Accepted without Applying: The Growth of Direct Admissions

Chapters

0:00 Intro
02:26 - The Backstory on Direct Admissions
06:35 - How Niche Direct Admissions Works
09:09 - The Benefit to Students and Institutions
11:29 - Another Application Count Booster?
14:25 - Obstacle or Litmus Test?
15:56 - Changing Dynamics
19:40 - The Competitive Landscape
20:41 - What’s Next?
25:38 - The Three Parts of Admissions
30:23 - Weighing the Pros and Cons of Direct Admissions
36:26 - Reimagining the College Admissions Process

Transcript

Jeff Selingo

So every decade or two a new so called innovation comes along in college admissions it seems, Michael. There was the Common App in the 1970s, the FAFSA in the early 1990s that replaced the common financial aid form. There was so called Fast App, and test optional in the 2000s. I think you get the idea. Right?

Michael Horn

Yeah. And now it seems the wheels keep on turning, if you will. The newest innovation, if you will, seeking to remake the college application landscape is direct admissions. We explore that trend ahead on today's episode of Future U.

Sponsors

This episode of Future U is sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, working to eliminate race, ethnicity, and income as predictors of student educational success. 

This episode of Future U is sponsored by Accendium Education Group, a nonprofit organization committed to helping learners from low income backgrounds reach their education and career goals. For more information, visit ascendiumphilanthropy.org. 

For affordable degrees in education, health care, nursing, business, or leadership, Choose American College of Education. ACE hasn't raised tuition since 2016, and eighty six percent of students graduate debt free. For programs designed for today's working professionals, visit ace.edu. 

Subscribe to Future U wherever you get your podcasts. And if you enjoy the show, send it along to a friend so others can discover the conversations we're having about higher education.

Michael Horn

I'm Michael Horn

Jeff Selingo

And I'm Jeff Selingo.

Michael Horn

Jeff, direct admissions is something that I first became aware of a few years back when frankly got pitched, by a company that was starting to pioneer it, and they wanted me to interview them on the podcast. And and then it started to get a lot of ink in the trade press around higher ed. But admissions is your bailiwick as as people listening to this podcast know. So before we get too far into this episode, lay out the landscape for us. What is direct admissions?

The Backstory on Direct Admissions

Jeff Selingo

Yeah. So direct admissions essentially flips the traditional script of applying to college. Right? So instead of requiring students to submit an application and wait for a response, colleges proactively admit students that, based on existing data such as academic records or test scores or GPA, anything that they have on students. So in essence, you know, high schools or school districts or application platforms, for example, like the Common App, they opt into sharing the students' profiles with colleges that have also adopted direct admissions. Right? So they're kind of the middle people between those two things. The college will then review the information and make proactive offers to students that meet their criteria. Right? So they'll send them a note saying, hey. You're accepted. And the student thinks, well, I didn't even apply there and I got accepted. Right? The theory behind this is that it really reduces, really eliminates the friction of applying to college. And that's really the general idea of this, right, of trying to eliminate the barrier of the application itself. And it is this idea has been really tried in various ways, over the years, Michael. You know, I mentioned up top the the Fast app, and that was an app that colleges would send to students or to would-be students, and the basic information was already filled out for them. So all they had to do was kind of complete the application. There was and there still is these visit days where you could go tour college, and by the end of your visit, you will know if you're accepted or not. So you could kind of apply on the spot and know if you're accepted within an hour of of visiting the college. I think the difference here with this movement of direct admissions is is really one of scale. You know, I first wrote about this for The Atlantic in 2022. And in my reporting, I interviewed, Jennifer Delaney, who's a professor at the University of Illinois, who has really studied this concept and its impact. And as she told me, you know, we're asking students to fill out a form for every school they wanna go to, and they have to know how to initiate that. And now some students are really good at that, and some families are great at that, and some counselors have the time to show you how to do that, but that's not true for most students. You know, the idea of direct admissions really takes a page from automatic enrollment and retirement plans or those preapproved credit card offers that you get in the mail. The process was, pioneered in The States at first, both Idaho and and South Dakota. In Idaho, for example, K through 12 education and higher ed are both overseen by the same state board of education, so it makes it much easier to transfer student data, for example, between the two. Michael, I think there's a theme here. Right? Like, so many other things we talk about on this podcast. In higher ed, it really starts with that student data record between k through 12 and in higher ed. And when you're able to share that, much easier to send that off, to people. Anyway, Idaho's direct admissions program, they use students' GPAs. They use high school course credits, ACT or SAT scores to admit them to state institutions. Students are notified by a letter, and then they could claim their seat at a particular campus by completing a a short form. And when Idaho put direct admissions into place for its eight public colleges and universities back in 2015. So ten years ago, they saw a 6.7% increase in the number of high school graduates immediately enrolling in college. So it seemed to work in that way. Since then, of course, the Common App private companies including Niche and EAB and others in the admission space have entered, this game. So that gives you a little bit of the the backstory on on direct admissions.

