THIS is Why Your College Application Might be Denied

Colleges are selective, and that fact may well be keeping you and your parents up at night. There's the struggle of completing applications, hitting send, and then the wait for a response. An increasing number of students are not selected, particularly for elite schools. Why is the number going up?

It's an Issue of Supply & Demand
For 10 of the past 15 years, more than 70 percent of colleges reported year-to-year application increases. More people are graduating high school and going on to college - it's a wonderful thing. But it has created an unusual challenge in the world of admissions. While this growth has surfaced among students, most of the elite schools have not increased their enrollment at the same pace. As you can imagine, this creates a bottleneck, making admissions much harder than they were for the older adults in our lives.

Another Contributor: Ease of Application
In 1975, universities started using the Common Application. This application could be used multiple times without change, and as the years have gone on, more and more colleges accept this exact form, making it easier to apply to many colleges at once. That fact combined with the move from paper applications to an almost exclusive online application process, colleges are receiving more student information than ever before.
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I think we can all agree that this situation brings a level of insanity to the world of admissions. In my book, I delve deeper into the reasons behind this insanity and the "whys" behind colleges selectiveness. Read more in ADMISSIONS BY DESIGN.