With students scarce, college admissions offices get friendlier, less intimidating

Prospective students and their families participate in a campus tour at Skidmore College in New York. Oliver Parini/The Hechinger Report hide caption

Oliver Parini/The Hechinger Report

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SARATOGA SPRINGS, N.Y. — Overwhelming.

That's how 17-year-old high school senior Alex Zaret described the college admissions process, during a tour of the Skidmore College campus — the fourth school Zaret had visited, with another half-dozen to go.

"It is kind of a full-time job," Zaret's father, Owen, said.

He wasn't joking. With research to do, visits to make and applications and financial forms to fill out, "it's a lot, and it's a lot on top of two full-time-employed parents and a very engaged high school student," Owen Zaret said.

But even in the year or so that the family has been doing this, the Zarets have detected a subtle shift.

At first, the process seemed to be what Owen Zaret called an ivory tower approach. It signaled: "'You're lucky if you come here.' And now, I think, for a variety of reasons, that's changed. It's more like, 'We want you to be here.'"

Alex Zaret (right, in yellow) and parents listen to tour guides Lily Boardman and Fiona Salas on a campus tour. Oliver Parini/The Hechinger Report hide caption

Oliver Parini/The Hechinger Report

Hurting for students, colleges are striving to transform an admissions process that has often been intimidating, secretive and stressful into an experience that's open, easier and downright friendly.

"It's one of those things that's in everybody's interest," said Marc Conner, president of Skidmore, which has been making a particular push to do this. Even though application and enrollment data show his college is not among the many others having trouble filling seats, he said, "We depend on students coming to our campuses and, when they do come, getting them to enroll."

Some universities and colleges are waiving application fees and promising additional financial aid for students who show up for campus tours. Public universities in 17 states now admit high school students who haven't even applied, according to the Education Commission of the States; more than 150 private colleges also make direct admissions offers to students who fill out the Common App, a standardized online application used by about 1,200 institutions. And the overall odds of getting accepted to college are going up.

Now Skidmore and a small number of other institutions have taken a surprising next step: enlisting faculty to help recruit new students — a role they previously left entirely to the admissions office — by meeting with and opening their labs and classrooms to prospective and admitted applicants.

"It creates a feeling of what it would be like to be seen, valued and to find a place of belonging on a campus," said Jess Ricker, the college's vice president for enrollment. And that, Ricker said, can help distinguish Skidmore from the other schools on students' lists.

Admissions leaders are looking for any advantage. Two-thirds of them had trouble meeting their enrollment targets in at least one of the last two years, according to a survey by the ratings platform Niche. Ninety-seven percent expect the competition to increase.

The reality they face: The supply of traditional-age freshmen nationwide is projected to decline by 13 percent over the next 15 years, according to the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education. The proportion of high school graduates choosing to go on to college is also down, from 70% in 2016 to 63% in 2024, the most recent year for which the figure is available, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports.

Good news for students, not colleges

One little-noticed result: Being accepted to college is generally easier than it has been in the past and than Americans seem to think it is.

"The majority of institutions in the United States actually accept the majority of students who apply," says Angel Pérez, CEO of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. Oliver Parini/The Hechinger Report hide caption

Oliver Parini/The Hechinger Report

Nearly 8 in 10 first-year applicants for undergraduate admission to public and 7 in 10 to private colleges and universities get in, the National Association for College Admission Counseling, or NACAC, reports. That's up from 68% and 65%, respectively, about 10 years ago. Nearly 9 in 10 private, nonprofit four-year universities and colleges admit half or more of applicants, according to separate research by the conservative think tank the American Enterprise Institute.

This news has been slow to trickle down to students. More than 40% of 18- to 29-year-olds wrongly think it's harder to get into college than it was for people in their parents' generation, a Pew Research Center survey found.

"Most of the public actually doesn't understand that the majority of institutions in the United States actually accept the majority of students who apply," said Angel Pérez, NACAC's CEO.