Michael Horn

Well and as you said, Jeff, there are a number of companies now essentially facilitating direct admissions, sharing student data with schools that sign up on their platform, and then helping manage the process of schools choosing which ones you know, which students to admit. And today, we get to welcome one of those companies and its CEO and founder, Luke Skurman of Niche.com. Luke, welcome to Future U.

Luke Skurman

Thank you, Michael. I appreciate it. Really excited to be here.

How Niche Direct Admissions  Works 

Michael Horn

So let's dive right in. There are many flavors of direct admissions. Can you tell us briefly how it works with Niche? What information are students asked to share? And is the process entirely automated, triggered, you know, by students meeting certain thresholds that the institutions presumably set? Or is there any portion that requires human review?

Luke Skurman

I think the programs, by and large, across the board look somewhat similar. And and a big picture, we really applaud the shift, and we we think direct admissions has so much momentum, and it's a huge paradigm shift that we're really, really excited about. But let me first kinda color, maybe how our solution is a little bit different from some other solutions and then, how the students start receiving offers on the Niche platform. So the first thing is, so on the on the Niche platform, they receive immediate notifications. They get upfront scholarships. It's eligible for all high school seniors. We believe that it's just a a better way to do this. Yes. It's been great for underrepresented minority, for first gen, for Pell recipients, but it's open to everyone. They get the offers, but we help them not just receive the offers, but also go from the offer to the deposit all the way to helping make sure that they're they're enrolled on campus. Their team sets the criteria. They can work with our team to help them with that. But those are some of the high level differentiators I would say that that make our program slightly different. The users, high school seniors create a free account on Niche. Right now, about 1,100,000 high school seniors create an account each year on Niche. There's about 38 pieces of data from basic demographic data to their high school program of interest, and they start to receive offers right in their Niche dashboard, and they get the upfront scholarship. We saw very quickly that, families would get intimidated by a high sticker price. Most colleges end up discounting it, and we felt like it was really important to try to provide closer to that true cost upfront in the form of scholarship. But, yeah, they they they received those offers, and then it's up to them to take a few other actions, which would really be, the deposit and the transcript. So the the college sets that criteria upfront, and the the actual process is completely automated. But the humans at the college side do do verify their transcripts, which is in line with some of the scholarship amounts and whatnot.

The Benefit to Students and Institutions 

Michael Horn

Gotcha. Now you mentioned that underrepresented minorities, etcetera, tend to benefit most, from direct admissions. Just give us a quick insight on why. And then from the institution side, which types of institutions tend to benefit most from a direct admissions process?

