While much attention was paid to the pandemic-related upheaval in the college admissions process, not as much is being said about the multilayered impacts to college admissions that have made the 2023-2024 admissions cycle unprecedented.
Here are just a few pieces that have transpired in admissions this year – 
Radical reworking of application review processes and diminished transparency  
As we entered into this season, a landmark Supreme Court decision required a complete reworking of the admissions process including how colleges understand applicants, and how they consider identity in the context of the decision process. With applications opening August 1, colleges had just one month to implement changes to their admissions processes in response to the decision, leaving little time to communicate expectations to applicants.
The parameters of the decision encouraged most admissions offices to operate with more opacity and less transparency in their processes, making it more bewildering for students and families to understand how to proceed and what matters in admissions. With substantial concern for further litigation, colleges have trouble saying much of anything at all about how their review processes have changed as a result of the decision and how they are considering the qualitative information students share about their ‘lived experiences’ in their writing as part of the evaluation process.
Ongoing consolidation & record application numbers
Students continue to funnel record breaking numbers of applications to a smaller number of colleges, leaving many schools outside of the top 50 to 100 universities scrambling with enrollment declines and subsequent budget constriction.
The Common App has made it increasingly easy for students to apply to a higher number of colleges. With the average number of applications submitted by each student increasing, application pools grow at selective schools, while acceptance rates reach new lows. As admissions offices operate in the context of ballooning application numbers, it is inevitable that their review and decision processes are shifting to accommodate this reality.
Test optional in policy but more complicated in practice 
In the 23-24 admissions cycle, the vast majority of colleges have continued their pandemic-driven test optional policies. These policies have contributed to sustaining record high application numbers at most very selective institutions over the past several years, and 2024 has been no exception. While many colleges have maintained policies permitting students to apply without SAT or ACT scores, at many of those institutions, students with strong scores that mirror the typical admitted student are accepted at higher rates than their peers who utilize the test optional policy. This trend is amplified at many colleges from ivies to public flagships in very popular and quantitative majors such as business and engineering. In this context, many students understandably choose to withhold their scores, leading to an astronomical rise in the ‘middle 50%’ of scores for admitted students at many selective colleges where admissions readers speak to struggling with how to best assess a student’s readiness on the basis of grades and curriculum alone.
And on top of it all, a catastrophic failure in financial aid
While admissions offices navigated a total overhaul of their processes, surging application numbers, and ongoing ambiguity around the role of testing in the evaluation process, the financial aid process fell apart in an unprecedented series of events. Federal legislation requiring updates to the FAFSA form used to calculate financial aid and merit scholarship offers across the country led to a rushed process to change the form, a near three month delay in rolling out the application and cascading tumult as errors, delays, revisions and recalculations have prevented colleges from receiving the critical information they need to award aid to admitted students. Even still as the typical May 1st decision and deposit deadline approaches, the future is uncertain. Families who managed to complete the FAFSA are still in the dark on what the true costs of college will be to inform their decisions. These families are in the minority, as FAFSA completion overall is down 40%. As a result, some colleges are extending their deposit deadlines to give students and families more time to receive financial aid information, while others are proceeding with unchanged deadlines. We have yet to see the long term impacts of these failures on college enrollment, especially for the most vulnerable students.
What it all means
While the circumstances are deeply challenging, we have hope for the many students and families who are working hard to find their way, stay informed and make their own best college decisions. We are rooting for you, celebrating your wins, and inviting you to acknowledge your resilience in navigating an extraordinary time in college admissions.
We will continue to strive to keep you informed with transparent information about the college process, and grounded guidance in how to navigate your journey. When you turn down the noise on prestige and turn up the volume on your own values to choose college communities where you will thrive, this process can be more enjoyable and less overwhelming.
TBU Advisors are experienced in supporting students to navigate their college choices and personal best fit. If you’d like to explore working with a TBU Advisor, get in touch here. We look forward to connecting with you.
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