In the college admissions world there are normally a couple notable changes/updates that take place in the course of a year that are important to understand and be aware of. This past year (2016) was an unusual year as there were more “major” changes in the college admissions world in one year in any other year of my career. These major changes were Prior-Prior Year when it comes to to submitting the FAFSA, the Redesigned SAT that was first administered last March and the Coalition for Access and Affordability launching it’s application.
Each of these changes are still going to be big factors in the world of colleges admissions in 2017. Students and college admission offices will continue to get adjusted to the redesigned SAT. Students will need to take advantage of the new test prep material (specifically online at collegeboard.org and Khan Academy) and college admissions offices will need to collect more data and develop norms this year because they will be reporting scores from the redesigned SAT on their school profiles for the first time this year.
The effects of Prior-Prior Year as far as submitting the FAFSA will continue to be seen throughout 2017. Because parents can now submit the FAFSA beginning October 1st using their previous year’s taxes, it has placed pressure on the colleges to provide financial aid and scholarship information to accepted seniors a lot earlier than they normally did. Colleges who rely on the FAFSA information they receive from families to provide need based financial aid always send out their financial aid award letters in March. Now colleges will be competing to get this financial aid award out as soon as December with some school waiting to see how this year goes and other colleges respond before moving up the time they release financial aid award letters. It really effects when colleges need to put their budget’s together for the next year. So stay tuned for adjusting and changes by colleges regarding Prior-Prior Year in 2017.
The Coalition for Access and Affordability college application is still a question mark in the world of college admissions. It was said that the application would launch in April 2016 and then nobody heard anything. Then at the beginning of the summer I was made aware that the application is available to be completed for member schools. Then at the end of the summer we were told that only half of the member colleges were accepting it for this academic year. My recommendation is that if a college accepts the Common Application, just complete this application and don’t worry about the Coalition application. Those of us in the college counseling world still do not understand the purpose for this Coalition for Access and Affordability application. We will hear more about this in 2017 but don’t hold your breath on when any new information is released.
So what is going to happen in the world of college admissions in 2017?
- New SAT Test Date in August– The first SAT test date of the school year has always been the first Saturday in October. For the first time this year, College Board will now have a test administration in August. The exact Saturday in August hasn’t been released yet. This will change the testing time table for a lot of seniors but it may also allow the colleges to change their early decision (ED) and early action (EA) policies as far as what testing they will accept for these early deadlines. Since October was the first test in the past, they let students take the October test and even the November test and as long as those students sent the scores directly to them, they allowed these scores to be submitted and reviewed for early admission deadlines. Now, you may see them not accept the November exam anymore since seniors now have two opportunities in August and October to take the test and the ACT already has tests offered in September and October.
- Admission Numbers (at Most Competitive Admission Colleges) Continue to Drop– The “train” that started 15-20 years ago by US News and World Report when it comes to their college rankings keeps getting faster. You would think at some point UPENN, Harvard and Yale for example, would sit back and say, “wow, our applications keep going up every year (which they intentionally try to do through their marketing and advertising strategies), now that we have gone over say 30,000 applications and we only accept 5-10 % of these applicants, let’s not try and get any more applicants so that we can deny more students.”. Nope, instead they say,”let’s continue to try and get more applications so we can deny more students and stay at the top of the US News and World Report rankings. We can hire more admission counselors to “read” applications”. Obviously, this is my interpretation of what they are saying but it’s the only way I can imagine them thinking because they could do a couple things right away that would reduce or at least level off the amount of applications they get. First, adding another required essay will reduce the number of applications (just ask Boston College) and second, they can tell students that if you are not in the top 10% (even just say 25%), your chances of getting in to our school is less than 5%. In the end, it continues get more difficult to be accepted to the most competitive admission colleges.
- You will see more colleges implementing EA or ED deadlines– I think you will see more colleges, who haven’t had an early action deadline in the past, implement an EA deadline or a college who had been EA only implement an early decision (ED) deadline. Why? Because of Prior-Prior Year and colleges now being able to get Financial Aid Award letters out earlier. They can now market to their accepted students earlier and do their best to encourage them to attend their school either by creative marketing or by offering more merit-based aid to those accepted students who are in the top 20-25% of students applying to their school. Colleges will want students to commit to come to their school earlier since they are going to have to provide financial aid and scholarship information earlier.
