“The Craziest College Admissions Season Ever”

From the New Yorker’s article on the subject:lt

College admissions has always been filled with uncertainty, especially at schools like Duke where applications are plentiful and seats scarce. But when Guttentag started as dean three decades ago, the process was more forgiving: Duke accepted some 28 percent of applicants, and about 41 percent of them attended — the university’s yield rate. Since the turn of this century, the number of applications to the 67 most selective colleges in the nation, which includes Duke, has tripled — to nearly 2 million a year. That has translated into more stress and longer odds for a lot of applicants, and a much more complicated set of considerations for colleges, in terms of who to admit and when to admit them.

When I started this work many moons ago, I focused on the tangible aspects that helped applicants gain admission.  SAT scores were the most manageable. Grades were the second.  For that reason as The Learning Consultants built its clientele throughout Connecticut, our focus was upon the objective data that more or less assured increased admissions changes.

This is still true… but our college counseling efforts have now shifted to deal with more nuanced areas such as “yield” and ” activity depth”.

As we are wait for the results from our college counseling clients this cycle, we are less certain of the results but more certain of one demand:

START EARLIER.

Covid is over.  Colleges expect interested applicants to have demonstrated interest and visiting the college is fairly significant in this regard.  That’s the yield factor.

While being well-rounded in activities is still wonderful, those who demonstrate “depth” are more successful.  That’s activity depth.

Both require planning as sophomores or early juniors.

Start planning now.