Is It Harder to Get Into College in 2021?

What students need to know about admissions, wait lists and acceptance rates

The pandemic upended the college-admissions process this year. Here’s what students and their families need to know about admissions, wait lists and acceptance rates.

The college-admissions process changed this year.
Admissions officers typically review students’ grades, standardized test scores, extracurricular activities, essays and recommendation letters. But the pandemic has upended the process, with grade point averages complicated by the spring 2020 semester, and many extracurriculars canceled.

One of the biggest changes was the cancellation of sessions to take standardized tests. More than 1,600 four-year colleges didn’t require applicants to submit SAT or ACT scores, which led to an increase in the number of students applying to selective colleges that are test optional. This year, there was a substantial decrease in the number of students who sent standardized test scores to colleges. Forty-six percent of students who used the Common App to apply to college submitted standardized test scores this year compared with 77% last year.

Selective colleges saw an overwhelming increase in the number of applicants.
The nation’s most-selective four-year colleges and universities saw a record-breaking 17% increase in applications this year, according to the Common App. This included both selective public and private schools.

The most prestigious schools reported even larger bumps. Harvard University received more than 57,000 freshman applications for next fall’s entering class, an increase of 42% from the year prior. Yale, Columbia and Stanford universities pushed back the date to announce admission decisions because they were swamped by applications. The University of Southern California’s applications bested the prior record by 7%. And New York University topped 100,000 applications, up 17% from last year.

The acceptance rates for these schools, which were already in the single digits and teens, could fall to roughly half where they were just a few years ago.

For most students, it might actually be easier to get admitted to college this year.

Data from the Common App shows that applications were up 11% nationwide through March 1. But the number of applicants rose by just 2%. This means roughly the same number of students sent out more applications, with the average student sending 5.8 applications, according to Common App data. Applications were concentrated at more selective colleges, but most students attend schools that admit the majority of applicants.

Because of the increased number of applications, college administrators aren’t entirely sure where students will choose to enroll, which means some are choosing to accept more students in the hopes that those students ultimately choose to enroll.

“For students, the takeaway is, don’t stress from everything you’re hearing that you’re not going to have a chance to get in because clearly schools are putting more offers out,” said Todd Rinehart, president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

The University of Denver, where Mr. Rinehart serves as vice chancellor for enrollment, has accepted 5% more students for fall 2021 compared with last fall. The Ohio State University reported an 18% increase in applications for fall 2021. Last year, OSU enrolled a record high 8,602 students. The university said it would return to enrolling a freshman class of between 7,770 and 7,800 students this year, but will accept a similar number of students as it did last year when it enrolled a larger class size. “With significantly larger applicant pools at flagship universities like Ohio State and with an increase in academically talented students in this pool, we will admit slightly more applicants this year to ensure meeting our target class size,” the university said.

Similarly, Indiana University said it received an increase in the number of applications compared with last academic year. The school has increased its enrollment target, and said it is currently up more than 10% in admits over last year. “Our position to enroll a larger class means that we will be able to celebrate the student experiences reflected in these additional applications instead of turning more away,” the university said.

Arizona State University is one of the largest schools by enrollment in the country. The school has currently admitted more than 46,000 first-year students for the coming academic year, and Matt Lopez, the school’s associate vice president of enrollment services, said he could foresee the school admitting as many as 50,000 first-year students by the start of the academic year. University officials said it is too early to tell how many will ultimately enroll, but in 2019, the university enrolled about 14,000 first-year students across its four campuses, the highest number to date.

However, applications fell 5% across the California State University System during the priority application period, which ended mid-December. The system is one of the largest in the country, and enrolls more than 480,000 students each year, about half of whom transfer from community colleges. Some schools in the system extended application deadlines for first-year and transfer students to make up for initial application declines. The university also wanted to extend the application period for families that faced financial hardships because of the pandemic, said Toni Molle, director of strategic communications and public affairs at the university.

Deferrals from last academic year don’t appear to have a big effect on admissions this fall.

Many college officials said deferrals from the fall academic year were small in number, and wouldn’t have a large effect on the number of students admitted for the fall 2021 term. For example, the University of Michigan saw 245 incoming first-year students defer last fall compared with 52 first-year students in 2019, said Erica Sanders, undergraduate-admissions director. But the increase in deferrals won’t affect freshman admissions this year, she said.

Students who are waitlisted might find they have increased odds of getting admitted.

College wait lists are expected to be very long this year. In some years, the chances are low that students will move off a wait list and get into a selective school. This year, because of the uncertainty in where students will enroll, there could be more activity off the wait list, Mr. Rinehart said. “It’s still very low percentages, but I think they might be slightly better than maybe a typical year,” he said.

Fewer students are enrolling in community colleges.

Community colleges predominantly serve students of color, as well as students from low-income backgrounds and those who would be the first in their families to attend college. In the fall of 2020, first-time enrollment at public two-year colleges fell by 18.9%. First-time enrollment by Black, Native American and Hispanic students declined by between 28% and 29%, according to data from National Student Clearinghouse.

While some students fret over admissions, some underrepresented students aren’t applying to college at all.

Federal-aid applications from high-school seniors are down 9.1% from last year, with even sharper declines among students from low-income high schools and schools with large minority populations, according to the National College Attainment Network.

Applications from first-generation students are down 1% compared with last year, while the number of applications from non-first-generation students is up 4% through March 1, according to data from the Common App.

Candace Boeninger, who is vice president for enrollment management at Ohio University, said she and her colleagues across the country are most concerned about the decrease in federal-aid applications. “There’s a pretty substantial risk that we may miss introducing higher education to a group of students that really could benefit from it,” she said.

To combat this, school officials, including those at Ohio University, said they are being flexible with deadlines for admissions and financial aid to give more students a chance to apply, as well as being proactive about helping students fill out federal-aid applications.