Are Colleges Getting More or Less Selective?

Last Updated on November 10, 2020 by Jill Schwitzgebel

A prominent university in my state recently announced their admissions decisions.  I was only peripherally aware of it.   I had noted somewhere in the back of my mind though, that my social media feed didn’t show any parents excitedly announcing their child’s acceptance.  It seemed odd because I had seen lots of posts about another school a few weeks earlier. A quick chat with some other moms of high school Juniors and Seniors gave me some more insight.  Apparently, the “stats” (shorthand for statistics, meaning student GPA and test scores) for accepted students were rumored to be sky-high this year.  A quick glance at some college forums seemed to confirm that.  It’s not quite at the level of some highly selective colleges, but it’s getting there.

College Boom…or Bust?

In many ways, this news does not make a whole lot of sense.  According to an article in The Atlantic, the number of college enrollees has declined for five straight years. Basically, “the United States is running out of teenagers” after the boom years of the Millenial generation.

According to the National Association for College Admissions Counseling, more than 400 campuses still had openings for freshmen and transfer students for the fall 2017, as of May 1, 2017!  That is supposed to be the end of the regular admission period.  In other words, those colleges did not fill the quota of students that they had hoped to fill when they sent out acceptance letters.  Schools like Ohio Wesleyan, profiled here in the Hechinger Report are getting creative to draw students to their school, and finding that they need to be more generous to attract students. It sure doesn’t sound like colleges are booming!

Low Acceptance Rates

But while only 34% of colleges hit their target enrollments by May 1st, according to this report in Inside Higher Education, there ARE colleges hitting their goals – specifically, large public research institutions like the University of Virginia or University of Michigan.

And then, there are also the elite colleges.  Schools like Harvard or Stanford are having no trouble filling their seats, with acceptance rates under 5%.  The graduating class of 2017 faced the toughest year on record to get into one of those schools. I am sure that we will find out that 2018 is no better.

Between 2007 and 2017, the acceptance rates for the top ten National universities, as ranked by US News and World Report, dropped from 17.3% to 8.2%.  Competition is still fierce at schools that are perceived to be “the best of the best.”  Part of the draw is surely that besides the quality education, most of these schools are known to provide some of the best financial aid of all colleges in the country.

So What’s Really Happening?

In the case of the apparently popular universities in our state, they are successful public research, doctoral-granting institutions, as mentioned in the section above.  So they are part of that group of colleges not struggling to fill their seats each fall.  I believe they are seeing increased popularity because they are known to provide good value – a solid education for less cost.  In fact, they are significantly cheaper than schools in other states, especially for in-state students.

Additionally, it is easier than ever to send applications, especially the Common or Coalition Applications, to multiple schools for a relatively small cost per school.  So families figure, “Why NOT throw in a couple of extra schools, just to see what happens?”  With elite colleges’ acceptance rates being so low, and even students with perfect SAT scores and GPAs getting rejected, students are becoming aware that they had better have a back-up plan.

What I will be curious to see, is what happens to “yield” rates everywhere this year.  The yield rate is the percent of students who ACCEPT a college’s offer of admission.  Many times, schools like to somewhat artificially lower their acceptance rate.  They can do that using various marketing techniques to encourage more students to apply, which will make their admission rate look lower.   That plan can backfire, because along with that lowered admit rate, their yield rate may drop too.  They still have the same number of seats to fill though.

With students applying to so many colleges now, as well as applying to schools as back-ups just in case they don’t get into those highly selective schools, we know that yield rates are dropping.  It can be difficult for colleges to predict their yield. It may not be happening at the most competitive, elite colleges, but it’s happening at other places.  It seems logical to me that if that continues to happen, we can expect to see colleges responding to the laws of supply and demand.  That may mean dropping their sticker price a bit.  It may mean they begin offering better and more scholarships to entice quality students to attend.

Good News

Ultimately, while the low acceptance rates make great headlines, good conversation, and strike fear in the hearts of high schools students and their parents, they are not reality.  The college bust outweighs the boom, except at a few schools.  Colleges need students.  A National Association for College Admission Counseling survey says that only 20% of colleges accept less than half of applicants!  In fact, in 2014, which was still in the booming applicant years, colleges accepted almost 66% of applicants overall.  Thirty-six percent of colleges accepted between 50-70% of their applicants.

The reality is that there are thousands of nonprofit four-year colleges in the United States.   There are clearly plenty of great college options available for any student that puts in the effort in high school, and many of them will be affordable.  It is a matter of planning wisely about where to apply.