Luke Skurman

We survey about fifteen, twenty thousand high school seniors every year. So by and large, the entire process is just extremely stressful, intimidating for everyone. No one's winning right now. But when you really double click even further, I would say those families that are navigating this process for the first time, the average public high school, I think, has, 300 students for one college counselor, and it's just hard to get the support. It's hard to feel that they have confidence navigating the entire journey. And so what we've seen so far is that, about 60%, 70% of the students that have taken action from the direct admissions have been, underrepresented minority, first gen, or Pell recipient. Again, we believe that this is just a better, more modern, more frictionless way to go to college in general. But but those are the students that have, I would say that, you know, the most vulnerable population, some of the folks that weren't going to college, during FAFSA, during COVID, and we're really excited to see that that's this has become a pathway to help them get into college. It really has. As far as the colleges that are taking us up on this, so far, we have a 140 colleges. About 70% are private institutions, about 30% are public. I would say it's it's mostly, colleges that are more regional in nature, but, but it it it runs the gamut. It can be big flagship publics like University of Nevada Reno, University of Wyoming, University of New Hampshire. Certain schools are using it as just an arrow in their quiver. Like, Portland State came to us and said, we're gonna use this exclusively for out of state, and it really helped them increase their interest from Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii like they hadn't seen before. Tulsa used it as a way, University of Tulsa, to really go after high GPA and provide high scholarship. They wanted to really go after more of that aspirational student. So folks are using it in all different ways right now, but it's really it really is working.

Another Application Count Booster? 

Jeff Selingo

So so, Luke, colleges have long used, you know, various tactics to get more applicants. You know, there was the introduction, of course, of the Common App back in the 1970s. We had the the Fast App where a lot of things were already filled out for students a decade or so ago. And, you know, all we've seen then over these last couple of decades is application inflation. Right? Last year, there are more than 13,000,000 applications filed on across all sorts of platforms, and that's, you know, way up since about four and a half million in 2001. So we've gone from four and a half million to 13 million. And and, really, the number of high school seniors hasn't really increased that much. Right? So we just have same number of seniors just applying to more and more colleges. So isn't direct admissions then just another tactic for colleges to generate higher application numbers?

Luke Skurman

I think it's a fair point. A couple things. One, we recognize that, you know, in any organization, whether it's the admissions team or it's a sales team in a different company, you you don't wanna starve or, you know, spin the wheels of of of the front of the spear, which is really that admissions team. What we wanna do is give them maximum leverage. There has been so much change and so much focus. So now they're able to focus their time on that funnel on the students that have now admitted and getting them to focus on visiting, getting them to focus on depositing. It really gives them better leverage of of of their time and their energy, and we're seeing it working. We're seeing our numbers really, at the same level, if not higher, from a yield perspective, from a melt perspective. There really hasn't been an erosion of quality. It's really providing them, that additional capacity that they need in this this this this noise of of so much change and so much turbulence right now. We really believe that that it's working right now. And and the last thing we wanna do is just exasperate them with more noise right now. 

Jeff Selingo

So really, what you're what you think direct admissions does is just move further into the funnel, from the traditional process.

Luke Skurman

Yeah. Absolutely. And the other thing I think it honestly does too if we if if if we zoom out is I think there's a paradigm shift frankly from the power dynamic going from the college more towards the families. There's been more supply than demand. Last year, we saw about 50 colleges closed. The year before that, about 25. These families have a lot of leverage. They're making big financial decisions, hundred, $200,000 decisions, and they deserve this upfront transparency, the speed, that service. I think this is also just an element of of the of the use case that these types of users, these modern Gen Z, Gen Y millennials are are more accustomed to in other industries, whether it's real estate, travel, or whatnot as well. So, yeah, I think it's it's getting results. It's also more in time with with exactly just just the space in general.

Obstacle or Litmus Test?

Jeff Selingo

Yeah. And so this idea of of, like, reducing friction, I think some critics, of higher ed would say, well, friction's good, in higher ed because it creates this opportunity so that, you know, students don't just wander into college, right, with less intention and less resolve to stay in school and graduate. Right? If you have some friction, then at least students are saying, yes. I wanna do this, so I'm willing to kinda put up with the hassles of of applying. So from that perspective, doesn't the application process serve them more of a as a litmus test for student seriousness and interest in not only going to college, but also going to a particular college?

