In the usual case that reapplying to the same college a year later comes up, it is one of these cases:
12th grade frosh reject takes a gap year, then reapplies during the gap year.
12th grade frosh reject goes to college, then applies as a sophomore transfer during first year of college.
In both cases, the applicant’s high school record is largely the same as it was when they first applied and got rejected, except that there are now grades attached to the courses listed for 12th grade (and AP/IB/etc. scores for those tests taken at the end of 12th grade). Unless the grades showed a large improvement over the 9th-11th grade grades, they are unlikely to make much of a difference in a following year application.
In case 1, the gap year activity would have to be really impressive compared to extracurriculars during high school to make much of a difference. In case 2, there is at most a semester of college record, so the high school record is still a big factor.
In other words, it is likely that most reapplicants show college admission credentials that got them rejected the first time from the college.
Regarding the claim that admission readers or committees are biased against last year’s rejects beyond that their profiles are largely similar to those that got them rejected previously, that would mean that they have to remember the rejects from the prior year in order to be prejudiced against them, even if any of them show some great improvement compared to the record that got them rejected in the prior year. But are most rejected applicants that memorable?
Would they need to be that memorable, or would their status as a re-applicant be systematically noted/flagged such that this would be brought to the AOs’ attention, and their decision would be framed as “Do we see a good enough reason to reverse the prior decision?” Basically, is there inertia to the first decision that persists and must be overcome? Not sure how we can know, other than by AO’s answering the question candidly.
According to a verified admissions consultant on Reddit (…I know, I know) they do. Not sure if I am allowed to link the post but this is the key point
Typically the application aggregation software (e.g. Slate) will have a panel in the sidebar that shows that a given applicant had prior application(s). The reviewer can simply click this link to immediately open the old app. Usually they will do this, but they will not spend long on it. They just want to get a quick idea of what the app looked like and specifically what the prior reviewers wrote about it. Then they use that for context (importantly, NOT for evaluation) as they read your current application.
Many college applications have a checkbox for the applicant to indicate whether or not they’ve previously applied to the college. Of course this doesn’t tell us how the information is used in the admissions process.
In our system, if an applicant reapplies at any point, it is automatically flagged and noted. AOs don’t have to remember or go looking for the previous app because it’s right there in the system.
(We also use slate as noted by the AO on Reddit)
I agree in general not much will change from the previous years app so would expect the same unsuccessful outcome …best to wait until next year (mid-soph year) to re-apply.
But does the admission reader become more negatively biased against the applicant because they are a reapplicant? Of course, it may not matter for most whose profiles are similar to what got them rejected the first time, but what about those few who did something in the last year that would ordinarily make them more admissible?
(What does “best to wait until year to re-apply” mean?)
I’m going to guess that they meant waiting to reapply until year two might be better. And I agree with that.
When applying to transfer for junior year, the student will have complete freshman year college grades (and hopefully very strong ones). Plus they may have other accomplishments done during freshman year and the summer after…or first semester sophomore year. These could possibly move the admissions needle.
I.e. if you want to reapply to a school that rejected you as a frosh applicant, apply as a junior transfer, when you have more of a college record (three semesters of college courses) that will be more important than the high school record that got you rejected as a frosh applicant, correct? That makes sense.
I can’t help but think that this flagging unintentionally introduces a bias against re-applicants. Even with training around objectivity, AOs are human after all, and are likely to place significant weight on their colleagues’ prior year comments. In other words, this may shift the reader’s mindset toward “we rejected this applicant last year; what has changed enough to justify reversing that decision?” rather than approaching the file with a clean slate. By contrast, a first-time applicant is read without that prior framing.
Just curious- apart from students applying their Junior yer after completing an associates degree, or, for eg, applying to UC schools in CA after completing one of the 2 year certificate or IGETC options, how many students transfer from one 4 yr college to another in their junior (rather than sophomore) year. Anyone know?
However, they noted that about half of transfers from four year schools went to two year schools, but many of those were what they called “summer swirlers”, meaning those who took courses at two year schools during the summer and then returned to their four year schools in the fall. So that may mean that their findings are not exactly what you are looking for.
Thanks. Interesting table. Those students reflected in that table are probably in their 30’s now!! But I am wondering how many transfer after their first year vs their second from a 4 year institution to another 4 year institution. Wonder how many can still graduate in 4 years.
