It Will Be Worse for the Class of 2025

For students recently admitted to the Class of 2024 at our nation’s elite universities, know that we feel for you. Like all the classes that came before you, your class should be filled with excitement about this coming fall, about the chance to begin your college experience. Yet instead you’re filled with uncertainty. Will college be online in the fall? How will I be able to make friends from my childhood bedroom? Am I being deprived of a real college education? We get it. As we said, we feel for you. We just don’t feel for you as much as we feel for applicants to the Class of 2025.

Applicants to the Class of 2024 Had It Relatively Easy

You see, students in the Class of 2024 applied during the year to apply to college. In a change of pace, applications were down at most elite universities this year to begin with — and then came the pandemic. Students who had no business getting off some elite college waitlists have already earned admission off several of these lists. And why? Because of (1) all the uncertainty surrounding the ability of international students to study abroad next year and (2) it’s anticipated that more American graduating high school seniors will choose to defer their admission and take a gap year. So while we feel for members of the Class of 2024, many of them also earned admission to schools they wouldn’t have earned admission to had they applied last year…or next year.

Applicants to the Class of 2025 Will Not Have It Easy

It’s why we reserve the bulk of our sympathy for members of the Class of 2025. While we hope these students won’t have to be grappling with the question of whether or not learning will be in-person or remote come this time next year, we anticipate there will be fewer slots for these students in the incoming class because members of the Class of 2024 who don’t matriculate this fall will matriculate next fall. But, hey, there is one glimmer of hope.

Class of 2025 Applicants Are Nervous

As Reilly Olinger reports for The Dartmouth in a piece entitled “As Class of ’25 considers colleges remotely, Dartmouth maintains testing requirement,” “According to [Dartmouth College Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid Lee] Coffin, many high school juniors are nervous that should many members of the Class of 2024 take gap years, the acceptance rate for the Class of 2025 will be lower. He said that while this is a possibility, it is also possible that fewer students will apply amid remote recruitment.” And Coffin might well be right. Without the ability of admissions offices to recruit students to apply in-person, our nation’s elite colleges may end up attracting fewer applicants which could offset the fewer seats available to Class of 2025 applicants. Just as virtual learning isn’t the same, neither are virtual tours.