Luke Skurman

It's a fair way of of of thinking about it. The reality, though, is that 70% of colleges in the United States have about an 80% acceptance rate. There are about 300 colleges in the whole country that have an acceptance rate below 50%. And I I I think that it it it really depends on what world you're in. If you're really looking at that, that very selective school, you're seeing some of those are reintroducing the standardized test scores right now. I I I could appreciate that. But, for the vast majority of colleges, yeah, but they're they're accepting the majority of the students that apply. Again, we're not seeing any gradation in yield, in melt, and then we've been really watching that freshman to sophomore retention rate, and it's really been very consistent with the baseline right now. We we we have not seen that erosion yet, but we've been watching that very closely.

Changing Dynamics 

Michael Horn

So because colleges now don't have to wait around for students to apply but can actively or proactively, right, admit them, they can actually, as you said, you know, start to give their financial aid offers earlier on as well. One of the complaints I know about the admissions and financial aid process at the moment is that you you might know, you know, if you got in or not. And then when you do, you sometimes have to wait some amount of time for your financial aid package. So there's this couple delays. Right? Am I gonna get in? What's the financial aid package going to be? Beyond changing that dynamic, what does earlier notification mean from the student perspective, as well as from the institution perspective? Because you just said you can get down further in the funnel for the institutions, but really from the students.

Luke Skurman

I think it it gives you peace of mind. It gives you comfort that you've been admitted. You've gotten that upfront scholarship getting you closer to that true cost. But, yeah, that is something that we're actively working on right now really hard is that financing and the paying for college aspect. So you get that offer. And then still, most of these students are in a traditional year, they'd be waiting for those FAFSAs to come in in in in that kinda early winter, late or late winter, early spring time period. But, yeah, they they they can still apply for additional scholarships. They can still apply for that FAFSA. But we're we're realizing that if we can help them get those offers, but also get even further clarity about how to finance it through loans, how to make sure that they can really see the entire ROI, the whole process, make it less intimidating and opaque and black box. It's gonna be a really big opportunity. So we're continuing to try to put some resources into figuring out how to simplify that part of the process as well.

Jeff Selingo

Luke as you said you have 140, colleges and universities on your platform. We'll talk a little bit about other, places doing direct admissions as well. You know, some are doing really well on the on the yield piece of it in terms of yielding these students, others aren't. What's kind of the the special sauce that you've seen so far in terms of what actually gets students to enroll if they are admitted through this direct admissions program?

Luke Skurman

I  think if you do you were to really simplify why some colleges do better than others, I think it's the ones that truly embrace this than the ones that are fighting it. I think when someone realizes that they can accept an unofficial transcript and, yeah, it might be accurate 97% of the time, and we'll go clean up the 3% on the back end then trying to get absolute a 100% certainty on the front end. It's the ones that are trying to embrace the positive, the glass half full about this than the glass half empty. That that those are the ones that are really, doing the best with it. That they're getting excited about it. They're seeing that this is in tune with with what the market's really craving right now.

Jeff Selingo

So, Luke, as more colleges do direct admissions, won't institutions end up facing the same problem that many do now, which is, you know, lots of applications but falling yield rates, the the students who actually enroll?

Luke Skurman

Colleges are going to have to do a very good job of explaining their true differentiators and really making sure of that. But I think that there's still a big room to grow in this space. I mean, we've been pushing really hard. We're up to 140 colleges. I know other programs are are gaining momentum right now. At the end of the day, it it does come back to the product. The student needs to have confidence that it's a good fit. It's a good investment. It really makes sense for them. So we can simplify the front end of the process, but at the end of the day, it comes back to their product, and and that's really on the college's shoulders.

The Competitive Landscape 

Jeff Selingo

You know, Niche isn't the only player in the direct admissions game. So too is the Common App. They're kind of the 800 pound gorilla in college admissions. There's also Concourse, and, you know, some colleges are also trying to do it on their own. Some states are as well. You know, is there any benefit from where you sit of having multiple players offer direct admissions?

