Welcome back! Hope everyone is enjoying the holidays and time with family. We will keep today’s post short and sweet.
For those curious about our predictions for the year and how that turned out, you can take a look at the post below. Don’t worry, we have turned off the paywall for this so you can see it yourself.
Instead of going through each point (you can be judge of our accuracy), we will speak to the biggest impacts for admissions this year.
Author’s note: No one bats 1000, but we would say our predictions were pretty spot on.
End of Affirmative Action
Without a doubt, this is the largest impact in the college admissions game in several years. In case you have been living under a rock, race can no longer be considered as a factor in admissions.
How this impacts college admissions is unknown at this time. We will know more once we see what admitted classes look like, but based on what we are seeing, there are several key ways
Historically, one of the more common admissions strategies is to be the best within a demographic. In other words, you are not competing against every single applicant - you are competing against applicants like you. In other words, an Asian applicant from California was not competing against a black applicant from Michigan.
Now, race is no longer a factor, so you have to use other emographic information to understand what your potential class will look like.
Rest assured - you are still going to end up with applicants who “should” get accepted ending up in the rejection pile, and “less deserving” will be accepted.
We put this in quotes because it reflects limited understanding of the process in the masses - we are not in the business of how the admissions process should work, we are in the business of explaining how it does work.
Deemphasis on College
There is a movement particularly within the United States where the value of a college degree is being questioned.
Depending on how far down the rabbithole you go, you will find that many are instead encouraging trades or starting their own business. Even some corporations are removing college degrees as barriers to applications.
The truth is that college is being portrayed as the solution for all students. If you don’t believe that, look at the college prep curriculum being pushed by public schools across the country.
The idea is that every student is being prepared for a college process, which is probably not a great thing.
It leads to disappointment when students graduate from college with debt and do not have high incomes to live the lives they believe they can.
As we have repeatedly said, college is a tool to help you achieve a goal that you already have, and you should take the journey that makes it as affordable as possible and helps you achieve those goals. But everyone seems a bit more focused on the college outcome (did my kid become a millionaire) versus the goal outcome (did my kid take the steps necessary to achieve their stated goal outcome?).
Why is this a big deal? Expect college application volume to fall. The question is, will it fall for students in the middle or at the top?
Automatic Admissions Are On the Rise
There are a number of students who are now receiving admissions form schools they did not even apply to.
This is big.
The competition for top applicats is strong between top colleges. But several other colleges and universities are facing an enrollment crisis.
The best way to avoid that is to remove the guesswork and offer admission. And there will be some students who will matriculate that way.
This may not seem like a big deal, but colleges are going to be on the defnesive to keep enrollment. No enrollment = dead college.
In this environment, this could be particularly useful for partnerships in a given trade or field - especially since employers may now be going degree-optional.
Think of it this way - if you are a college with declining enrollment, you look to a large corporate sponsor and offer to become their very own version of McDonalds University. Corporation effectively outsources is learning and development to a college, that college offers preferred or direct admission into their program, and now curriculum is algined with industrial needs - both now and in the future.
Need to stand up an AI organization? alignn learning needs with the university and the employer and over time build your own pipeline in an accelearted environment.
Is his happening now? No. But the infrastructure is there throug hdirect admissions, which appeals to a different kind of applicant than traditional top college admissions.