Feb 18, 2008
Taking credit, assigning blame for the record number of college applications nationwide
The top two reasons that college applications continue to rise nationwide with such ferocity are: 1. demographic figures, i.e., increasing numbers of high school graduates in the echo boom and 2. application culture changes in the sense that more students are applying to more places than ever before. These nice explanations since they are neat and tidy and empirically valid and don’t need any strange contingencies to be true. Rob Westervelt, on his site UBrander helpfully and cogently cited these as the real reasons for the current explosion in apps, noting that lots of interest groups always try to take credit for these shifts on an individual school basis in order to justify their salaries and fees. But what is behind the aforementioned 1 & 2?
Yale applications increased 6.8 from their former record (class of 2010, 21,101 applications) and 16.6 percent over last year. Harvard, for comparison, saw a 19 percent increase this cycle (Princeton, 6 percent). The ivies and other ultra-competitive schools are just examples of a trend which is really true at all levels; as the top schools become more competitive, more applicants apply elsewhere to even out their chances, and increased competition there drives more students to apply more places… etc. But does that general shift account for all of this? Why has this trend accelerated so quickly?
Westervelt says that a lot of it is due to the ease of online applications nowadays. Online applications, plus the common app, certainly do make it easier to apply more places for a slight fee. But I don’t really feel sorry for all the higher education people who are troubled by the swell and the problems it brings for ‘yield management’ etc. This represents a huge challenge for admissions officers.
With so many students cross applying, the likelihood of accepting the same top students will increase dramatically. Students can also apply to more safety schools than ever before, throwing a wrench into the whole admissions process that could trickle down into the state school systems. At the end of the day, there may be more losers than winners this admissions season.
More losers than winners? Sure. But the schools here are really just victims of their own success getting people to apply and making it easier for more people to apply. Bemoaning the difficulties of predicting yields falls on deaf ears when the current problem is just a manifestation of the marketing frenzy which has overtaken college admissions, pushing more people to apply more places in a complete and utter panic.
When it comes to judging who the ‘losers’ are … a lot of the time, it’s going to be students, at least where the process is concerned. These new tools make things easier, but more stressful and time-consuming at the same time. More qualified applicants applying to more schools means an increased likelihood of joining highly competitive student bodies at schools which used to be less competitive, but it also means that any given student has a much harder time getting into the schools they’re dreaming about.
The Harvard / Yale financial aid battle is great for students, and it’s a factor of both massive endowments (which an extremely small number of universities could match up with) and incredible competition. Just wanted to take a moment to remind everyone of the flip side to all that “good for students” rhetoric.
My daughter tried to help the numbers by only applying to ONE college. She got in, thank goodness, but it was nervewracking. I think it helped that it wasn’t a “reach” school, not a “safety” school but just one that was a good fit overall.
Hey Susan! Thanks so much for reading and commenting, really appreciate it. On the numbers: It’s very much a collective action dilemma, but it’s one that is in a lot of ways attributable to colleges and marketers working to influence students in a particular way.
Sam, thanks for the post. I agree that it’s a “collective action dilemma,” and I’m hesitant to make the student the only victim in all this. After all, the overload of applications is largely due to students spamming their applications to dozens of schools. One article said this was particularly true among disadvantaged minority students who were encouraged by their school counselors to do so. On the other hand, it was foolish for some schools to use universal apps, waive app fees, etc. There really is no one victim. Many innocent schools will suffer from the app bubble even though they didn’t partake in the universal app system or push online apps with no fees. And, as you said, many innocent students will suffer because of the application bubble. What does bother me is when admissions personnel take credit for something they didn’t do without really understanding the situation. This seems to be the case with the application bubble.
I guess this is another place (like financial aid) where it is hard to organize things from a school-side because of anti-trust issues? But definitely they could work with counseling associations and high schools, as well as with direct outreach organized somehow, to try to help with the problem. It’s too easy to sit back with smiles watching the numbers go up, making for nice newspaper fodder.
I don’t know how ‘innocent’ whatever schools are in this free-for-all; I see a fair number of articles with small college deans ecstatic that they’re getting all this trickle-down. Who gets victimized? The schools that don’t make it easy to apply? Easy applications through the internet means access to a greater pool of students. I think it is sad when this pressure hurts good systems, like UChicago’s Uncommon Application… but there are a lot of times when a failure to change seems less loaded and with fewer risks. It feeds on itself because people get caught up in the bubble here. Admissions officers tell us students how sad they are that they can’t admit more, and I tend to believe them–but that seems to be where it stops, sometimes. Mixed blessing, sure. Glad I’m not applying to college anymore… but my sister will be in two years.
Carnival of Education…
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