Luke Skurman

And if you if you look at, let's say, the the, you know, social media wars, you know, in the early days, there was Myspace and Facebook and Friendster, and people are all gravitating towards a good idea. In the end, I'd say one usually ends up pushing forward. So I think that people are all circling around this notion that status quo is not working. We need to innovate, and I think that's proof that there's a lot of other good solutions out there. But we love that people are all leaning in here. We think this is the biggest paradigm shift that that the industry has seen in a while. I know I've been doing this for twenty years, and, this is the most exciting, like, big, big changes that I've personally witnessed myself.

What’s Next? 

Michael Horn

I I'm curious just going back to the, you know, institutions that wanna do this and to your point, as you say, it it it continues to grow. Do you think there's a limit to how many institutions would sign up for direct in admissions as, you know, for example, you know, selective schools. Right? What what would be the rationale for them to jump into this or or maybe they won't and this will be for everyone else? How how do you see that playing out?

Luke Skurman

Again, there's only 300 colleges in the country with an acceptance rate below 50%. But even with some of those, they may be great universities, but they might have a struggling humanities program. And so we see an opportunity to do program specific direct admissions. We're talking to some big state and system opportunities right now where they they they wanna get in the game, but they wanna kinda integrate it. They realize that we already have, a million registered users a year. I think there's a big opportunity in transfer students, in graduate students, potentially in pre college. I I think it has legs in a lot of other mediums that haven't been explored yet. Where we've really put the energy is really just that traditional high school senior going to a traditional four year so far. But I think it's gonna open up more, I do, to program specific state system, pre college, transfer, grad. Yeah.

Michael Horn

Super interesting. And then, of course, who knows, it might become the expectation by the students themselves. Let me ask you this question. How do you see it changing over the next five years? And and let me just put a point in this. I'm curious, like, do you see a place, you know, for AI perhaps in allowing a more nuanced, but, you know, just as automated evaluation of students, for for example, in certain respects in terms of the information you're perhaps collecting from or about them?

Luke Skurman

To Jeff's point a moment ago, like, how do we make sure that, we get the signal and the noise right? I think that, I always try to put the user first. So I think that AI could, again, provide that white glove service where you first start to think about the schools that really are a great fit for you. Again, if you're in a school district where you're just not getting that attention from that counselor, we're hoping that we can really provide and leverage AI to really give them a great list of schools to truly consider thinking about. And then in their dashboard, eventually, they're gonna have all these different offers. And I think AI can help really kinda make sense and score it and make sure they're really focusing on the ones that fit them the best, that they should really take action and double down on. So from the from the user's perspective, I think it's going to be kind of that search and narrowing down that's gonna be a big opportunity to leverage AI.

Jeff Selingo

Well, Luke, thank you so much for joining us on Future U. It was great to have you, and we'll be right back after these messages. Looking to advance your career without high cost? American College of Education hasn't raised tuition since 2016. And by opting out of federal student loan programs, ACE keeps operational costs low, passing those savings directly to students. In fact, 86% of ACE students graduate without debt. Plus, ACE evaluates credit for prior learning to help students fast track their degree. ACE offers affordable, high quality education, health care, nursing, business, and leadership degree programs specifically designed for working adults. Students learn on their time through an engaging online platform that fosters connections with peers and faculty, and career focused programs prepare graduates to make an immediate impact in their their fields. Learn more about advancing your career through high quality education at ace.edu.

Michael Horn

This episode of Future U is sponsored by Ascendium Education Group, a nonprofit organization committed to helping learners from low income backgrounds reach their education and career goals. Ascendium believes that system level change and a student centric approach are important for our nation's efforts to boost post secondary education and workforce training opportunities. That's why their philanthropy aims to remove systemic barriers faced by these learners, specifically first generation students, incarcerated adults, veterans, students of color, adult learners, and rural community members. For more information, visit ascendiumphilanthropy.org.

Jeff Selingo

This episode is being brought to you by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Today's college students are more than just students. They are workers, parents, and caregivers, and neighbors. And colleges and universities need to change to meet their changing needs. Learn more about the foundation's efforts to transform institutions to be more student centered at USprogram.gatesfoundation.org.

