As more students submit increased numbers of college applications to ensure themselves a spot on campus, the business of figuring out who’s going to get admitted—and who’s going to commit to enrolling if they do—has gotten more tricky.
That is the picture that emerges in “State of College Admission 2012”—a new report being released today by the National Association For College Admission Counseling, or NACAC.
According to the report, 79 percent of Fall 2011 freshmen applied to three or more colleges, an increase of 12 percentage points over the last 10 years and higher than the 77 percent who did so the previous year. The percentage of students who submitted seven or more applications reached 29 percent in 2011, whereas only 25 percent did the previous year.
The trend of students submitting more applications is being driven by the ease that online technology has brought to the application process, coupled with exaggerated or misunderstood claims about the increased selectivity of colleges and universities, a NACAC policy expert and co-author of the report told Diverse.
“Against the backdrop where the popular conversation about admissions suggests that colleges are getting more selective than ever, students are hedging their bets by submitting more applications to increase their chances of getting into any one [college],” said David Hawkins, Director of Public Policy and Research at NACAC.
Ironically, Hawkins said, this inflationary effect makes it more difficult for students to get into an institution, because admissions officers must review significantly more applications to fill roughly the same amount of seats on campus each year.
Over the past decade, according to the NACAC report, the average ratio of applications per admissions officer rose from 359 in 2005 to 662 in 2011.