He blamed an obsession with acceptance rates at institutions such as CalTech, Harvard, Princeton and Stanford, which each take about 1 applicant in 25.

In fact, only 33 colleges and universities in the country admit 10% or fewer of their undergraduate applicants, NACAC figures show.

The intensifying competition for them might be good for students, but it's bad for many colleges. At some, offices of admission are struggling to shake what Ricker joked is their historic reputation as "offices of rejection."

A few, including Skidmore, are appealing to the faculty for help. At Ohio Northern University, at least one member of the faculty now meets with every visiting applicant. Faculty at Washington College in Maryland sit down with visiting applicants on designated Fridays during the admissions season and at open houses.

"Presidents and vice presidents of enrollment are telling people that every interaction counts." said Rob Springall, a consultant at the executive search firm WittKieffer and former executive director of undergraduate admissions at Pennsylvania State University.

There's another reason for this that's less widely understood among consumers. As students hedge their bets by applying to more colleges than their historical counterparts — Common App users now apply to an average of more than seven schools apiece, a number that's been steadily increasing — it's getting harder for enrollment managers to predict how many they admit will actually enroll. In admissions lingo, this is called the yield.

Yield has declined from 32% in 2014 to 22% in 2024 at public and from 24% in 2014 to 18% in 2024 at private, nonprofit colleges and universities, on average, federal data shows. That's the last period for which the figures are available.

This means colleges have to admit around five times as many students as they need — and that admitted applicants need to be persuaded to follow through and put down their deposits, including the many of them who come back to take another look around.

Reluctant faculty get in on the recruiting

Colleges "are realizing that everyone has to help with the recruiting process," said Leah Beth Hubbard, assistant vice president of enrollment strategies at the enrollment consulting firm The Parish Group. She advises clients to "teach everyone to smile. Teach everyone to introduce themselves and say what they do at the institution."

Coaxing faculty to do this, on top of their existing obligations, isn't always easy, campus leaders said — at least, at first.

"Some faculty didn't want to be part of it," said Johnnie Johnson, Washington College's vice president for enrollment management. "They'd say, 'You go recruit and I'll teach.'"

Like other university and college administrators, Johnson said he countered with a frank assessment of enrollment trends.

"When you put a financial figure on every student who comes in, that equates to programmatic funding. That equates to raises," he said. And faculty are seeing what happens when those numbers fall. "They have colleagues who have been at colleges that closed" or whose programs have been cut, said Johnson. "They don't want to be next."

Becca Johnson, who goes by Dr. J, is a professor and chair of psychology at Skidmore College who often meets with prospective students. "I think more information is better than less," Johnson says. Oliver Parini/The Hechinger Report hide caption

Oliver Parini/The Hechinger Report

Skidmore, which has 2,719 students, hasn't experienced the problems many other small private, nonprofit colleges are confronting. It's seen its number of applications rise, not fall; unlike colleges in general, its acceptance rate is down, from 37% 10 years ago to 24% today. Yield is an above-average 24%.

Still, said Conner, the president: "Even if the school is doing all right during these times, we're still facing the same headwinds as everybody else."

Everyone from dining hall workers to groundskeepers are encouraged to be welcoming, he said.

"It helps that we're in a tough time in higher ed and they see what's happening at other schools," said Conner. "And they know a school is going to rise or fall depending on how much the community joins together."

More than three-quarters of admitted students who came to the campus last year other than for a weekend open house requested to sit in on a class or meet with a faculty member, the college says. That added up to 300 personal visits.

There's not yet data about whether those young visitors apply or enroll. But Psychology Department Chair Becca Johnson, who often meets with applicants, said she hears feedback that it makes a difference.

One mother told her, " 'You know, my student has applied to so many schools, been accepted, had a number of wonderful possible possibilities,' " Johnson recounted. " 'And you're the first person from outside of an admissions office to contact us. And that was so meaningful for them in their decision."

This story was produced by The Hechinger Report, a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education.

Edited by Nirvi Shah
Audio story edited by Elissa Nadworny
Audio story produced by Lauren Migaki