The Three Parts of Admissions 

Michael Horn

Welcome back to Future U. And, Jeff, this is a show about the future of higher ed. So we tend to lean into things that are innovative, new, different, and that's why we decided to do an episode on direct admissions because when Americans think about college, frankly, they probably think about three things first. One, why does it cost so much? We hear that a lot. Two, will I get a job at the other end, if I get the degree? And three, how do I choose from the hundreds of institutions that might, you know, cross my radar screen? What's a good fit? Will I even get in if, you know, even if I do have a sense of what the right fit is?

Jeff Selingo

Yeah. Michael, of course, that admissions question you just asked has three parts. Right? Choosing College, title of your book, you know, fit and getting in. And I think it has three parts because it's so complicated. Right? You know, but I'll remind folks again that the average acceptance rate of US colleges is fifty eight percent. And so we tend to focus on the getting in part, but for the most part, most students are going to get into most colleges. And here's another way of thinking about that. In my book that comes out in September, I look at how colleges at different selectivity levels perform on various fronts. It's a key part of the book, and I'll be talking a lot more about this when the book comes out. But the basis of this analysis is a group of 1,200 four year colleges, and I broke them into five tiers of selectivity. And get this, you know, 1,200 colleges all over overall. There were about 1,100 colleges in the tiers that accepted between, you know, 40% and a 100% of their applicants. So, again, most colleges accept most students. So the process of actually getting in isn't the problem for us to solve, Michael. The problem to solve is really further up the funnel. Right? It's helping students sort through those 1,200 colleges in the first place.

Michael Horn

And doing that, of course, is a time consuming process that puts the onus on students. Right? And, Jeff, it was even interesting from my perspective to see the difference between me and my youngest brother when we applied to college. I I applied in the late nineties. He was in the mid two thousands. And although we did have AOL when I applied, my application, you know, was printed out on paper. I remember rushing down to the post office near the US Capitol on Mass Ave, I think it's still there, to get it postmarked before the deadline. Right? That was, like, a big obsession and worry. And then I got word via snail mail, which actually was delivered to the wrong address, at first. Freaking it really freaked me out. And my brother, contrast, he found out via email.

Jeff Selingo

Well, Michael, I'm glad that whoever got that snail mail letter, I guess it was a thick envelope at the time, right, contacted you. Otherwise, who knows where you'd be right now. Right? Well, I remember, you know, I still remember my parents' Smith Corona word processor. Right? And if you're watching on on YouTube, I'm gonna put word processor in in air quotes because it was really an electric typewriter with a screen about as big as one you might see on a traditional calculator where you'd view maybe five or six words at the most before they kinda landed on the page. Right? It's certainly not the experience of of typing in in Word or Google Docs, today. That's for sure. Yeah.

Michael Horn

Yeah. And I guess that means we had a difference in our application process, as well because I was actually using Word on a Mac by that point, Jeff.

Weighing the Pros and Cons of Direct Admissions 

Jeff Selingo

Okay. So there you go. Mine was much more tedious than yours. I guarantee. You know, even with that mini screen, it it still required me to have whiteout, to be handy as I typed out each application. You know, the common app was a thing in 1990 when I was applying but it was it was much more small it's much smaller than the Common App of today. Right? It has more. Common App of today has more than a thousand schools. I think probably in the early nineties, it might have still only had dozens. So as I've told people most many times when I talk about my own college application process, I kinda petered out after four applications. And when you think about that, four applications I filed. Right? Last year, about 20% of high school students, high school seniors, applied to 10 or more colleges. And I hear from parents all the time whose kids applied to even more. So, sure, the Common App has made it easier, but the common piece of the Common App is sometimes a misnomer because there's something high school counselors talk about all the time, and that is portal fatigue. Right? Depending on where students apply, they might have to log in to several portals to kind of put their application, together. And that really does create a lot of friction in this in this process even if all of these schools are on the Common App.

Michael Horn

So bottom line question, Jeff. Let's cut to the chase. Direct admissions, good thing because it simplifies the process then?

