Updates on the 2020-2021 Admissions Cycle

College admissions professionals have been saying this for the last ten months: This admissions cycle will be unprecedented. Being mid-January, we’re now far along to see how this cycle will play out. With so many policy changes and uncertainty due to the pandemic, we’re now witnessing differences this year that may even continue in future years. While the process is essentially the same, students - and admissions professionals - will need to look at the admissions process through a new lens in future cycles.

The first glaring difference this cycle is that highly selective and ultra selective colleges are seeing unparalleled numbers of applications, in some cases up to a 50% increase. Some of these schools are going from a 15-20% average acceptance rate in previous years to a 5-10% acceptance rate simply due to the amount of applications they’ve received.

This phenomenon is likely for multiple reasons - but one being the fact that many colleges went test-optional this cycle. Now, I’m a huge advocate for test-optional and test-blind admissions policies, but with the overwhelming amount of colleges who went test-optional for the first time this cycle coupled with a pandemic, we’re finding that many students decided to apply to many “reach” colleges to see what would happen.

Here’s the problem with this strategy. Just because a college is test-optional and your student doesn’t submit test scores doesn’t mean they automatically become a better candidate for admission. The idea that “it’s COVID, nothing’s the same so let’s see what happens” does not work for the college admissions process. This strategy is not recommended and leads to these high application numbers, low application rates, and students receiving more applications denied than they should. The “you never know” strategy does not work.

Now, here’s the other news. Less selective colleges are seeing significantly lower application numbers. There’s this odd obsession in the United States with those highly and ultra selective colleges - oftentimes the “name brand” colleges - and not necessarily for the right reasons.

People should be obsessed with the college where they or their children will THRIVE, not the college that will sound expensive or hard to get into. Students should apply to and end up at colleges that are the right fit for them - academically, socially, and financially. There are literally THOUSANDS of options in the country - so many more than those 15 or so colleges we fixate on.

If this cycle is teaching us anything, it’s that there are fantastic colleges out there for your children that offer significant merit aid and now apparently have even lower than usual acceptance rates. Getting into college isn’t necessarily hard; there are so many schools out there with acceptance rates of 50% and higher. The hard part is finding the right fit.

Okay, this blog was a little more soapbox-y than usual - but I just wanted to share that there are so many options available for college and the “getting in” part doesn’t have to feel so hard. PLEASE, encourage your teens to see past those "name brand" schools and to find schools where they will flourish.