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How Colleges are Dealing with a Surge in Applications

College applications are surging like never before. The number of applications increased by 21.3% between 2019-2020 and 2021-2022, according to a March 2022 Common Application report. 

For many colleges and universities, the influx of applicants has put admissions offices into overdrive with many struggling to keep up with the increase of applications. In response to the surge, many institutions are hiring more part-time readers. Scott Jaschik, co-founder of Inside Higher Ed, recently delve into the rise of part-time readers and what this practice means for college admissions. 

“Admissions offices are gearing up for another year and planning for the annual influx of applications,” Jaschik says. “Highly competitive colleges and universities, which receive applications from tens of thousands more students than they could ever accept, experienced a surge in applications over the last two years and expect that trend to continue. This means they’ll need to hire more people to read more applications.”

HIRING NATIONWIDE

At Georgia Institute of Technology, roughly 60 part-time readers are being hired this year—a significant increase from the 15 readers hired just five years ago. But it’s not just Georgia Tech that’s bumping up hiring of part-time readers. At the University of California, Irvine, 180 part-time readers were hired last year to read nearly 142,000 applications. Note: UC Irvine has a staff of only 50-full time admissions officers. 

“At Irvine, and at other colleges that use part-time readers, there are certain kinds of people who are sought for the jobs,” Jaschik says. “They include retired admissions officials, and those who work as high school teachers and college counselors. They are generally hired in the fall, and work through the end of the admissions season in April. Some work close to full-time hours, and others much less.”

THE ROLE OF PART-TIME READERS

Colleges typically follow different procedures when it comes to training application readers. At Irvine, according to Jaschik, newly hired part-time readers are first tasked with reviewing 20 files from the previous year to determine why students were accepted versus rejected. After reviewing previous year materials, the part-time readers are then told to review 10 additional applications and give rationale behind why the school would admit or reject them. Part-time readers are also banned from considering students who apply from school districts where the readers work and all applications have applicant names removed. 

“The part-time reader isn’t so much admitting a student, as recommending whether a student should be admitted,” Jaschik says. “Each application is reviewed by two people, and if the two disagree, a third staff member is brought in. Irvine also carefully considers if one reader (full time or part time) has a significantly different reaction from the other reader.”

While many praise the practice of part-time readers as an efficient way to compile thousands of applications, some have raised concerns.

“No college offers the information during their process. ‘Well, when our office gets your application, we may outsource it to another person off-campus,'” an associate director of admissions at a selective private college tells Inside Higher Ed. “It certainly has the feeling to me that colleges are more interested in the collection and outcome of application reading, but not the process itself.”

Sources: Inside Higher Ed, Forbes, Common Application