Recently, the Common App, an online college application system, recently released the application data for the 2023-2024 application season. This year, the number of applicants in the United States has increased significantly compared to last year, and many changes have also taken place around Chinese students. Today, I will take you and parents to take a look at the current situation and RD application trends of the early application in the United States, and prepare for the next application!
1. The number of early applicants in the United States continues to grow, with an average of 4 universities per capita
In the 2023-2024 application season, the number of people who registered for a CA account in the first year, the number of people who actually submitted early applications in the United States, the total number of applications to American universities, and the number of applications to American universities per capita continued to rise!
The number of CA account registrations reached 1,862,719 in the first year, an increase of 11% from the previous filing quarter. As many as 836,679 freshmen actually submitted early applications in the United States, and the total number of applications from American universities exceeded 3.35 million, a surge of 41% and 65% respectively compared with the pre-pandemic application season.
In view of the existence of duplicate registrations or abandonment of applications after registration, the actual number of U.S. applicants will be lower each year than the number of registrants. But overall, the enthusiasm of students to apply to American universities is still increasing!
Chart: Total number of applications to U.S. universities.
Furthermore, the number of applications to U.S. universities per capita increased from 3 in the fall of 202042 increased to 4 this year01, an increase of 17%.
There are two main reasons: on the one hand, "one person applying for multiple schools" is now the mainstream;On the other hand, this year is the first application season for the Supreme Court to overturn affirmative action, and there is still a lot of uncertainty in college admissions, and students are increasing the number of schools they are applying to to take advantage of early application.
2. The number of international applicants**, the number of Asian Americans and the first generation of college students has increased
In the 2022-2023 application season, among the students who submitted early applications, whether they were local students in the United States or international students, they were all "rising"!
A whopping 759,640 U.S. students submitted applications, a 38% increase from the 2020 fall**;As many as 77,039 international students applied for the application, an 87% increase from the fall of 2020.
In the international filing pool, the number of Chinese applicants declined, but remained the main force, falling to 12,124 this yearThe number of Indian applicants has risen to 9,471 this year, making it the second-largest source of overseas students at U.S. universities.
In addition, the CA online application system also released application data for minority and first-generation college students in the United States, which rose to 559,501 and 224,329, respectively. What is strange is that it stands to reason that the more popular college education in the United States, the number of first-generation college students will decline, but in the past four years, this data has not decreased but risen.
However, it is difficult to say that the increase in the number of applicants from ethnic minorities and first-generation college students has an impact on the admission of Chinese students, so this data can be used as an understanding for everyone, and there is no need to delve into it for the time being.
3. The number of people who submit and do not submit standardized scores is basically the same
As of November 1, the number of applicants filing standardization (421,161) for the 2023-2024 filing season was only slightly higher than the number of applicants not filing standardization (415,518).
Whether or not to prepare for the test or submit SAT ACT scores is a common topic, but there are still many families who have doubts. In fact, there are two major advantages of test preparation standardization:
1.Competitive standardized scores in the early test will give you more freedom in choosing schools. For example, MIT, Georgetown University, University of Florida, Georgia Tech, etc., require standardized submissions, and students who do not have SAT ACT scores are disqualified from applying to these schools.
2.Submitting high-standard grades can highlight academic strength, and at critical moments, students can stand out from thousands of applicants with similar soft skills!
Fourth, the difficulty of applying to American universities continues to increase
In the early application stage this year, public universities received a total of 1,918,615 applications, a surge of 82% compared to the fall of 2020;Private universities received a total of 1,426,856 applications, a year-on-year increase of 47% in 2020.
In fact, since the fall of 2020, the number of early applicants to public universities in the United States has been higher than the number of early applicants to private universities. It is not difficult to see that public universities with relatively low tuition fees but cutting-edge education quality are increasingly attracting the attention and love of applicants.
The CA online application system also counts early application data for colleges and universities with different acceptance rate ranges.
Among them, the number of applicants to the most selective universities (acceptance rate below 25%, basically top 30 universities) and highly selective universities (acceptance rate 25%-49%, basically top 70 universities) rose to 536,902 and 428,297 respectively.
What is certain is that this year, whether it is the United States High School or the international student application pool, the application competition has become more intense, and it is more and more difficult to enter the top 30 universities and even the top 70 schools!
But students and parents don't need to be too anxious and depressed, because ——
Do the following things, and the chances of realizing your dream are still very good!
For Planning Season Students:
1.Pay more attention to the changes of applicants in China, such as whether your high school has expanded or reduced its enrollment, and whether there are any changes in the high school curriculum system. and pay more attention to the changes in the atmosphere of going abroad in their provinces and cities, such as which high schools have strengthened their investment in scientific and technological innovation and focused on cultivating STEM students.
Understanding these will help you judge the competition between the same school and the same city, so that you can make a more targeted study abroad plan.
2.Pay more attention to the new colleges and majors opened by American universities. Often, adding new colleges and majors means expanding enrollment, and utilitarianly speaking, students will have a greater chance of realizing their dream of their dreams.
3.Start preparing for the U.S. application early, don't just stare at the admissions numbers of U.S. universities every day, sighing that admission is difficult.
Strive to improve the GPA and standardization, build excellent soft power step by step through activities, highlight your personal characteristics and shining points, and believe that admission will become a matter of course!
For students who are preparing for an RD application:
4.Check and fill in all application materials, including resumes, essays, application information, activity lists, etc.
5.When submitting your early application materials, if you feel that the main essay is not perfect enough or that you are in a hurry, you can also readjust and put the finishing touches on it.
However, if there is already a very satisfactory finalization, it is not recommended to revise it again for the sake of revision, sometimes the more times the document is changed, the better it is, we must retain the original aura and spirit of the document.
6.If there are any updates on the progress and achievements of the event, be sure to update it in the Common App to ensure that the institutions submitting the RD application can see the latest developments.
7.Maintain your grades from the first semester of Year 12, and many universities will require applicants to submit their grades from the first semester of Year 12 when submitting their RD application. So be sure to try to be consistent with your previous results, and don't let your results become your own shortcomings.
Positioning of schools to study in the United States.
Want to know how many ranked colleges and universities in the United States can you apply to with your GPA score?You can try to use the study abroad volunteer reference system (the following applet) to do the study abroad positioning.
How to use: Enter your basic information (GPA, IELTS score, major, college background, etc.) into the study abroad volunteer reference system, and the system will automatically match the cases of classmates with similar situations to you from the database, and see which universities they have successfully applied to in the United States, so that you can accurately locate yourself.