Will this prove to matter for US students applying to T20’s? If you believe all the private counselors on TikTok, this is an opportunity of a lifetime.
For T20’s, even if the acceptance rate doubles — which it won’t — those rates would still be extremely low.
For universities outside T20, particularly those with a high percentage of international undergrads, admissions may be easier
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but will it even be an easier year, or will colleges just replace A/1500’s with new A/1500’s?
I mean, is say 8% easier than 4%? For the marginal student yes, but for the average applicant not really
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I’m guessing the latter - the T20s certainly don’t have a dearth of top-quality students. I don’t recall if it was the Stanford dean or someone else who said something to the effect that they could replace the incoming class with several other equally strong groups from the applicant pool. I doubt it’ll get significantly easier.
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Perhaps schools will take a page from WUSTL and U Chicago and make it “easier” or free to apply…even kids who exhibited no interest.
But obviously, one way or another, butts will get put in seats.
But schools have to be careful to not dilute their brand - which includes high selectivity.
And I imagine some will win - because is there a difference between a Harvard and Duke student, etc. if Harvard pulls more…but maybe that school at 15 or 20 or what not is losing kids they would have had before to those above.
In fact you might find people saying things like this encourages more people to apply and offsets any possible advantage. Kind of like how applications went up when the top colleges went TO.
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It won’t matter at top universities (all the famous brand names, basically).
It WILL matter at all sorts of colleges, from the elites a bit below the super elite (say, Bryn Mawr, Northeastern) to flagships and regional universities. They’ll be put in a torturous bind - less federal grant money, fewer students so less tuition revenue. At the end of the food chain the smallest (especially if 800 students and under) private colleges with a mostly local recruitment base (think: McPherson KS, Davis&Elkins, Elmira, Thiel..) won’t be able to sustain their offerings and will really suffer, creating a domino effect upon their often rural communities.
But Harvard, Stanford, Northwestern, UVA, Williams, Vassar..? No. They’ll still have WAYYY more applicants than places.
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I can imagine that it might make a difference at universities that have historically had a large international student population. Looking at this US News list, some with over 20% include NYU, CMU, URochester, BU, Brandeis. (I don’t know much about The New School which is first on that list.)
Edited to add: Just noticed other tabs on the same list. Some examples of others listed with >20% international that are not considered “national universities”: DePauw, Mount Holyoke, RISD, CalArts.
I don’t think that breaks down between undergraduate and graduate students, though? From a few college breakdowns I’ve seen, the international population tends to be quite a bit higher as a % of graduate students than undergrads. Of course, graduate students face other challenges, such as programs /positions being cut because of the funding issues.
a number of these colleges don’t break down domestic vs international applicants/admits on the CDS, so hard to tell how it might impact freshman admissions.
Perhaps there’s a better list somewhere that shows percentage of undergrads?
Here’s some info for NYU specifically.
Noted this in the Franklin & Marshall forum, but this year, they had a pretty high 31% of students as international. They’ve historically drawn a large-ish international population but getting to 31% of the incoming class this year seemed interesting.
Clearly a huge revenue source. Brandeis is already having financial issues - maybe more are too but they’ve (Brandeis) been in the news - so it can’t be good.
Does this mean that if you are applying to NYU or similar, it will be an easier year? Or will NYU just lock up the same number of spots ED and similar students in regular admission, with similar stats… and the applicants will feel nothing too different. And if there is a difference, it will be a tree falling in the woods.
So if you are a potential ivy, applying to schools from U Penn to U Wisconsin - is anything going to change at all for you?
Maybe if anything, ED deferrals will fall and acceitances will happen instead. And the urge to ED that many have will be emboldened even more.
In a few years - will be curious to see if any need blind domestically go back to aware.
I wonder about that too.
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So graduate students the largest part, and China and (some way behind it) India are the largest sources of international students.
These colleges have low admit rates. NYU is under 8%, BU around 11% as examples. Maybe “easier” but it will still be far from “easy”.
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Not so long ago they were 10-12% and were still considered highly selective. They’ll still reject almost everyone who applied.
Imho, those counselors talking about a golden opportunity for the sub 10% acceptance colleges and even to a certain extent the sub25% are creating false expectations to sell their services.
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