Among all the sad stories of applicants who just couldn’t make the cut into a deemed university of their liking, there is a little fact that actually paints a much brighter picture. Getting an admission into a college is much easier than students had ever thought of. Applicants can now get more financial aid from colleges who are secretly struggling to fill their seats.
It is a false notion among many of the aspiring students that getting into a college is tough and hence many of them don’t even bother to apply for higher education, let alone pursue a college degree. The scenario gets worse when some deserving students are driven towards lower quality institutions with poor graduation rates.
As per a recent study, only 5 percent of students go to colleges and universities that are considered competitive and 9 percent go to the most competitive ones. Out of the many colleges, there are around 200 of them that are tough to get access into, but there are 1,800 schools that are easily accessible. If Stanford University admits fewer than 5 percent of applicants and Harvard University, a little more than 5 percent, then there are four out of five private, nonprofit colleges and nearly nine out of 10 public ones who are accepting at least 50 percent of the applicants. Based on the SAT or ACT scores of admitted applicants, it is seen that most private, nonprofit colleges are not much harder to get into than state universities.
According to the UCLA survey, nearly 29 percent of them applied to eight or more colleges in 2015. It is astonishing to know that even with a smaller pool of competitors, students are not taking much chances. Students should take more benefit of the Common Application or Common App that lets students fill out a single online form that’s accepted by more than 620 schools worldwide. It is also interesting to see that Ivy League students are asking their schools to automatically waive the application fee for applicants who are low-income or the first in their family to attend college.
The first and foremost step that education authorities should undertake is to alleviate the fear and worry so that talented candidates are applying to more colleges. On the other hand, the numbers of enrollments are gradually declining. So even if the colleges are bragging about the record number of enrollments, there are comparatively lesser number of applicants. This is a serious alarm bell for the colleges. Although colleges are not entirely to be blamed, many smaller colleges have been forced to cut prices to seal the deal with students and their cost-conscious parents. About half of the small and moderate-sized private colleges and universities are projecting at least half of their potential tuition revenue in the form of financial aid.
The baseline truth is that colleges are actually more desperate than students to get them enrolled in their colleges.
