The college admissions process can be a puzzle, especially to parents whose children aspire to attend a top-tier institution. In the past year, it became even more vexing due to the pandemic, which disrupted normal operations at all colleges. Notable results at top-tier colleges were a sharp increase in the volume of applications and an equally sharp decline in admission rates.

While forces of change have been building in college admissions for years, the 2020-21 cycle marked the beginning of a new era in college admissions. For better or worse, a sweeping transformation is underway, one with implications for prospective college applicants and their parents.

Private top-tier universities and liberal arts colleges saw a record-breaking 17% average increase in applications in 2020-21. Since the number of seats available to freshmen stayed the same or decreased, lower admission rates were inevitable.

Table A shows the number of applicants admitted in 2020-21, the admission rates for 2019-20, and the admission rates for 2020-21 for a sample of private top-tier institutions.

Admission to elite institutions is even tougher than it was before the pandemic. There’s concern that, with test-optional policies in place at most colleges, there’s one less objective measure that applicants can use to distinguish themselves from their peers.

In the past, a student who prepared diligently and earned an impressively high score had an advantage as an applicant. The opportunity to earn that advantage has been weakened by new test-optional policies.

GPA and strength of curriculum, imperfect tools for comparing applicants, remain the most important factors in selection, but they’re the only hard factors that carry weight. Common soft factors, such as interviews, essays, and recommendations, have more impact on selection than they did in the pre-pandemic era, but often even they are not enough to differentiate among candidates in this ultra-competitive era. So selection often comes down to the personal attributes of applicants — factors that show what contributions they’re capable of making to the student body and the school’s reputation.

If parents want to help their child develop an admissions strategy, we recommend that they assist in identifying those personal attributes most likely to boost admissions chances.  Assessing one’s own strengths, weaknesses, talents, skills, interests, and accomplishments enables a student to view themselves as admissions officers will see them. If the strategy is in place early in high school, teens will have time to enhance the attributes they plan to emphasize. They can then highlight them with confidence when applying to colleges.

Having a strong strategy is beneficial, if not essential, to a student who plans to apply to top-tier colleges. Best to brainstorm and build a strategy in the first semester of freshman year. A strategy that blends the creative ideas of all involved and focuses on personal attributes will help your child achieve their college goals.