Each year, seniors look towards the end of their time in high school feeling a range of emotions, both positive and negative. For those planning to attend a university, the highs of finishing college applications are soon followed by the lows of anxiety-ridden decision days. This roller coaster of admissions continues for months, for some all the way up until the summertime. 

For the graduating class of 2025, the largest the country has ever seen, the application process has been far from relaxed. According to Top Tier Admissions, the Common App, an online platform that allows students to apply to multiple schools with one base application, reported a 10% rise in the total volume of applications just this year. 

The New Trier Post High School Counseling Office explained that between 2014 and 2022, the Common App more than doubled its membership, and there are now more than 1,100 colleges and universities on the platform. Within that rise, the numbers of several subcategories of applicants have increased. 

Attending a university after high school has become an increasingly typical path over the years, and the Common App specifically highlighted a 19% increase in first-generation applicants this year, as well as a 13% rise in fee-waiver-eligible students. While submitting an application is free for some schools, others charge expensive fees, some over $100 for just one application. 

Statistics surrounding applicants’ geographic sectors were also impacted by the increase. Applications from the South and Southeast surged by 29%, led by Texas and West Virginia. Texas specifically has seen a significant increase in applications this year, going from 72,885 last year to over 90,562 between Aug. 1 and Dec. 1, 2024. 

According to the admissions team at the University of Texas at Austin, they are required by law to reserve at least 75% of undergrad admissions spots for Texas residents, making admission very difficult to achieve for out-of-state applicants. 

Due to their staggering increase in applications, UT Austin has also postponed the release of their early action application decisions this year, for the first time in the university’s history. On the official release date of Jan. 15, 95% of early applicants received a message in their portal saying that the decisions would not be released until Feb. 15. 

This has seemingly become a trend, with multiple schools this year pushing back decision releases, and taking more time than usual to assess applicants and compile information. According to Common App, over 904,860 students submitted over 4 million applications total via their site by Nov. 1. On average, 4.43 applications were submitted per student, also an increase from previous years, leading to over 9 million applications total from all the rounds of applications offered this year. 

With students applying to far more universities than in previous years, especially in the early rounds, more selective schools especially have become increasingly more likely to defer students. According to LinkedIn, schools want to protect their yield rate (the share of admitted students who ultimately attend) and manage the volume of applications, so they defer students to the regular round to ensure they don’t over-admit and have housing and resource issues. 

However, this also causes overall rejection rates to increase at the end of each admissions cycle, due to there being considerably more deferred applicants from the earlier rounds, than there are total spots available. Schools defer early applicants to get a better sense of numbers, but run out of spots at the end of the regular decision round.

“On the whole, for schools whose application volume increased substantially, they have no choice but to defer and deny more students than the previous years, as the demand is increasing for the same number of spots in the freshmen class,” the New Trier Post High School Counseling Office said in an interview. “At the same time, there are many amazing colleges whose application numbers stay the same or even go down, so those institutions are still able to readily admit students – and quickly!”

This is also the first generation experiencing the effects of the switch from mail-in to online university applications, which explains the increase of applications per student, as Common App makes the application process smoother and more organized, enabling students to apply to more schools with less repetition of forms. 

According to Cognia, a non-profit organization that accredits primary and secondary schools throughout the United States and internationally, the number of high school graduates is expected to peak at 3.9 million with the class of 2025. In the coming years, the U.S. should expect the number of annual high school graduates to decrease in each upcoming graduating class, with the class of 2037 expected to be about equal in number to the class of 2014 (3.5 million).

With the increased number of applications and decisions in tandem, especially deferrals, more students continue to submit additional information such as letters of continued interest, updated achievements and grades, and recommendation letters from teachers. As the competitiveness of applicants increases each year, the need for additional unique supplemental materials also increases.

“One trend our office would like to see increase is for more seniors to show gratitude towards the teacher(s) who wrote letter(s) of recommendation for their college applications,” the PHSC Office said. “Seniors: if you haven’t already, be sure to find a way to show your appreciation to your teachers: a thank you card, a well-crafted email, an update to them on some of the decisions you’ve received so far, etc. Keep them in the loop and top of mind!”