April 2024

If you look at the news around this year’s admission season, you’ll notice a clear and consistent tone. Confusion, chaos, fiasco, blunder, nightmare, crazy…. It’s been exhausting. And for many seniors and college admission offices, it continues to be exhausting. FAFSA delays and mistakes have many schools pushing back deadlines and most families waiting longer than ever to find out what college is actually going to cost. My guess is that many colleges will have a lot of waitlist action this summer as they continue to build a class.

If you’re a senior who has chosen a school already, congratulations! I know first-hand that UT Austin, Texas A&M, UNC Chapel Hill, the University of Kansas, the University of Oklahoma, Middlebury College, Texas State University, the University of Indiana, and the University of Miami are getting some great students this year. I’ll have more news after May 1.

If you’re still in high school and looking ahead, stay calm! I don’t want to jinx anything, but it’s unlikely the FAFSA issues will get worse with time. Colleges who are making any big changes to their admission process—like testing requirements—will likely announce them in June. You’ve got lots of time to have a great application season.

—Benjamin

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Here's what I covered on the website in March:

New recommendations for standardized tests. When most colleges went test-optional a few years ago, I was done with “testing strategy.” But now UT is requiring tests again, and I feel a little like Michael Corleone: “just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!”

Three Quick Questions:

The full Three Quick Questions archive. Whether or not you’re going to work with a consultant for college admission (you probably don’t need to), how would you answer these questions? How would you explain yourself to another person? What questions do you think I should ask that I don’t?

Here are some blog posts from the archive that seem good for this April:

Five considerations before making a last-minute decision

Finding the right college can be a lot like finding the right bottle of wine

Trying to get more financial aid

The secret to success? Here are two of them!

Should you apply to all the Ivy League schools?

What’s the right number of colleges to apply to?

What to do when you get waitlisted

Here's more great admission news from around the internet:

*Some articles may be behind a paywall.

The politics of college choice (Inside Higher Ed)

Who uses legacy admissions? (Brookings)

Study shoes college enrollment falling with perceptions if its value (Forbes)

When a college says no (Counseling Corner)

Most students prefer colleges that restrict guns on campus (Gallup)

The SAT is coming back at some colleges. It’s stressing everybody out (Washington Post)

Transfer students see low acceptance rates at America’s top colleges (Forbes)

Student aid forms start trickling in (Inside Higher Ed)

Untangling the bungled FAFSA launch (Inside Higher Ed)

In a first, U.S. students will take the SAT entirely online (no pencils required) (NPR)

Eight types of campus college visits (US News)

The worst way to do college admissions (The Atlantic)

Brown reinstates standardized testing requirement (Inside Higher Ed)

Five ways parents can boost their teen’s college readiness (College Matchpoint)

UT-Austin reverts to required standardized test scores for admissions (Texas Tribune)

Virginia has banned legacy admissions at its public colleges (NPR)

The most confusing, chaotic college admissions season in years (Wall Street Journal)

Inside the blunders that plunged the college admission season into disarray (New York Times)

Inside the craziest college-admissions season ever (New York Magazine)

The debate over test-optional policies at elite colleges continues (Insight into Diversity)

After Texas’s DEI ban, students are reconsidering state schools (The Nation)

Hundreds of thousands of financial aid applications need to be fixed after latest error (Associated Press)

It’s not you, it’s them (Admissions Village)

Students are still waiting for aid offers from colleges after a delayed FAFSA rollout (NPR)

Elite colleges have turned students into brands (New York Times)

Colleges are facing an enrollment nightmare (The Atlantic)

4 college admissions trends shaping top schools’ decisions in 2024 (Forbes)

Apply with Sanity, LLC is a project of Benjamin Holloway. Benjamin has a certificate in College Access Counseling and is an Associate Member of the Independent Educational Consultants Association. Apply with Sanity is a registered trademark of Apply with Sanity, LLC.