College Admissions M&M

Fellow Grey’s Anatomy fans may remember the episode where the hospital conducted an “M&M” (morbidity & mortality conference) to discuss what happened in a patient’s case. With this unique admissions season finally behind us, I thought it may be helpful to do our own version of an M&M. For non-Grey’s Anatomy fans, the purpose of M&Ms is essentially to promote transparency and ethical integrity, which is what I hope to accomplish here.

Let’s start with breaking down why this admissions season was so different. The reason seems obvious at first: COVID. The pandemic directly led to students applying to more colleges than ever before for several reasons, including:

• Many students never stepped foot on a college campus before applying to college. It was great seeing how college admissions offices stepped up to the plate in 2020 and found creative ways to introduce students to their colleges virtually. While virtual visits can be a fantastic complement to in-person visits, it’s not an ideal replacement. So, when it came time for the Class of 2021 to finalize their college lists, they understandably had a hard time. At my company, Simply Admissions, we usually recommend that students have a balanced list of 8–11 colleges. This year, our seniors typically found it fairly easy to narrow their list down to 10–15 colleges but after that, they were unable to truly differentiate between the schools enough to streamline it further. This is understandable, after 15+ virtual visits everything becomes a blur!
• Students were expected to put together their college list without knowing what the world was going to look like in Fall 2021. Were they going to have to begin college virtually like many of their Class of 2020 classmates did? Would they be able to easily take flights home when needed, if they attended college across the country or overseas? When would the COVID vaccine be ready? These were the types of unanswerable questions that students had flashing across their minds when trying to finalize their college lists. As you probably expected, this became another reason many students applied to more colleges than usual.
• Test optional and test blind policies changed the game. At Simply Admissions, we love test optional and test blind colleges. These policies benefit everyone because at the end of the day it allows each student to put their best foot forward. That being said, I believe there is a direct correlation between the majority of colleges no longer requiring test scores and the fact that selective colleges saw an increase in applications. Many students with 4.0+ GPAs thought this was their moment; they couldn’t throw away their shot! (Just like I couldn’t throw away my shot when it came to that easy Hamilton reference!) However, what they weren’t taking into account was that the test optional policies simply meant that the other pieces of the application (extracurricular activities, essays, letters of recommendation, etc.) carried more weight in the admissions process. It did not mean that these colleges were less selective by any means.

We know from the data that our students were not the only ones applying to more schools than normal. The Common App released data stating that by March 1, 2021 there was already an 11% increase in applications submitted through their platform alone. However, the number of individual applicants only increased by 2%.

An important note is that the 11% application increase was primarily focused on very selective colleges. Fantastic colleges that happen to be less selective actually saw fewer applications this year. The below graph shows how the number of applications changed for a small sample of more selective and less selective colleges

The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Ed (PSSHE) exemplifies what I believe happened frequently during this admission season. PSSHE, which includes lesser-known public colleges such as Mansfield University & Lock Haven University, saw a 4% decrease in application numbers. However, the Penn State University system saw an 11% increase. While Penn State campuses aren’t particularly selective, it does have more “name brand recognition” than PSSHE.

Without in-person college fairs, high school visits, or being able to simply stop by their school counselor’s office, I feel that students leaned heavily on those “name brand schools” (many of which happen to be more selective). Tons of amazing hidden gems became lost in the shuffle and still have openings today for Fall 2021!

Now, let’s dive deeper into the colleges that did see their application numbers rise. As to be expected, more applications translated to a lower acceptance rate, which you can see in the graph below.

I understand that these numbers are alarming and the media didn’t help matters by hand-picking statistics to create flashy headlines. However, if you look at the situation from a different angle (how many students were admitted, rather than the acceptance rate), you realize it’s not as scary as it first looks.

The majority of these schools actually admitted more students than ever before. Even Harvard, with its 3% acceptance rate and 42% increase in application numbers only admitted 47 students fewer than last year.

While I realize that this is a small sample size, I am quite confident that we would see a similar trend even after looking at a larger number of schools. This is basically the college admissions version of the 2021 Southeastern gas shortage or the 2020 toilet paper shortage; it’s primarily consumer and media driven.

I would love to end this post on a positive note, but I do feel the need to provide a few warnings. Just like how gas & TP supplies took a while to get. back to normal after the shortages, I am slightly concerned that even more students will now feel pressure to have extra-large college lists next year. Additionally, several colleges, such as University of Tampa and Boston University, are dealing with over-enrollment issues. This may impact their enrollment goals next year.

Even with these caveats, I feel completely comfortable saying that colleges are not becoming as competitive as you might think. With a balanced college list, rising seniors should find that in May they will have several fantastic colleges to happily choose from!

Please contact Simply Admissions for a list of the data sources used in this post.