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Where Have all the Target Schools Gone? A Case Study on The University of Tennessee

MD Faruk Mia


I am an independent college admissions counselor serving students from primarily public schools throughout the United States. Why public schools? Because they often lack the resources to give students personalized college attention. In fact, most students in public high schools get less than 30 total minutes of individualized college counseling across grades 9-12. In contrast, private schools often employ professionals like myself, whose sole purpose is to provide individual advice on the college process to a small cohort of that school’s students. This is baked into their private school tuition fees. (more on the bias against independent college counselors, often from private schools, in another blog post)

 

Over the last five years, I can honestly tell you that my job has almost completely changed. It is different every.single.year. I spend over an hour each morning on continuing education - just to keep up with the latest trends and data. And I’m here to tell you: the numbers are staggering.

 

This year, we saw The University of Tennessee (UTK) as the perfect case study for what is happening in college admissions. First, a bit of background on Tennessee. Several years ago, it was considered a solid Safety or even Target school for many students throughout the southeast. It had an admit rate in the high 60s/low 70s and the admitted student data reflected a broad range of smart, well-rounded students. Tennessee went test optional for only one year during the pandemic, but very quickly returned to requiring test scores in 2022.

 

Two years ago, The University of Tennessee dropped their admit rate by 22 points (from 68.4% in 2022 to 46% in 2023) after a particularly great football season combined with a nationwide post-pandemic desire to attend the sunny, open-for-business SEC schools. On top of that, UTK reduced the number of admitted freshmen that year because of massive housing and parking constraints on campus. Regardless of the other changes, less spots = lower admit rate.

 

When a college’s admit rate drops dramatically, we suddenly have a “hot school” on our hands. This naturally drives up applications and drives down the admit rate. Exhilarated by their new popularity and downward trend in admit rate, Tennessee aimed to continue the plunge.

 

This past fall (2023), when high school students graduating in 2024 were applying, The University of Tennessee made several changes. First it re-committed to enrolling its in-state students with several auto-admit programs. Tennessee students with a recalculated core academic GPA of 4.0 or higher and/or TN students who ranked in the top 10% of their graduating high school class were guaranteed admission to UTK – a move that drastically reduced the number of spots for out-of-state students. Interestingly, the University of South Carolina also committed to their in-state students over the past year following a similar trend from Auburn the year before.

 

And now, we see the results of these seemingly innocuous admissions tweaks. On February 29th, UTK announced its final round of decisions for the graduating Class of 2024. The result: a new overall admit rate of 34% - around the same as Clemson and the University of Georgia. For out-of-state students, the admit rate was 23.7% (a 10% drop).

 

For my students, the majority of whom reside in Georgia, this means that getting admitted to a large university in a neighboring state has become much harder. While the University of Georgia committed in 2022 to admitting 80% of their students from within the state, that announcement did not include any auto-admit programs like Tennessee’s or South Carolina’s. In fact, Georgia students have an even harder hill to climb because the HOPE Scholarship means that more of our students are enticed to stay in-state and take advantage of the free (or nearly free) tuition this program provides. High performing students who used to leave GA to attend the Ivy and Ivy+ schools are now choosing to stay in-state. Every year, I see students with 4.0+ GPAs, deep leadership and community service and strong test scores denied from UGA, Georgia’s flagship state institution.

 

Now that I’ve laid out the facts, here is what I’d like to explain to you about the Tennessee example (and all of college admissions, for that matter). These numbers are all smoke and mirrors – and, ultimately, a psychological game: one that the colleges are winning.

 

From my (albeit small) subset of students who applied to The University of Tennessee this year, those who were admitted are not the ones who were actually interested in attending. My UTK admitted students are the same ones who were also admitted to the University of Georgia, Georgia Tech, Clemson, University of North Carolina, and similar schools. Tennessee, for them, was a Safety. On the other hand, my students who reallywanted to attend The University of Tennessee, and whose scores fell well within the mid-50% range for admitted students from the prior year, were all deferred and then waitlisted.

 

This is just another example of how the data is misleading. Colleges report the middle-50% data for ADMITTED students. In this case, UTK was able to drive those numbers up this year by admitting the cream-of-the crop from out-of-state, regardless of their intention to attend. If we were able to see the mid-50% data for ENROLLED incoming freshman, it would paint an entirely different picture. Unfortunately, that data is not reported. And so, UTK will get to march forward with these new, super-high numbers to bolster their continued popularity and stoke the flames of panic in those who apply.

 

I predict that Tennessee will likely need to start pulling from their waitlist to fill their out-of-state spots this year, if my subset is any indication. And yet, my students who truly wanted Tennessee, and were waitlisted, are now disenfranchised - some even angry. Even if they are offered a spot, I am not sure that they will actually accept one. For this year, then, Tennessee may fall prey to a yield dilemma, at least from their out-of-state students. In college admissions yield represents the percent of students who were accepted who actually decided to attend. It is a key number used to rank universities. If many of the admitted out-of-state students decide not to attend, this can drive down UTK’s yield. Sadly, even if Tennessee has a yield problem for this year, it will likely not deter them from manipulating the numbers in future years. If it means that they can continue to drive down the admit rate, they will keep with this strategy.




Why? Because this current, broken, college admissions system relies on the panic that low admit rates create to stir up thousands more applications. This, in turn produces application revenue along with an inflated sense of “prestige”.

 

So, here’s where we are: If you are a student in the southeast, and in particular if you live in the state of Georgia, you are left with very few nearby large public universities that are still considered in the Target range based on their admit rates. Yes, there are still small, private colleges with admit rates in the 50 to 70% range, but many of my students from large public high schools are unwilling to consider them because of their size.

 

There are many days when I am extremely saddened by the current state of college admissions. It is complicated, unfair, stressful, and unpredictable. I am sometimes embarrassed to even be associated with it. At the same time, I remain committed to serving as a guide to my students and their families by providing the information they need to make realistic and successful choices.

 

Each day, I return to what I tell students in our very first session together: “It doesn’t matter where you go to college, it only matters what you do while you are there.” I say it, and I mean it. I hope that my students truly believe it by the time we finish working together. I have reason to think that they do, because I’m beginning to compile my results for my Class of 2024 and they ALL had many acceptances and are making choices for themselves based on academic, financial and (most importantly) social fit.




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