Jeff Selingo

So, Michael, yes and and no. I'm not trying to wiggle out of the question, but I've wanted to do this episode ever since I was on a panel of reporters at the NACAC conference a few years ago. That's the big National Association of College Admissions Counselor. And Melissa Korn, who we've had on the show before, at the time she was covering higher ed for the Wall Street Journal, she mentioned she wanted to do a story on direct admissions during the discussion. And that meant to me that the idea of direct admissions had really jumped from being something that is kind of an insidery story in higher ed that the Chronicle or Inside Higher Ed cover that, you know, and people in admissions talked about to something that really had entered the mainstream. And, yes, I know I do know that especially among low income and underrepresented students, there are barriers. Right? There are psychological barriers to applying to college. There are social barriers. There are financial barriers. You know? And I love this idea where a college reaches out to you based on a set of criteria they know about you. You know, if I get an offer in the mail, it tells me that I'm academically qualified. Right? They know something about my financial situation. And it simply gives me more time to figure that out. But what it doesn't tell me, unfortunately, I think, is whether I'm a good fit or not. And what I worry about, Michael, is when we talk about direct admissions and we compare it to those credit card offers that we get in the mail, I think we all know how many of those offers that we receive. And so the big question to me is if Niche is doing this and EAB is doing this and the Common App is doing this and they're each working with schools that wanna do direct admissions, who's gonna be the traffic cop here, ensuring that students don't receive dozens and dozens of offers in the mail? Because I think in trying to solve one problem, we've just created, it all over again. Right? This overwhelming number of students or this overwhelming number of applications now has turned into an overwhelming number of offers instead. It's just a different side of that coin.

Michael Horn

Right. And certainly from the perspective of a student, I mean, it's gonna be awfully hard to differentiate in the stream of application acceptances, if you will, that you're getting now as opposed to where do I apply on the front end. That could be quite overwhelming, Jeff. I mean, I I get overwhelmed even when I get these advanced credit cards, things things in the mail trying to figure out how many of them to throw away right away before I even open. Can't imagine as a 17, 18 year old student trying to figure that out.

Jeff Selingo

Right. And they're just getting these, you know, these offers over and over again. Again, somebody I feel like right now, the scale of of direct admissions is small enough that they're not getting a ton of offers. But if more schools take, colleges up on this or or more colleges take the Common App or Niche or others up on this, you know, who is again gonna be that that traffic cop? And, Michael, a few years ago, NACAC and its sibling organization for financial aid offers, they they put out a report saying that we need to needed to radically rethink the concept of the college application because it was too, too much of a burden. And it really reminds me of of of how we deal with our health care system. Right? We have you know, if anybody has been interacting with doctors and hospitals, they know there are portals. Right? And you have to deal with different doctors. You have to deal with the hospitals. You have to deal with your insurance. You have preapprovals if you wanna get certain tests. Lots of forms that you have to fill out over and over again. Right? Every situation, every hospital is is different. And, you know, in our family, we've been dealing with this health care system recently. And I I told my wife about this, and I said, you know, they've essentially designed a system so you won't use it. Right? They don't really want you to use it. And and perhaps we're doing the same thing in in higher ed. You you asked Luke a question about whether a certain amount of friction was necessary because the process of going to college is hard. So getting there should have some degree of difficulty, but I wonder, again, just comparing it to the health care system, how difficult should it be?

