June 2007:

2008 Essay Questions Starting to Appear on College Websites

The University of Virginia and the University of Michigan are among the schools that have already released their essay questions for Fall 2008 freshman applications. The University of Michigan presents applicants with a quote about diversity in higher education and asks them to write about "an experience through which you have gained respect for intellectual, social, or cultural differences." The University of Virginia gives applicants their choice of several essay themes, including, "What is your favorite word, and why?" and "Discuss something you secretly like but pretend not to (or vice versa)."

Most colleges and universities can be expected to release their 2008 applications and essays by the end of July. For tips that can help you get started on gathering ideas for your essays, visit our sister site, CollegeAdmissionsEssay.com.

Waitlisted Applicants Are In at Harvard and Princeton This Year

There was good news for some of the waitlisted applicants at Harvard and Princeton this spring. Each school was able to extend admissions offers to about 30 waitlisted applicants this year, compared to none the year before. Northwestern University has also made much more use of its waitlist this year, almost doubling the number of admissions offers it made to waitlisted applicants for the Class of 2011.

At most schools, however, high applicant yield meant that few or no applicants could be taken off the waitlists. Stanford, Dartmouth, and the University of Chicago are among the schools that reportedly extended no admissions offers to their waitlists at all this year,. MIT, the University of Pennsylvania, and many others are said to have made much less use of their waitlists than they had expected to.

For details about recent waitlist trends at several top colleges and universities, see this webpage from AdmissionsConsultants.com.

May 2007:

Record App Volume Drives Admit Rates Down - Almost Everywhere

A number of U.S. colleges and universities reported record-high application volume this year – which was inevitably followed by record-low acceptance rates. Swarthmore, Brandeis, Williams, and Emory are just some of the schools that posted their lowest admit rates ever.

But there were also schools where admit rates held steady or even climbed slightly. Tufts University accepted about the same percentage of applicants that it did last year. William and Mary's acceptance rate actually increased slightly, going from 32 per cent last year to 33 per cent this year. And at NYU, where a new requirement for SAT Subject Test scores seems to have kept the applicant pool small, the acceptance rate rose to 32 per cent, the highest it has been in years. (For more information, see AdmissionsConsultants.com's table of 2007 Admissions Outcomes.)

According to the National Association for College Admissions Counseling, most U.S. colleges and universities continue to accept the majority of their applicants. That statistic can be somewhat misleading, since the schools it refers to include a number of non-selective institutions. However, 2008 college applicants can take heart in knowing that there are hundreds of schools in this country that offer an excellent undergraduate education. Applicants who apply to an appropriate number and variety of schools and who put their best effort into their applications can be reasonably confident of winning admission to at least one of their targeted schools.

Chicago and Stanford Join the Common App This Year

Both the University of Chicago and Stanford University will begin accepting the Common Application this year.

According to the Chicago Maroon, admissions officials at that university expect to see an approximately 40 per cent increase in application volume because of the switch. Applicants should expect a proportional decline in Chicago's acceptance rate.

Stanford has also announced that it will change its regular application deadline from December 15 to January 1.

AP Audit is Under Way

High schools that want to use the label 'Advanced Placement' for one of their classes next year have until June 1 to submit course audit material to the College Board. Beginning this year, the College Board will exercise greater control over the use of the AP label by publishing a list of schools and classes that meet its expectations of AP-level coursework. The list will be shared with college and university admissions offices nationwide.

This change may affect some 2008 college applicants. Not all high schools want to do the additional work necessary to earn the ETS' approval for their advanced courses. In that case, schools may simply drop the 'AP' designation but go on teaching the same advanced-level classes. College applicants whose high schools take this route should realize that their transcripts will no longer show AP coursework. They will need to use other parts of their application to convey the exceptional difficulty of their advanced classes if they want to get credit for them in the admissions process.

April 2007:

Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford Release Decisions for Class of 2011

Top colleges and universities across the country released preliminary information about their 2007 admissions outcomes at the end of March. They include:

Harvard - Accepted 2,058 applicants from a pool of 22,955, for an overall acceptance rate 9 per cent.

