College Admissions Less Predictable

Over the last few years college admissions has become increasingly less predictable and more of a numbers game for applicants.  Now college admissions officers are also feeling the crunch.  Over the last decade, applications have increased due to increasing number of high school graduates and increasing use of electronic systems such as the Common Application.  Now with demographic stabilizing the increase in number of applications is purely due to the ease of submitting multiple applications through services such as the Common Application.  This means that while the number of applications to school such as those in the Ivy League continues to increase and the number of places remain fairly constant the number of offers of admissions to fill those places must go up and the yield will go down.  Many students now apply to multiple Ivies and if they have the credentials they will be admitted to many of them.  However they can only got one, leaving the colleges they reject short.  Yield management will be increasingly more challenging for even the top selective schools

The National Association of Admissions Counseling (NACAC) report that "The number of applications submitted to colleges rose dramatically over the past decade, fueled by a record increase in applications submitted per-student" . The admissions rate declined from 69.6% in 202 to 63.8% in 2011 as the number of applicants and applications increased.  The average yield for four year colleges declined more precipitously from 49% to 38% over the same 10 year period.  Given that the number of applications has peaked we predict that the decline in admit rate will end and may even reverse while the decline yield will accelerate further.

Some colleges such as Boston College have decided to abandon the admissions arms race and rather than encourage more applications are trying to filter out casual apps to retain a more consistent yield.  (BC's Fact Book reports that while applications increased 50% over the 10 year period from 2003-2012, their acceptance rate dropped only slightly from 31% to 29% in order to fill the same number of freshmen seats (2250) because their yield dropped significantly from 32% to 23%.)   BC's solution was to add an essay to their application requirement and this led to a 26% drop in application rate.  Supposedly they reduced the number of acceptances by 2000 but raised their acceptance rate to 31% in anticipation of a 28% yield to fill a slightly smaller freshmen class.  It is not clear whether they will get the result they desire or will have to go their waitlist.

We feel that most colleges will continue to seek more applications in the false belief that they can reduce their acceptance rate and make their school appear more selective in the college ranking race.  The reality is that more schools will encounter the same issues faced by BC and will have find some other solution to better manage their yield.