Why is it so hard to get into college now?

The current admissions statistics can definitely be discouraging. This talk page on College Confidential illustrates the hardship well, with its information on historical college admissions trends; for example, in 1995, the acceptance rate for UChicago was 68%, meaning a student was more likely to get in than not, and in 1970, the University of Pennsylvania—an Ivy League school—nonetheless had a 70% acceptance rate. As of 2021, these schools’ acceptance rates are 6.3% and 5.68%, respectively.

If you live on the west coast, here’s an example closer to home: Stanford University, which is ranked as 2022’s #1 hardest university to get into, even beating Harvard. These days, Stanford’s admissions rate hovers around 4%—but this was not always in the case in past decades. In 2008, the admit rate of Stanford was more than double that, at 9.5%. In 2004, it was more than triple that, at 13%. If you go all the way back to the 1970’s, the admissions rate in 1973 was a whopping 31%.

And this potentially demoralizing trend is not only the case for these elite schools. For example, let’s look at UCLA. This year, the school admitted 15,004 of its 139,485 applicants, or 10.8%. However, in 1999, the school admitted about 10,000 of 35,000—28% of its applicants. Note the number of admits, about 15,000 now and 10,000 in 1999. That means, despite UCLA making room for 50% more students on campus via more courses, dorms, professors, etc. UCLA still cannot keep up with the increased number of applicants. 

Let’s figure this out.

So what is it about the modern day that makes it so hard to get into college?

First, let’s back up. Is it that the schools are becoming more selective, and admitting fewer people? No. The class size at Stanford has hovered at a constant 2200-2400 students. And at the less extremely selective universities, the trend is actually the opposite. Twenty years ago, UCLA admitted 10,000 students. Now it’s 15,000. The quantity of students that the university can hold has increased by 50%.

The growth of the number of students applying to schools has skyrocketed at even a faster pace than the schools’ growth in capacity. At UCLA, in 1999 the applicant pool was 35,000. Now it’s almost 140,000. In 1993, at Stanford, the applicant pool was 8,000 students. Now it’s over 55,000. Bottom line: a LOT more students these days are applying to college. This forces all schools – not just the top ones – to be far more selective.

Why are more students applying to college?

The world has changed a lot since 1970, and even since the turn of the millenium. If you didn’t go to college prior to the 2000s, you still had a good chance of getting hired and earning decent money. But from 2000 to 2020, the unemployment rate of high school graduates (who never pursue college degrees) rose from 9.5% 16.9%. Furthermore, this statistic doesn’t account for the fact that almost all high-school graduates (at least in major urban areas) now pursue college – because it’s only looking at people who never go to any college whatsoever.

The percentage of students enrolling in (getting accepted into) college is also increasing:

The increase is sharpest among Black and Hispanic males, but it’s uniform across the board. Add this to the fact that the population of the United States has increased exponentially. Now it’s over 330 million. In 2000 it was less than 300 million: 291 million. In 1970 it was a mere 213 million. That’s only 64% of the current population

Historically, you had fewer people applying to college, out of fewer people altogether. In 1970 there were about 6.5 million students enrolled in college. Now it’s almost 20 million. If you applied to college in 1970, or even in 2000, you had a lot less competition. 

The advent of the digital age

There’s a difference, too, in how many colleges young people apply to. The writer of the Forbes article about getting into Stanford in 1971 elaborates on this. “Stanford wanted to know where else we would be applying – and it left us just 1½ lines to answer.” Of course, this was 1971: well before the rise of the personal computer. You couldn’t click “add row” on the form. Schools would have been dumbfounded if you’d been applying to more than one or two others.

And now? Our advice is that you should apply to 12-15 schools. No fewer than 10. Furthermore, we want you to separate these into “reach,” “target,” and “safety”. But this wide-net strategy certainly wasn’t always the case.

Enter the Common App

The truth was that applying to multiple colleges back then was a tedious process. There was no Common App. There was no shared application. You couldn’t just apply to ten schools by clicking ten boxes. There was no “Main Personal Statement.” Each essay would have to be individually handwritten or typed on a typewriter. 

