The 2024 cycle of college admissions is one for the books! With the ongoing delays in FAFSA and low admission rates...what are some trends to watch for the senior class of 2025?
Here are a few trends from the 2024 college admissions cycle...expect more to come.
We don't have all the data. Since the FAFSA has another issue (learn more here), there is still wiggle room for acceptance. Many students have received multiple offers from a variety of schools, but without any financial aid/scholarship packages, many are delaying their acceptance. Several thousand forms are being reprocessed and many schools have pushed back the May 1 deadline to accommodate the funding piece. Once June or July rolls around, expect more concrete data on acceptance percentages, institutional aid (need & merit), financial aid and majors for numerous schools.
2. Top tier schools had even lower admission rates than previous years. Schools like Harvard and Stanford accepted fewer applicants than previous years. This suggests competition was fierce and included not only academic records, but perhaps extracurricular, athletics, character assessments and other qualities for evaluation. More to come on the why for this topic. For rising juniors wishing to attend an elite institution, begin reviewing your information to ensure you have the following: academic success (top 5% or better), volunteer or community service, intramural sports or club activity (varsity level), foreign language or equivalent, rigorous course load and character-building experiences (for personal essay).
3. Decline in college bound students resulting in fewer applications and less federal funding. In recent years, there has been a slow decline of college-age individuals. Combine this decline with an impending "enrollment cliff," where 18-24 year olds flat line and you have a weird dynamic emerging. Instead of recruiting more students, some colleges and universities were more selective this year. With federal funding declining and uncertainty about the student loan crisis, college administrators responded by reviewing budgets, cutting staff and faculty as well as ending orphan or shrinking programs. The result is fewer slots of many students at mid-tier schools and declining admission rates.
4. Students applied to more schools. Due to the flexibility and efficiency of the Common Application (as well as other programs), students could easily apply to several schools. This increase in applications may have encouraged the selectiveness from schools to avoid "wasting time" on applicants who were not genuinely serious about attending the school. Conversely, students may have been accepted to several schools and have not committed to one yet due to the delay in FAFSA or other financial aid considerations. We'll know more in a few months that may shed light on the impact of applying to more schools.
5. Rising demand for majors and/or forcing students to opt-in to a program freshman year. This is an interesting trend wherein schools required students to select their major during the application process and in some instances, students received their second or their choice major and offered admission. As a researcher, I am interested in reviewing the data for some schools like Purdue or Indiana University where students were admitted to specific academic tracts - in some cases, selective programs like aviation, business, engineering or STEM fields. I am curious how often students change their major and what impacts their change has upon completion time. Alternatively, students who do not select a major in the application process and seek to complete general education requirements may be applying to junior colleges or smaller, liberal arts colleges with goals of transferring later. The trend of selecting a major so early in the academic career is another trend to keep an eye on.
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