It’s definitely safe to say that the school year of 2020-2021 has been weird. With COVID-19, schools have transitioned online, standardized tests have been rare and the economy has certainly turned a depressing route. Although this has been the case, many early trends indicated that for the high school seniors, the college admissions process will be more lenient than years before for two reasons: understandable lack of resources for students and less applicants (mainly international students). But this conjecture is false compared to what actually happened, at least with early admissions so far, in that a good amount of colleges have been more rigorous.
In a New York Times article published in mid-October, Jeffrey Selingo, an expert on college admissions as the former editor of The Chronicle of Higher Education and the author of “Who Gets In and Why: A Year Inside College Admissions,” describes that he will “expect the same this year” as in what happened in the recession of 2008. Colleges, especially “selective colleges”, are likely to accept more students in the early decision/action pool to ensure stability. Usually, a college will fill one-fourth to one-third of their class in that round, but, similar to the 2008 trend, it will likely go up to fill 50% of the incoming class.
But one thing that many people, even college experts, seemingly forget about is deferrals. For the class of 2020 (last year’s seniors), a record high number of students decided to defer their admission, especially international students who couldn’t get in the U.S. Harvard let almost 20% of their freshman class defer; Princeton saw a 300% increase in their annual freshman deferral rate. More deferrals for the Class of 2024 means less spots for the Class of 2025.
Another surprise in college admissions–more applications. Like, way more applications. According to IvyWise, applicants to Harvard increased 57% and their rate of acceptance decreased to 7.4% for Early Action. Yale saw a 38% increase in applications and a declining admit rate as well. However, these trends seem to only be consistent with elite colleges. On average, according to Common App, colleges received less applications compared to last year overall. But specifically for colleges who made their test scores optional, schools saw an increase in applicants unlike those that kept the test requirement like the public universities of Florida. This is similar to what happened with the Coalition Application portal as well.
On average, there are less applications, but for the most selective colleges, the reality seems to be the opposite. What this means for Regular Decision for colleges is still unclear, but trends are pointing to a record year; New York University recently announced on social media that they received over 100,000 applications– a 20% increase from the previous year. Brown University broke their record from last year as well.
But there are other factors at play: Will students decide to defer again? Will colleges decide to expand their classes? What about the financial situation of many students? Although this early round has certainly surprised many people, one thing is clear: college admissions trends will continue to be unknown.