In the year 2024, state colleges faced a significant challenge of handling a surge in the number of applicants. As a result, the acceptance rates for these colleges dropped, making it more competitive for prospective students to secure admission. This decline in acceptance rates highlights the need for state colleges to reassess their admission policies and procedures to ensure that they can accommodate the growing demand for higher education.

Rutgers has a relatively high acceptance rate, about 68% overall, but it is important to note it varies between schools and majors. Rutgers is well known for accepting more students from New Jersey since it is an in-state school. Due to the high acceptance rates, more and more people have applied to Rutgers and used it as a safety school.

“In [Rutgers’] admissions email, they said they had a 66% increase in applicants this year since they went on the Common app. Many people out of state are using it as a safety, but it is not even a safety for many at this point. If this keeps up, I don’t know if they could call themselves a state university,” said Gavin Beyers ‘24.

Gavin Beyers was accepted into Rutgers School of Arts and Sciences and SEBS but was waitlisted by the Engineering School. He had assumed it would be a safe school, mainly because he is a resident of New Jersey, but due to an extreme increase in the number of applicants, the acceptance rate has dropped by 3%. This affected many students like himself with relatively high GPAs, making it no longer a safe option for many students.

“Many students applied to the University of Colorado Boulder as a safety, but a large number were rejected or deferred, which came as a surprise due to it being a state school with a high acceptance rate,” said Anna Reilly ‘24.

The University of CU Boulder was expected to be an easy, safe state school due to its 80% acceptance rate; however, many people who applied were deferred, including Reilly. She turned to the social media app Threads where many others shared the same experience. The common issue is that many students apply to state schools like CU Boulder with the expectation of acceptance, but the number of applicants that apply are increasing exponentially. As a result, the schools can only accept a limited number of students.

In general, a common theme for many students is that in and out-of-state schools across the country have become more competitive, making it more difficult for above average, well-rounded students to gain admission.