The surprise I felt when the University of Georgia announced its 27% increase in early action application numbers this November was minimal. I chocked it up to their accepting the Common Application for the first time as well as their continued growth in popularity as a Sun Belt state flagship institution.
However, with the announcement by colleges across the country of huge increases in ED and EA applications, it’s clear that something more is at play.
Judi Robinovitz, a certified educational planner based in Florida, has aggregated application increases from over twenty institutions with input from fellow independent educational consultants:
The “why” (really, “whys”) behind these increases are numerous. Josh Stephens, an independent educational consultant based in Los Angeles, published a terrific piece on Medium yesterday – well worth the read!
While he covers the likely impacts of these increases for current college applicants, what might this mean for current juniors, sophomores, and beyond? Since test-optional policies may be the primary factor behind these increases, will colleges be even less likely to return to requiring tests once the pandemic is behind us for fear of losing applications? We will be following requirement announcements closely in the coming months.