Michael Horn

Yeah. it's a good Question, Jeff. I I mean, on the one hand, I am taken with the notion of, essentially borrowing this notion of nudging, right, from behavioral science or behavioral economics to make college, in essence, the default option for students. Quite attracted to that in many cases. But I guess what I worry about and and I don't have a clear answer, but I worry about are we eliminating the right kind of friction to make sure students really know if the school that they're getting admitted to is a place that they're actually going to thrive. And and I'm not so sure about that. I mean, I I I know when we wrote choosing college, one of the jobs to be done we found, right, that motivated students to seek, further higher education was help me step it up. And and, basically, our advice for the schools was make an application that's not so worried about the test scores and the this and the that, but really make sure that the purpose, like, the reason they're seeking to step it up is a good match for something that you're well positioned to deliver and that the student is coming in eyes wide open, right, so that they really know, yes. Like, I know what to expect. I know I can excel against these things, and I know what comes out the other side. This is the right match for me. Great. We're off to the races, and we're running together. So I think that's remains the big thing that I'm worried about, Jeff, is we're gonna accept a lot of students and play perhaps they will pick places because we've reduced friction where they choose based on brand name or something like that that maybe isn't the right fit for them. So one last question, Jeff, though, as we think our way through all this. So NACAC said the application process, though, did need to be radically different. I don't think I would disagree with that either. Right? I you know, I think you have to eliminate some of the friction. I'm just not sure which part. What would you do if you were to get to redo the application process?

Reimagining the College Admissions Process 

Jeff Selingo

Well, okay. So these are my this is my wish list. This can be really hard to do with some of these things, but, hey, we might as well dream big. One is I would get rid of early admissions, early decision. We should really have one calendar instead of of many. I realize the early stuff is is the purview of selective colleges, but if selective colleges in particular want to have a more diverse student body, we really need to be on a similar calendar for everybody. Second, I do like the idea of direct admissions, but let's have a little bit of a twist. Right? Is there somewhere where a student can on one of these, portals, whether that's through the Common App or Niche or EAB or somebody else. What does the student want and what maybe what they don't want. Right? You had this we've talked about the pedal graphic in your book, Choosing College about, you know, the different pedals that our students are thinking about when they, think about a college. Right? Geography and academics, location, things like that. Right? Size. Right? So is there somewhere where a student can filter out what they want or as you have told me, sometimes it's easier to say what they don't want at the age of 18. Put that some place so that the a school that, for example, an a big urban school doesn't send an offer to somebody who has no interest in going to a big urban school. So adding a little bit of friction in the process or adding something in the process where a student is making a decision to opt into that. And then finally, the big other change I would make is really aligning financial aid and admission so that you know upfront, that what the cost is gonna be  before you apply. Right now, you know, we could make you know, through the net price calculator, we could get a sense of what a college costs us, but we don't really know, and so we apply. Reason why we apply to so many colleges is because we wanna have so many financial aid offers come back to us so we could compare. Well, what if we kinda got rid of that by saying, okay. Here's what a college is really gonna cost you upfront, kind of a guaranteed number, upfront so that you don't even apply if you can't afford it. Now, again, I know number one, getting rid of it early is not gonna be popular among colleges and universities, and I know number three is not gonna be popular among, colleges and and universities. But, you know, you asked what I would do, and and that's probably, those are the types of things that I would I   I think we need to think about what problem are we really trying to solve here. Right? The latest report from the National Student Clearinghouse, if you look at their numbers by income level, right, where enrollment is going, growth in enrollment is really being driven by the bottom quintiles. So if we don't solve, this idea of, like, how do we reduce this friction in in higher ed, I really believe that higher ed's in trouble because the growth is really gonna be be from the lowest quintiles of of income in the in the US. But, you know, if we can solve for getting low income students into college, well, why does it matter if they can't afford it or they can't complete? Right? So we, you know, we have to solve not only the the friction of the application process, but as you know, that's only one of many steps in getting students into college. Right? So it's not just about the application, but it is about financial aid and it is about completion.

Michael Horn

And completion is the name of the game, not mere admission and enrollment or at least a pathway, right, to where they want to go with that education. So let's leave it there though for now. That's a comprehensive, treatment, I think, of the topic, and it's a trend we certainly want to continue to follow. I'll be keen to see, frankly, Jeff, if the research, as we get more students enrolling through direct admission, understand these questions around fit and completion and the outcomes, in other words. So a big thank you to Luke, from Niche. Fascinating stuff about a movement that has certainly caught, our attention, but the wider attention as well. And a thank you to all of our listeners. We'll see you and talk to you next time on Future U.