Paraphrasing the summary from our college counselor for this year and what to expect next year:
Early Action applications continued to increase. Lots and lots of deferrals to Regular Decision. Push to get deferred EA applicants to commit to ED II at some schools.
Early Decision yielded good results as long as the choice was realistic.
Demonstrated Interest was very important (i.e., visit in person or virtually; open emails and portals; interview).
STEM, computer science, health, and business programs, larger schools and urban schools, the University of California system, and public flagship universities were all harder than ever.
Increased value on extracurricular involvement, especially activities that demonstrate initiative, involvement, impact, and influence.
More schools are using Committee Based Evaluation, and the essay is being given even more weight.
Recap of last year's numbers (so far):
Here are the Class of 2026 overall admission rates for several schools including, Amherst College, Boston College, BC, Bucknell, Case Western, CWRU, Colby, Colorado College, Florida State, Fordham, Franklin & Marshall, Johns Hopkins, MIT, Macalester, Northeastern, Notre Dame, Swarthmore...
www.collegekickstart.com
The best guess for high school class of 2023 is that colleges and universities will try to secure more of their class through Early Decision.
Colleges will be more need-aware than ever before.
Large increases in GPA for many students because of changes in school grading policies during COVID, making colleges likely continue to place more emphasis on junior year and first quarter or mid-mester grades from the senior year.
Highly selective institutions will continue to be as selective as ever, if not more so as their applications skyrocket.
Standardized testing will continue to be in flux, with many institutions (particularly large publics) returning to requiring testing.
