College is never too far from the minds of high schoolers. Whether from an older sibling or a friend, many students in high school have heard about the college application process, especially its challenges. I have heard that getting into college now is harder than when our parents applied several decades ago. So, is it really true that if someone who got into a college twenty years ago applied today with the same grades and SAT scores, he or she would not get in? In 2014, Jacoba Urist from The Atlantic stated: “The myth of selectivity, that college admissions gets harder with each passing year, is both true and untrue.” This relatively vague quote incited me to discover how this could be the case.
According to Dan Edmonds, Vice President of research and development for “Noodle,” an education company that helps high school students with the college search process, getting into a specific school is more unlikely than it was ten years ago. This is due to an increase in the number of strong applicants, especially to more selective schools. While applying to three schools may have been normal thirty years ago, today students can apply to over ten schools, which means that the number of applicants for each school has doubled or tripled, even if the total of number of applicants applying to college has not increased by the same amount. Ever since the Common Application went online in 1998, applying to multiple schools has become more frequent than ever, since students can fill out one application and essay that they can submit to multiple colleges. In 2012, an American student applied to an average of seven colleges, but students that apply to more selective schools often apply to as many as twenty colleges. However, even with students applying to many more schools, college enrollment on a whole from 1992 to 2002 only increased by 15%. Time Magazine attributes this rise in applicants to more unqualified students taking advantage of the Common Application to apply to top schools. Although this makes it appear as though competition is increasing, Dan Edmonds from Time argues that these additional numbers are not seriously impacting admissions, because some of the applicants are not qualified. Edmonds agrees with the consensus that it may be easier now to get into a selective school, but harder to get into a particular one.
So now that we know all this, how can we use this information to our own benefit when applying to college? Based on the opinions of knowledgeable admissions experts, the best strategy seems to be to make a portfolio of between ten and fifteen schools that you want to go to and apply to all of them knowing that you are more likely to get into some than others, depending on which ones are your “target,” “reach,” and “safety” schools. Using early application options whenever possible is also recommended. Because of the changes in college admissions, it is best not to obsess or focus on one dream school and instead be comforted by the fact that it is much more likely that you will get into one of your several top schools than one specific school (assuming that your choices are realistic to your academic qualifications). Throughout the entire college application process, it is important to remember that just because a school has a certain ranking does not mean that it is the best fit for you. Pretending to be someone you are not will not end up helping you in the end, so it is best to be yourself and apply to schools that you believe will be the best fit for you and what you want to study. Leave the complicated admissions logic to the colleges.
To answer the question I posed at the beginning, if someone twenty years ago applied to that same college today with the same grades and SATs, he or she might not get in, but he or she would likely get into another school of similar selectivity. We would all do well to keep this in mind throughout the college application process!
