The Future of College Admissions

With all of the recent news about the record low admission rates at some of the countries best known colleges I thought it might be a good time to discuss the future of college admissions. The National Association for College Admission Counseling recently issued their 2006 State of College Admissions which discusses many factors surrounding college admissions.

One of the more discouraging facts is that college enrollments are expected to continue to increase until 2014. That means for at least the next 7 years the number of students applying to college will increase and the acceptance rates at many of the well known colleges will continue at levels that make acceptance extremely difficult even for the best qualified students.

Several other facts may be important to students applying to college in the future. The number of women applying to college again greatly exceeded the number of men applying. For the most recent year reported, women submitted 58% of the applications nationally while men only submitted 42%. Many colleges seek to have a fairly balanced ration of women and men which means that men may find acceptance somewhat easier at many colleges.

Almost 50% of the applications were submitted online and the trend is for that number to continue to increase in the future. This should ease the concern of those people who have been hesitant in the past to file their applications online.

Finally, my favorite statistic is that despite the increase in the number of students applying to college, the average four year college acceptance rate is still at 70%. While the colleges that accept fewer than 30% of their applicants make all of the headlines on the dire nature of college admissions, there are thousands of colleges where admission is not such a difficult proposition.

If you are applying to one of the highly selective colleges, good luck. Just make sure that you have a safety college chosen from among those colleges with higher acceptance rates.