Increased interest in the best colleges, while others struggle to find candidates

Prestigious universities like Cornell never have a hard time attracting students. But this year, the admissions office in Ithaca, NY, is handling 17,000 more applications than it has received before, driven mainly by the school’s decision not to require standardized test results during the coronavirus pandemic.

“We saw people who thought, ‘I would never go to Cornell’ thinking, ‘Oh, if they’re not looking at a test score, maybe I really have a chance,'” said Jonathan Burdick, Cornell’s vice president for enrollment.

But while selective universities like Cornell and his fellow Ivy League schools have seen unprecedented interest after dispensing with test scores, smaller, less recognizable schools are dealing with the opposite problem: empty mailboxes.

In early December, enrollment for Cal Poly Pomona, east of Los Angeles and part of the California State University system, fell 40 percent from the previous year for freshmen and 52 percent for transfer students, most of whom he started his higher education course in community colleges.

A drop in subscriptions does not always translate into fewer subscriptions. But at a time when many colleges and universities are under financial pressure from the pandemic and a loss of public funding, the prospect of getting fewer students – and missing out on essential tuition dollars – is dire in schools that have already cut programs and laid off staff.

To avoid this, the faculty and administrators of Cal Poly Pomona, who lost $ 20 million in state funding this fiscal year, spent December calling students who had started their applications but had not submitted them, or who had enrolled in the past and have not been accepted.

“It’s like Amazon,” said Luoluo Hong, who oversees admissions to Cal State, a network of largely transitional schools. “‘There is a purchase in your cart!’ And so we’re trying to move on and close the deal. “

The California state system extended the enrollment deadline for all of its schools by two weeks, and Cal Poly Pomona was able to fill the gap. But his Herculean effort, at a time when Ivy League schools needed to add an extra week just to consider the flow of applicants, further underscored the inequalities in higher education that were amplified by the pandemic.

“It’s impacting both students from an equity perspective,” said Jenny Rickard, the chief executive of Common Application, which is used by colleges across the country, “and also showing which colleges and universities are most privileged.”

The country’s most selective four-year institutions, both public and private, saw a record 17% increase in applications this year, according to the Common App. Small liberal arts schools have benefited, with applications for Haverford and Swarthmore increasing by 16% and 12%, respectively. The same happened with large state schools, such as the University of California, Los Angeles, where enrollment for freshmen increased by 28%.

Enrollments for Penn State’s primary campus, a Big Ten School, increased by 11%. Harvard had a whopping 42% increase, while Colgate University in upstate New York received 103% more enrollments.

But smaller or less recognizable institutions, public and private, have suffered steep declines.

Enrollments fell 14% at State University of New York, the largest public college system in the country. In the state of Portland, Oregon, enrollment for freshmen fell 12% and transfers, 28%. Loyola University Maryland, a private liberal arts school in Baltimore, saw a 12 percent drop in enrollment, even after extending its deadline by two weeks.

The declines occur at a time when colleges and universities have been financially harmed by the coronavirus, with estimated losses of more than $ 120 billion from declining enrollments and depleted revenue streams such as food services and sporting events.

Many institutions outside the tertiary level were struggling before the pandemic, and a smaller group of freshmen could mean more problems, including more short programs and teacher layoffs – making them, in a vicious circle, even less attractive to potential students. Some colleges closed permanently during the pandemic.

“Covid did not create this challenge, but it certainly exposes and exacerbates the risk that institutions face financially,” said Susan Campbell Baldridge, former dean of Middlebury College and co-author of “The College Stress Test”, a book that examines financial threats for some American colleges and universities.

Even before the pandemic, said Baldridge, “the rich were getting richer and the poor, increasingly challenged, in terms of institutions.” The pattern of applications during the pandemic is just “more evidence” of a long-term trend, she said.

Common App data does not include community colleges because it usually allows anyone to apply. But these schools, which often offer low-income students a first step towards higher education, have also suffered sharp declines. In the fall of 2020, freshman enrollments dropped by more than 20%.

“We saw the biggest drops by far among students from low-income high schools, high-minority high schools, urban high schools, which would normally have gone to community colleges this fall and just disappeared,” he said. Doug Shapiro, the vice president of research at the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, which publishes educational reports.

These students often need to work or have no online access, making enrollment more difficult, he said. “These are the students who will have the most difficulty getting back on track, even when the pandemic is over.”

About 3 percent less students who would be the first in their families to go to college submitted applications this year, according to data from the Common App, along with a 2 percent drop in students who qualified for school fees. dismissed admissions – an indicator of family income.

However, while fewer people from these groups have enrolled in general, some selective schools have seen large increases in students who are usually underrepresented in elite institutions. The University of California, Berkeley, received 38% more applications from black, Latino and Native American candidates than in 2019. New York University saw 22% more applications from black and Latino students.

There is little doubt about what is driving these gains: making standardized test results optional for candidates. Some 1,700 schools did not require a SAT or ACT score this year.

“When students are trying to assess their likelihood of being admitted, they usually look, well, ‘What are the test score averages?’ or ‘What is the average GPA?’ “Said Rickard, of the Common App. Without a test score, she said,” they may not be sure exactly where to aim, or they think this is an opportunity to try to enter a more selective institution.

While most schools that have waived standardized tests this year have done so temporarily, an increasing number are making it permanent because of concerns that tests are inherently biased. The University of California system, which serves nearly 300,000 students and includes some of the nation’s most desirable schools, decided last year to suspend consideration of SAT and ACT scores. System-wide applications have increased 16% this year, a record high.

“Removing this barrier has really driven the increase in enrollment,” said Emily D. Engelschall, who oversees admissions at the University of California, Riverside.

The experience of ignoring the test results could extend beyond the coronavirus crisis, some admission officials said. The University of Chicago had already declared itself an optional test in 2018. And several Ivy League schools, including Harvard, Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania, said they would not require test scores for next year’s candidates, most of whom are currently are in the third year of high school.

Cornell has made a significant effort in recent years to expand the diversity of his candidate pool, but Burdick, who oversees admissions, said that nothing has had as big an impact as waiving test scores. “We didn’t see an expansion of wealthy children saying, ‘Well, I’m going to run for Cornell.’ This was already happening, ”he said.

Burdick said his team developed a new way of reviewing applications – a “universal transcript review” – with a focus on the rigor of the high school classes that candidates took in high school and their performance in them.

“The essay, curriculum and letters are a little more important than they would be in a system where the test score simply remained there as a major object in the review process,” said Burdick.

While Cornell and his colleagues enjoy their reward, the state systems and the less selective private schools that educate most college students in the United States are bracing themselves for long-term distress if the drop in enrollment leads to a drop in enrollment. and reduction in monthly fee revenue.

Colleges generally admit students who they think will attend. But this year, as competition for them increases, admitted students can start playing on the field or get stuck in the limbo of the waiting list in more selective schools as a busy year runs out.

“For us,” said Dr. Hong of Cal State, “what will really matter is: you are admitted to college. But you go? “