Every year, the rumor circulates: This is the most competitive admissions season ever. The rumor is inspired by all of the wonderful applicants we know personally or through hearsay who don’t get accepted “anywhere.” The claim is supported by theories presented as facts, such as the claim that this is the year of a supposed population peak for eighteen-year-olds.
In fact, the reason certain applicants don’t get into a top 20 school has to do with bad luck, bad advice, or poor strategic thinking, and the simple fact that there are far more 4.0 students with near-perfect standardized test scores and remarkable extracurriculars than there are spaces for them at these schools. I will talk about poor strategic decisions and bad advice below.
In some ways, the competition just keeps getting worse
It is true that for the most competitive colleges, particularly for the Ivy Plus schools, which include MIT, Duke, and Stanford, the number of rejected applicants keeps spiraling upward. See if you can follow me as I explain the cycle: first, there was Covid (it’s fashionable to blame everything on Covid), which triggered a widespread choice to make Standardized Testing optional. Three times as many applicants now believed they had a chance at the most selective schools. The more applications, the more rejections, and the more rejections, the more top 20 colleges to which each student sends an application, leading each school to have way too many applicants, so– more and more rejections.
More Early Decision students Accepted
As students apply to more schools, the likelihood of a highly desirable applicant being accepted by more than one school increases, and that means the likelihood of a college being rejected by an applicant increases. These colleges want to protect their yield (the number of students they accept who agree to matriculate), so they now want to accept an increasing number of applicants Early Decision, knowing those students must accept their offer. Cornell, for example, admits roughly 40 percent of its incoming class without a test score.
As more and more students are accepted Early Decision, more and more regular decision applicants are rejected, creating the appearance (and to some extent the reality) of a firestorm of rejection.
Actually, though, the number of students getting accepted at colleges and universities is increasing. This is a good time to be an applicant, if you’re smart.
In fact, 87 percent of nonprofit four-year colleges in 2022 took half or more of the students who applied to them, up from 80 percent in 2012. Concerns about the cost of college and a declining faith in the desirability of a liberal arts education have many highly respected institutions eager to accept qualified applicants. Esteemed colleges like Oberlin, Ithaca College, Fordham College, Bard College, and Wesleyan are anxious about declining applications, particularly with the supposed “admissions cliff” (a projected drop in enrollment from traditional-aged applicants) looming. Colleges are closing their doors in this country at the rate of more than one per week.
This is sad news for our liberal arts colleges and our society as a whole, but it is good news for applicants. Visitors to many of these schools will find themselves vigorously courted, rather than pushed away. These colleges are not also-rans. Investment banks and tech companies hire many of their graduates, and medical schools, law schools and business schools also admit their applicants in disproportionate numbers. Many elite segments of society still revere these institutions, even if fewer students and parents do.
If you still want to enter the Top 20 race, be clear-eyed and strategic
There are a variety of strategic errors that might explain the rejection of a “perfect candidate”:
Weak essays that don’t make the candidate seem exceptional as a person, not a transcript
Selecting the wrong Early Decision school and then being stuck in the ever-shrinking Regular Admissions pool
Making the wrong decision about whether to reveal your Standardized Test Scores
Selecting the wrong extracurriculars
Declaring an overly competitive major on your application
Raising a red flag either in your essays or in an interview
If you have questions about whether you are making the right strategic decisions, Bentham Admissions is here to help.
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