Furthermore, before the age of computers, everything was done by mail and brochures. There was no junior year spring break where high school students would run around visiting campuses. Odds are that the first time you’d see your college’s campus in person is when you moved into the dormitories. (And back in the early days, a lot more students lived in dorms – which were seen as an important part of their education. In 2016 the percentage of students who live on campus is only 15.6.)

These days, both the university living experience and the university application experience have altered significantly. Now, most colleges use the Common App. It serves over 800 colleges, and of a survey taken by Pew Research, over 50% of the schools surveyed (729 out of 1364) use the Common App. What does this mean? It means that it’s easier for students to apply to a dozen or more different schools. Yes, each school charges a management fee to read and review your application, but many students applying to top schools also have means (families, scholarships, etc.) to cover this burden.

Whether it’s a direct result of the advent of shared applications, or merely a by-product that enables students to apply to a dozen schools, most Americans now apply to 8-12 colleges, as is our recommendation. However, we can’t deny that this would have been an absurdity in 1970… and there have been articles even from the last decade (pre-pandemic) that argue that modern U.S. high school students apply to way too many colleges.

The increase in applicants

Applications have exploded, right? The colleges can’t keep up. Take a look at this graph from Pew Research:

Bottom line: from 2002 to 2017, many schools (with admissions rates above 10% in 2017) have increased the number of students that they accept into a class. However, in schools that (in 2017) admitted fewer than 60% of their applicants, the number of applications that they receive has outstripped the growth in admissions. In short, in schools that in 2017 admitted fewer than 60% of students, the demand is outpacing supply.

But it’s most exaggerated in the Ivies

Let’s look back at that survey done by Pew Research. What the survey actually found isn’t exactly what you’d expect. The title of the article (written in April of 2019) is this: “A majority of U.S. colleges admit most students who apply.”

Yes, the elite schools have become incredibly hard to get into. Getting into Stanford isn’t a guarantee for anyone, even when you have a 4.0 unweighted GPA, a perfect SAT score, and you’ve built a self-driving limousine to carry you to class in the morning. But that’s why they’re “dream” schools. The majority of colleges (which are the ones you should apply to) actually still admit most of their applicants, and the number of admitted students across the country is vastly on the rise.

Is it harder to get into college today?

A 5% admit rate for Harvard. Less than that for Stanford. Of the schools you can name off the top of your head, many have become highly selective.

In 1971, when Stanford University’s admit rate was 31%, odds were that many students on the East Coast had never heard of it. There were probably very few (if any) applicants from outside the country. Now, Stanford is overwhelmed with applications… and, yes, it’s harder to get into. UCLA is harder to get into. UC Berkeley is harder to get into.

But is that universal? Hardly. The truth is that many schools still accept a large number of applicants. The truth is that, if you’re not applying only to Duke, Harvard, and Yale, you should have a decent shot at getting into college.

Yes, there are advantages to studying at top schools, and if a student’s dream school is one of the Ivies, for example, they should by all means pursue that challenge. However, there are disadvantages too, and not attending a top school is far from the end of the world for a student as well. Having a Harvard diploma isn’t a necessary ingredient for success – unless perhaps your dream job is to be a professor at Harvard. If you study engineering at a community college, and then transfer to San Jose State or Sonoma State and you finish, you’ll still end up with a B.S. in engineering. And after 2-3 years, what will matter more is your on-job experience. If you do exemplary work, you’ll be valued, promoted, and given positions at a managerial level.

What Can I Do to Plan Now?

But what can you do to prepare for (likely) the most competitive admissions process yet, regardless of when you’re graduating? Well first is to consider what you really want to do in college. It sounds simple, but why do you want to go to that elusive and tough-to-get-into university? Knowing that the school is prestigious is not enough; after all, you’ll need to be able to convince other admissions officers to vouch for you as when you’re applying for their schools. 

So our ILUMIN Education advice includes these three things:

1. Really understand what you would want to do, study, or experience in a college or university. 

2. Consider what experiences or communities you would want in a college or a university, related to or not related to academics.

3. Make sure that your choices are within your budget and plan to save early, if possible. 

The application process does feel like a complicated web of items for students and families to figure out, but the role of an educational consultant is helping students strategize and simplify what their next step is. We’re offering free consultations to help with that clarification, so feel free to reach out to ILUMIN if we can be of help.