Revamping the College Application Process
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Anonymous
Sorry in advance for the long post - I’ve spent too much time thinking about this in the car. 
It’s apparent that for many reasons, the college application process has become untenable. There is too much uncertainty for both families and schools, which has led to a spiral of increasing applications, which has in turn increased the uncertainty. I think breaking down the application process into a few more discrete stages with specific constraints on each stage could help streamline the process and get students matched more efficiently to good fit schools. Stage 1 - In-state Public best-fit offer (Sept 15 apply, Oct 15 notification) -- By Sept 15, students submit full academic record only: Student Reported Academic Record (SRAR), Test Scores (AP/IB, SAT, ACT) as desired -- Students indicate academic major/areas of interest -- Students rank all of the state schools from 1st to last choice, including community colleges. -- Colleges review students in rounds by order of student preference. The schools see all students who listed them 1st choice and make one of these decisions: ----- Decline (not an academic fit) ----- Defer to Stage 2 (traditional early action with full application) ----- Admit to school, defer to Stage 2 for limited enrollment program ----- Admit to school and major -- All students who did not receive an “admit to school and major” then go to the next round of 2nd choices, 3rd choices, etc. -- Applications are automatically withdrawn from all schools ranked lower than “admit to school and major”. -- Schools can be required to admit a minimum % of target student body this round (e.g. 10%) -- Students can be incentivized with a tuition discount (e.g. $3000) to commit by Nov 1. (Many kids have an in-state school as their 1st choice. If they get accepted, encourage them to commit to provide certainty for the school as they build the class.) Stage 2 - Early Decision 1 (private)/Early Action 1 (public) (Nov 1 apply, Dec 15 notification) -- By Nov 1, students complete their full application including ECs and Essays. This goes to the in-state public schools who deferred to stage 2 and the admit school (for review for merit/honors college etc.) -- In-state schools continue to review and make one of these decisions. ----- Decline ----- Admit to school, not admitted to LEP major ----- Admit to school and major. -- Students may choose one private school to apply Early Decision 1. (normal process) -- Students rank out-of-state public schools that they are interested in, up to 5 schools. -- Out-of-state schools see all applications. They also see who ranked them as 1st choice (but not the rest of the rankings). Possible decisions: ----- Decline ----- Defer to Stage 4 regular decision (with request for mid-year transcript) ----- Admit to school, not admitted to LEP major ----- Admit to school and major. -- Both out-of-state and in-state schools could incentivize students to commit by Jan 1 with a tuition discount. (e.g. $2000) Stage 3 - Early Decision 2 (private)/Early Action 2 (public) (Jan 1 apply, Feb 15 notification) OR Regular Decision (public & private) (Jan 1 apply, notification by school selected date) -- Repeat the Stage 2 process for students trying ED2 or EA2. -- Otherwise, students apply regular decision to any public or private school. Stage 4 - Regular decision (public & private) (Feb 28 application deadline, rolling notification by April 1, beginning by school selected date) -- This is for students who applied ED2 or EA2 and allows them to still submit applications for regular decision. However, they may be behind other students in review. The most important change IMO would be to implement Stage 1, which could be done at the state level independently of other states. If students knew early on what their best-fit was in-state, it would set more realistic expectations for the rest of the application process. Obviously, there are a lot of details and tweaks that can be made to this suggestion, but what do you think about the general idea? |
Anonymous
| For those of us who don't have an in-state option, what do you suggest? |
Anonymous
You would start at Stage 2, which is close to the current process except that you would apply EA to only 5 schools and say what your 1st choice was. |
Anonymous
| If anything, this should all be later in senior year, not earlier. |
Anonymous
| I love it. The process is oh so broken now. |
Anonymous
| I like it but it seems to me that DC residents should be able to pick a state for Stage 1 and be treated like an in-state resident. |
Anonymous
| Under this process, who gets in wouldn’t have under the current process who gets rejected that wouldn’t have under the current process? |
Anonymous
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I agree the process is broken, but I think it's because of test optional. It gave a guideline of where to apply or not. If you didn't have whatever test score (and werent a recruited student for athletics or something else), you didn't waste your time with an application.
Before everyone starts screaming that the tests are biased and only measure the wealth of families who can afford test prep, I agree. We need a new weed in/weed out system, similar to the SAT/ACT score, but is SOMETHING that gives a baseline for all. GPA is not it, because it's too subjective based on the school. |
Anonymous
| I don't get why OP thinks having greater certainty about their in-state option would manifestly change the process, especially for private schools. |
Anonymous
Kids GPAs are already compared only to the other students at their school. |
Anonymous
When you say “we” need, who is “we”? The colleges seem to have no problem with things as they are. If they needed something else they would put that in place. They don’t. |
Anonymous
Some schools are putting something else in place -- direct admissions. This is a new approach where schools (not the highly competitive ones) identify kids they would like and message them directly with admissions offers. https://www.collegeraptor.com/getting-in/articles/college-admissions/what-is-direct-admission/#:~:text=Direct%20admission%20is%20a%20fairly,to%20include%20financial%20aid%20offers. https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2022/11/25/direct-admissions-how-students-can-be-accepted-to-college-without-ever-applying/?sh=2757e1aa365c https://www.insidehighered.com/admissions/article/2022/10/24/direct-admissions-takes If open to this, be sure your kids are opening college emails. I do think public U admissions should be revamped with some kind of ranked choice to dial down the stress and unpredictability there but you aren't going to be able to impose and kind of process on private Us. |
Anonymous
This process is about reducing the total number of applications so that more students are accepted to their top choice schools. It is also about helping public schools better predict their incoming class by getting early commitments, so that they can make more offers to out-of-state students (rather than deferring). |
Anonymous
| The schools in demand , including publics aren’t having enrollment problems. Who gets in has changed and you are seeing spots going to new groups that either weren’t here 20 years ago (educated immigrant family) or had barriers ( learning disabilities, POC, lower income). 20 years ago these spots would have gone to UMC private and wealthy public school kids without hooks. The ultra wealthy, legacy at privates, athletes are still getting in but going to an highly regarded private school or high ranked public and doing well isn’t giving the edge that it used to give. |
Anonymous
~75% of students attend public colleges and universities. Many of these students have an in-state public school as their 1st choice. Get these students settled ASAP so that they aren't submitting applications to additional schools, just because of uncertainty. Having an idea of where they fit academically can help students refine which public schools are appropriate to apply to. (e.g. if you didn't get into your state flagship for engineering, you are not getting in to MIT). Knowing what their financial options are from the public university also reduces applications to private. How many kids now turn down acceptances to Ivies because they got a full ride scholarship at a public university? (Hint: it's not negligible.) Also, no reason that the privates couldn't band together to do something similar with ranking. |