College Application Figures

College Application Figures August 3, 2013 A Fox Business article by Emily Driscoll entitled How To Make a College Application Stand Out discusses how students are applying to more colleges than ever before. College application figures on the rise. Shocker! Its not as though weve been writing about this topic for years or anything. Many folks wrongly assume that colleges are getting more and more selective but in fact, more students are just applying to more colleges. And colleges are encouraging even unqualified students to apply in the hopes of boosting their admission rates and thereby improving their US News World Report rankings. Students are applying to more colleges than ever before. This trend is nothing new (photo credit: Jawed Karim). Anyhow, the article in Fox Business states, The most recent data from the National Association for College Admission Counseling shows  that between 2010 and 2011, the percentage of students applying to at least three colleges rose to 79% from 77%, and the percentage of students applying to at least seven colleges rose to 29% from 25%. By comparison, only  67% of students applied to three or more colleges in 2000, while 12% applied to seven or more. Our students at Ivy Coach quite often only apply to one college. Thats right one. Its because many of our students apply Early Decision. We encourage our students to apply Early Decision or Early Action because students have better odds of getting into their dream college(s) if they apply through an Early policy. We dont envision the trend of applying to more and more colleges ending anytime soon. As more colleges have joined the Common Application, the trend has only gotten more severe. But well say it again because people just dont seem to get this just because more students apply to a college and their admission rate gets lower, that doesnt mean that school has become more difficult to gain admission to. Its simple math. The more students that apply, the lower the admission rate will invariably be. In other words, unqualified students applying to a college does not make that school more selective in spite of a dropping admission rate. Statistics can fool you in this way. Mark Twain would definitely back this up.