“College decisions for class of 2023; issues and the competitive nature”

As college decisions are being released left and right, the class of 2023 seniors find themselves stuck in difficult positions. Students who applied early action or early decision have recently been notified if they were accepted into their top schools, but the news that they received was not entirely positive.

Applying to college used to be an exciting and pivotal moment in teenagers’ lives. Now, it has transformed into a frustrating and stress-inducing experience — especially for the class of 2023. Acceptance rates are incredibly low this year due to rising applicant numbers, and many colleges over admitted students over the last few years due to the pandemic.

Numerous colleges received astonishingly high numbers of early decision applications this year, such as Brown University, Notre Dame, and the University of Virginia. Brown received 6,770 early decision applications, which is said to be up 10 percent from previous years, according to the college’s website.

The high number of early decision and early action applications that were sent in this year caused acceptance rates to dwindle down as well. Duke University’s early acceptance rate from 2022 was 21.3%, whereas its early acceptance rate for 2023 is currently listed as 16%. Duke’s startling drop of 5.3% is not the only admission rate to have gone down significantly this year, as schools like the University of Virginia, Yale, Dartmouth, Johns Hopkins, and Notre Dame also saw similar decreases in early decision and early action admission rates.

Schools over admitting students over the past few years have negatively impacted the entire class of 2023, and caused admission rates to drop year after year. Additionally, students who deferred or took years off the last few years due to Covid-19 are also impacting current seniors’ chances of getting into college. The class of 2023 is still dealing with the after-effects of the pandemic, which is wrong and should not hurt students’ chances of getting into college today. This issue has also caused applying to college to be more stressful and less of a positive experience for many seniors.

Summer Schnabolk ‘23, expressed that it was “harder to get into college this year because kids from the past two years who either took gap years or deferred are also in the running. Now that a lot of schools are test-optional, it’s become more competitive because kids aren’t submitting SAT scores. In general, students are applying to more colleges. From the past couple years to now, more applications are being sent in everywhere, which means less people are able to get in.”

The decrease in admission rates and the high number of applications are just some of many obstacles seniors are facing this year. Numerous students at BHS applied to the same colleges, making it even more difficult to be admitted. While every student should be able to apply to whatever school they want to, those who apply to schools they do not actually want to attend are taking spots away from those who are counting on being accepted. This creates a competitive atmosphere among students and frustrates those who desperately need to get into certain colleges.

Taejin Beckerman ‘23, comments, “If you don’t want to go to the school in the first place, then you shouldn’t apply. It takes spots away from people who actually want to go there and it’s unfair.” Many students sympathize with this, as it is already difficult enough to get into college this year.

In the future, students should carefully consider the schools they choose to apply to. For other peers and classmates who truly want to attend certain colleges, it is not fair to apply to a school without actually wanting to go there.

Furthermore, schools should be more cautious about over admitting students, as this only creates a disadvantage for future seniors and it is entirely unfair to many of those who were deferred, rejected, or waitlisted this year.

If students were slightly more mindful of where they truly wanted to go to college and if colleges were more careful when admitting students, perhaps the college admissions process would be able to transform back into the exciting and pivotal moment it once was for teenagers.