot!

November kicks off college admissions season in earnest, with some high school seniors choosing to apply early to their favored university. In the spirit of the season, I thought I would offer a few key trends to watch out for in this ever-changing landscape:

Standardized tests are making a comeback. In the wake of the Covid pandemic, many schools moved to a “test optional” approach where SAT and ACT scores were not required. The pendulum is now swinging back. Harvard, Dartmouth, Brown, Cal Tech, and Texas have all brought back tests as a component of admission evaluation, both because they believe tests have some predictive value of college success and help identify talented students from underrepresented populations.

In an environment of rampant grade inflation, high school GPAs are not as revealing as they once were (more about that in a future column). As a result, test scores help fill the gaps in a student profile. But the more surprising shift is around diverse student recruitment. Many schools once believed that standardized tests favored wealthy students and discriminated against students of lower socio-economic status. However, the data now suggests that such tests can actually be a lifeline for students with high potential but low high school or family support.

Early admission continues to surge. Early decision applications, whereby a student applies to only one school in November but agrees to enroll if accepted, have jumped 60% in five years. Many students view early admission as presenting a better chance at admission to highly selective colleges. And the data bears that out. For example, Vanderbilt University (where I applied early decision more than 25 years ago) admitted 15.7% of early decision applicants last year, but only 4.2% of regular decision applicants. While both figures are smaller than they once were, acceptance rates for regular decision have declined far more precipitously than early decision.

Colleges tolerate this disparity because early admission is a way to strengthen their yield rates — that is, ensuring students admitted to the university are likely to enroll. This metric is closely watched by ranking publications as a measure of prestige. And colleges notice. Middlebury College filled more than 70% of its Class of 2027 through early decision – an increase of 15 percentage points over just seven years ago. Under the current system, early decision remains an important strategy for many students.

Acceptance rates remain at historic lows, but is a demographic cliff looming? According to the data reported by the Common App, total application volume from the 2019-20 cycle to the 2023-24 cycle increased by 65% and the number of applicants themselves increased 41%. And it’s not just the Ivy League and “Ivy Plus” schools like Stanford and UChicago. Major increases in applications (and decreases in admission rates) have been seen at public flagship universities like South Carolina, Penn State, and Alabama (where nearly 60% of freshmen are from out-of-state).

But while the increasingly competitive nature of selective college admissions is not new, some university administrators fear a “demographic cliff” ahead. With much lower birth rates following the 2008 recession, college-age populations are beginning to shrink. While experts do not expect significant changes to admission rates at highly selective colleges, some small, less well-known schools are already closing or discussing mergers.

The effects of the Supreme Court’s affirmative action ban remain unclear. Much attention was paid to the Supreme Court’s 2023 ruling that effectively banned considerations of race in college admission decisions. This year’s freshman class represents the first cohort to matriculate under this new regime. But despite some dire predictions that selective colleges would no longer be able to admit diverse classes, the facts are much more mixed.

At some colleges, diversity has suffered. For example, at MIT, the proportion of Black and Hispanic students fell by 15 percentage points. Other colleges, such as North Carolina and Tufts, saw smaller but notable declines.

But other schools saw different outcomes. The University of Virginia’s incoming class includes roughly the same number of students of color, and Yale actually increased its diverse student population. Harvard held relatively steady.

For now, colleges are still developing new strategies to recruit diverse students without running afoul of the Supreme Court’s ruling. Some schools, such as Amherst, Wesleyan, and MIT, have responded by eliminating legacy preference admissions. But the jury is still out on the lasting impact of the affirmative action decision.

If you have a college applicant in your life, I hope this information helps them find the right fit. But remember, the most help you can offer your senior is to simply reaffirm that they matter for reasons far beyond which college they attend.

"Kindling a Fire" is a column submitted regularly to Indian Hill Living by Head of School Rob Zimmerman '98. This ran in the November 2024 edition of the publication.