A lot of student discussion has moved to discord. Reddit isn’t that busy either.
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I would be interested in hearing your personal thoughts on BArch at UT Austin vs VT.
I cant believe UT had 73,000 applications this year. That’s 10% more than last year.
Does anyone else think we’re headed towards a “college app bubble burst” similar to the housing crash? The application numbers are just too much for any given admissions team. It keeps growing and growing and growing to a point it’s just not sustainable.
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Yes
They will need to find a way to get people to apply to fewer colleges, and that will likely require some sort of better information about actual odds.
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More essays or more application fees are the only way to do it I think. More essays would be more equitable. Colleges could also have a stated gpa or test score minimum. I know no one wants to do that but it would help, especially for big schools.
The issue is that most colleges are thrilled to have massive amounts of applicants.
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They could place an emphasis on demonstrated interest.
Just making someone fill out 6 touchpoints to the university may make kids think twice about applying to schools they dont really want to attend and help colleges save time by filtering out kids who apply just to apply.
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As I understand the issue, they are having a problem deterring the ambitious but not well qualified, as opposed to the well qualified but open minded. Throw up too many make-work barriers and their rivals may get the applicants they actually want, while they just get the ones with a high tolerance for make-work.
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I agree. Increasing the number of applications a student completes is a rational response to increased uncertainty. I know that colleges like to preserve their options and typically try to encourage rather than discourage applications. But that means that they will either need to be comfortable with some less thorough initial screening to weed out applications unlikely to succeed (like Yale), or that they need to publish clearer metrics that any successful candidate needs to meet.
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Or for the large selective publics that admit by major, they could eliminate test optional for the popular degrees - CS, engineering, business etc.
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No
Colleges are fighting to stay relevant. Many are no longer and are disappearing. All these higher apps shows more relevance.
Schools that move to Common App naturally will see more apps.
Schools can always (and do) hire readers.
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It’s more than this. An education could be $400k but could be $80k.
Many people want the $400k but to not pay the $400k price.
So if they apply to enough schools that offer a discount, they hope to earn one.
There is really not admission uncertainty - if you play it right. But there is financial uncertainty.
I think people forget - college enrollments are way down.
This 
A larger number of applications results in a lower acceptance rate (higher selectivity). That in turn creates a perception of prestige. That brings many benefits over the long term, including an increase in the quality of applicants and alumni donations.
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If only there were a standardized test which in one fell swoop might eliminate an awful lot of those applications.
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That is mostly community colleges enrollment being way down. That is where a large portion majority of enrollment is anyways.
All true, but it’s not just that. Colleges perceive, probably rightly, that requiring test scores deters FGLI and other under-resourced students with scores below the 25-75 range from applying, even where those scores viewed in context reflect great potential. Bringing in a few more of these needles seems to be valuable enough to spend more time sorting through a much larger haystack of non-competitive TO applicants.
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True and some states are trying to fill that gap with free college. At the four year level, we are in a time of solid investment returns so it helps endowments. But these two year kids need to move up.
It seems men are the culprit of the lag - especially at four year schools.
“ Most of the decline is due to fewer young men pursuing college. About 1 million fewer young men are in college but only 0.2 million fewer young women. As a result, men make up 44% of young college students today, down from 47% in 2011, according to newly released U.S. Census Bureau data.
This shift is driven entirely by the falling share of men who are students at four-year colleges. Today, men represent only 42% of students ages 18 to 24 at four-year schools, down from 47% in 2011.
At two-year colleges, which are largely community colleges, the drop in enrollment has been similar for men and women, so the gender balance has not changed much. Men represent 49% of students ages 18 to 24, up slightly from 48% in 2011.”
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Just received an email stating that Wingate Uni will be extending their deadline for deposit from May 1st to June 1st. Wonder if any other colleges will be following suit?
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There’s a thread on this with a few names, including Oregon State.
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