BIGGEST COLLEGE-RELATED NEWS OF THE WEEK

COMMON APPLICATION® RELEASE

The 2023-2024 Common Application® will be released tomorrow, after a several-day shutdown period.  We’re excited! We will be hard at work updating all of our application guides and sending them out to our clients soon. 

VIRGINIA TECH GETS RID OF ED APPLICATION PLAN

Virginia Tech announced late on Friday that they will be doing away with their ED application plan this cycle. Students applying to VT will now have two options: Early Action or Regular Decision. As part of the change, the Early Action deadline will be moved forward, so students will need to apply by November 15 rather than VT’s previous December 1 EA deadline. In addition to complying with the Supreme Court decision to eliminate race and ethnicity as a consideration in the admissions process, VT has also made the decision to eliminate legacy preference as well.

UNC PROHIBITS SEX DISCRIMINATION IN ADMISSIONS AND HIRING DECISIONS

Anybody remember this article? It caused such a stir at the time, I don’t think I’ll ever forget it - and I would say at least 2-3 parents per year mention it, 13 years later. And now the girls trying to find boyfriends are not going to see their situation improve anytime soon! UNC’s board has announced that they will not consider “race, sex, color or ethnicity” in admissions or hiring decisions. This resolution, which at least one board member noted “goes well beyond the Supreme Court ruling,” also explicitly prohibits using admissions essays as a proxy for race. 

BIG CHANGES AT NEW COLLEGE

When Florida governor Ron DeSantis replaced many of the leaders at Florida’s New College, we knew that there would be changes to the small and previously liberal campus. Under new leadership, the school will have a record number of incoming students this fall, with much of the growth coming from recruited athletes. In March, the college announced the creation of a new athletic department, driving recruitment. While the number of incoming students is higher, metrics like average SAT, ACT, and GPA have gone down. This larger class will come in as the school works to fill 36 vacant faculty positions, about a third of the college’s full-time faculty members. 

The board also eliminated the college’s diversity office, a move that one trustee discusses in this opinion piece about DEI programs. The public institution has also requested $2 million in funding to create a center that will oppose cancel culture on college campuses. 

CU BUFFS MOVE TO BIG 12

CU Boulder’s Buffaloes will go back to the Big 12 conference after the coming season. The university left the Big 12 in 2011 for the Pac-12, a conference which lost its two powerhouses when UCLA and USC announced their move to the Big Ten. This is part of a larger realignment within college athletic conferences - as CU Boulder joins the Big 12, Oklahoma and Texas will likely leave; both are in the process of moving to the SEC.

BEST ARTICLES OF THE WEEK

There has been a lot in the news recently about legacy admissions (see the VT news above!), and it can be difficult to keep up with the changes and the reasoning behind them. If you’re looking for a refresher, this article covers what legacy admissions is, why it is relevant now, and what the impact might be of the current legacy admission investigation at Harvard. Plus, it contains a list of all the schools that currently consider legacy as part of the admissions process.

On Thursday, a House subcommittee held a hearing about the cost of higher education and its value for families. Democrats focused the hearing on for-profit colleges, while Republicans expressed concern about the transparency of colleges and universities when it comes to their value proposition. One solution they raised is a risk-sharing approach, where colleges and universities will become responsible for student loans that alumni are unable to pay. The committee explored other aspects of the process as well, including the Biden administration’s proposed regulations defining what it means for an institution to prepare its students for “gainful employment,” as well as increased accountability for schools. 

This opinion piece from the National Review argues that accreditation, which previously served as a measure of accountability and value, is no longer an accurate way to represent the quality of education from a particular institution. The argument is that required programs, like DEI programs, are not improving educational quality but are still relevant to accreditation.

OFFICE HAPPENINGS

It is hard to believe this is already our final weekly update of July! The Common App® is rolling out in less than eight hours (!), and we will hit the ground running tomorrow with our Class of 2024 students. August is our busiest month of the year, but we love seeing our students’ hard work all come together!

Have a great week!