Yale - Accepted 1,860 applicants from a pool of 19,323, for an overall acceptance rate of 9.6 per cent.

Columbia - Accepted 2,210 applicants from a pool of 21,343, for an overall acceptance rate of 10.4 per cent.

Dartmouth - Accepted 2,165 applicants from a pool of 15,444, for an overall acceptance rate of 14 per cent.

Princeton - Accepted 1,791 applicants from a pool of 18,942, for an overall acceptance rate of 9.5 per cent.

The University of Pennsylvania - Accepted 3,610 applicants from a pool of 22,634, for an overall acceptance rate of 16 per cent.

Brown University - Accepted 2,577 applicants from a pool of 19,044, for an overall acceptance rate of 13.5 per cent.

Stanford - Accepted 2,465 applicants from a pool of 23,956, for an overall acceptance rate of 10.3 per cent.

Duke - Accepted 3,770 applicants from a pool of 19,170 applicants, for an overall acceptance rate of 19.7 per cent.

U.S. colleges and universities reported receiving record-high numbers of applications for Fall 2007 admissions. Because most schools enroll about the same number of freshmen every year, higher applicant volume invariably means lower acceptance rates.

MIT Accepts 12.3% of Applicants for 2007

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology has extended admissions offers to 1,533 of the over 12,000 students who applied for freshman admission this fall. Even though MIT plans to increase the size of its freshman class slightly – from 1,005 students last year to about 1,020 students this year – and made admissions offers accordingly, the large size of this year's applicant pool still means that this year's acceptance rate sets an all-time low for the school.

Both SAT and ACT Now Accepted Everywhere

All U.S. colleges and universities that require standardized test scores for admission will now accept either the SAT or the ACT. This marks a milestone for applicants, who previously had to pay careful attention to which test was accepted by which schools. The last four-year college to sign on to a SAT-or-ACT policy was Harvey Mudd, the technical institute of the Claremont Colleges Consortium. The school is dropping its SAT-only policy this year in order to attract more applicants from the Midwest and the South.

U Penn and Harvard Increase Financial Aid Programs

The University of Pennsylvania has raised the upper income limit for its no-loan financial aid program. Starting this fall, students from families with an annual income of up to $60,000 will have their financial needs covered by grants, eliminating the need to take out loans. The previous income cap was $50,000. Over 200 students are expected to benefit from the change.

Harvard also announced a financial aid increase, noting that it will increase its spending on need-based financial aid by 6.8 per cent this year.

Both schools also announced tuition and room and room and board increases for 2007-2008. Harvard costs will rise by about 4.5 per cent, and U Penn costs by about 4.9 per cent.

In other financial aid news, Hamilton College announced that it will eliminate merit-based aid and devote its full resources to need-based aid. Over half of Hamilton's students already receive need-based aid, with the average award covering half of tuition and living expenses.

Davidson College – 'the Dartmouth of the South' – has also adopted a loan-free financial aid policy. Beginning this fall, Davidson will meet students' financial aid needs entirely through grants and work-study employment.

March 2007:

Dartmouth Ends On-Campus Interviews

Dartmouth College is no longer offering individual interviews to prospective applicants during campus visits. Visitors to Hanover, NH will instead be able to attend small group meetings where current students will answer questions about learning and living at Dartmouth. The decision to end individual interviews was based on a desire to keep the admissions process equitable for all applicants and on the increasing difficulty Admissions staff faced in meeting interview demand: over 1,500 prospects requested and received an on-campus interview between August and December of 2006. Dartmouth applicants will continue to have the option of requesting an off-campus alumni interview.

Schools Report More International Applicants

A number of selective colleges and universities are saying that international applicants account for much of this year's increase in application volume. Dartmouth received 10 per cent more applications from international applicants this year than last, bringing the proportion of international students in its applicant pool to almost 15 per cent. At the University of Pennsylvania, international applications grew by 19 per cent. At Harvard, the increase in international application volume was 12 per cent.

