Long Island, long a hotspot for applicants to elite universities because it boasts so many fantastic public high schools, was home to quite a bit of frustration a few years ago as high school seniors navigated the highly selective college admissions process. For those of our readers lucky enough not to be from Long Island, to paint a picture of the importance of acceptances to elite universities not only to students and their parents but to community residents since they directly impact property values, look no further than HBO’s Bad Education starring Hugh Jackman and Allison Janney. While the film focused on a salacious scandal within the Roslyn School District, it also highlighted just how important the annual Ivy League acceptances were to school administrators and the greater Roslyn community.

2021 Was A Tough Year to Earn Admission to the Ivies from Long Island

As Carol Polsky reports for Newsday in a 2021 piece entitled “LI seniors frustrated about not being admitted to their first-choice schools,” “Long Island’s colleges and universities — like schools across the country — say their freshmen classes this fall will be more diverse, with more students who are first in their families to attend college. The picture is more strained for high school seniors frustrated by denials or wait-lists at highly selective schools across the nation, where in past years they might have expected acceptances, guidance counselors said. Applications to those schools surged after SATs were made optional during the coronavirus pandemic. ‘We saw a huge trend in students being wait-listed at schools where according to our data from the last three to five years, they would have gotten in,’ said Linda Bergson, chair of the Ward Melville High School guidance department in the Three Village Central School District in East Setauket. ‘They were frustrated, upset and disappointed.’… ‘This year was definitely the most competitive year for college admissions, I’d have to say,’ Lynbrook High School guidance counselor Jonathan Spector said. ‘We’re all still frustrated. It was a tough year.’”

The Class of 2025 Really Was the Most Competitive Year Ever

There was indeed something to Ms. Polsky’s argument that the 2020-2021 admission cycle was the most competitive year in the history of elite college admissions. As our readers know all too well, elite colleges love to brag whenever their admission rates drop in a given year that it was the most competitive year ever. But we correct them. After all, just because a school’s admission rate drops doesn’t mean the school was any harder to get into this year than last year. More C students applying to Dartmouth doesn’t make Dartmouth more competitive. But, that year, because so many seats at our nation’s highly selective universities were already earmarked for students who were admitted to the Class of 2024 and opted to take gap years, a statistic that topped 20% at some universities, it really was the most competitive year in the history of elite college admissions. It’s no hyperbole.

The Future of Elite College Admission at Long Island High Schools 

But now that the the 2025-2026 admission cycle is well underway, and some schools have continued to report record-setting acceptance rates just as others (namely certain Ivy League schools embattled by several years of horrible PR) experience lackluster performances or worse, decline to report such figures for fear of heightened scrutiny and downward swings in reputation. 

Taken as a whole, we at Ivy Coach do not predict many schools will be able to best the record-lows they recorded for the Class of 2025 cycle, especially given the demographic shifts set to take higher education by storm (A.K.A. the well-informed prediction that with the pre-2008 baby boom coming to an end and the US population shifting southward and westward, many elite Northeastern institutions will struggle to draw the sizable applicant pools). 

What Long Island Families Must Accept About Elite Admissions

And for Long Island in particular? Well, no one school or community is entitled to elite college admission. Instead, it’s incumbent upon individual families to navigate the churning waters of the admissions process and put their best foot forward without relying on their school’s reputation or past admissions history to get them by. We promise, your property values will be fine as long as you mow that lawn and pay your taxes.

Unsure where to begin? Might we suggest scheduling a complimentary consultation with Ivy Coach?