February 2007:

Yale Will Continue Early Action Admissions

Yale University has confirmed that it will continue to give applicants the option of applying under a non-binding Early Action deadline. 

This decision makes Yale the only Ivy League school with a non-binding early admissions option. Brown, Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth, and the University of Pennsylvania all have binding Early Decision programs. Princeton and Harvard are both ending early admissions this year.

Schools Seeing Increased Application Volume

Colleges and universities across the country are reporting increased application volume this year, with record-high numbers of freshman applications being submitted to some schools. Applications have increased by 16 per cent at Hamilton College; by 23 per cent at SUNY Binghamton; by almost 8 per cent at Boston College; by 4 per cent to Georgetown; and by 12 per cent at the University of Colorado at Boulder. This growth in application volume comes at the same time that several schools, including Hamilton and UC Boulder, plan to reduce this fall's freshman class size in order to offset the unusually large first-year classes they enrolled in 2006.

ED Outcomes for Brown, Cornell, and Dartmouth

Brown University received 2,307 applications under this year's Early Decision deadline, marking a small decline in application volume from last year. 523 of the applicants were accepted, 293 were denied, and 1,491 were deferred to the regular pool. This year's 22.7 ED acceptance rate is only slightly below the 22.9 per cent ED rate that Brown posted last year.

Cornell also saw a small drop in its ED acceptance rate, due in part to a larger applicant pool. This year's ED applicant pool was about 6 per cent larger than last year's, with 3,017 students seeking seats in the Class of 2011. Cornell accepted 36.6 per cent of those applicants. Last year, Cornell's overall acceptance rate was 24.7 per cent.

Dartmouth's ED application volume and acceptance rate both dropped slightly from last year's figures. The College admitted 382 of this year's 1,287 ED applicants, marking a 29.7 per cent ED acceptance rate. The admits will make up approximately one-third of Dartmouth's Class of 2011.

January 2007:

Schools Announce Outcomes of  EA and ED Admissions for Fall '07

Yale University received 3,594 Early Action applications this year, 13 per cent fewer than last year. It accepted 19.9 per cent of the pool (709 students), denied 18 per cent, and deferred the remaining 61 per cent to the regular pool.

Harvard accepted 875 of its 4,008 Early Action applicants, marking an EA acceptance rate of 21.8 per cent.

Princeton posted a 26.2 Early Decision acceptance rate, accepting 597 candidates from a pool of 2,276. It denied admission to about 100 ED applicants and deferred the rest to the regular pool.

Stanford received 4,644 Early Action applications this year. It accepted 750 EA applicants, marking an EA acceptance rate of 16.1 per cent. Following its usual practice, Stanford deferred only a small number of EA applicants and denied the others.

The lowest acceptance rate to date comes from MIT, which accepted 390 Early Action applicants from a pool of 3,493, marking an EA acceptance rate of 11.2 per cent. Only 9.2 per cent of EA applicants were denied, while 79.7 per cent were deferred.

College Board Begins Certifying AP Courses This Year

The high school transcripts of seniors graduating in 2008 could be affected by an upcoming audit of AP courses by the College Board. Beginning in January, the College Board will review the class plans and other materials that high schools plan to use for AP courses offered in 2007-2008. If a course fails the review, the College Board will not allow the school to designate it as an AP course on the transcripts it issues. Colleges and universities will be able to check applicants' transcripts against a list of approved schools and classes provided by the College Board.

Growing concern about the quality of AP courses has already led some schools to reconsider awarding college credit for students who pass AP exams. Emory University has adopted a new policy that caps credit for AP courses and other classes taken outside the University to 32 credit hours. Earlier this year, MIT announced that it will no longer waive its introductory biology requirement for freshmen who do well on the AP Biology exam. Starting this fall, MIT freshmen must either pass the Institute's own Biology Advanced Standing Exam or take Introductory Biology.

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