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Applications to colleges rose by 9 percent over all this year—and 12 percent among underrepresented minority applicants—according to a new report from the Common Application highlighting year-over-year data from the current admissions cycle. The increase in underrepresented minority applicants was driven largely by a 12 percent bump in Black applicants and a 13 percent increase in Latino applicants.
Those numbers are in line with early application data the Common App released in November, which showed that applications rose by 12 percent over all and by 21 percent among underrepresented minorities.
According to the new data, the number of first-generation applicants also increased by about 7 percent, the same growth rate as last year.
The report represents the first deeper look into application trends after a turbulent year in admissions, during which the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action, new admissions strategies arose and long-held practices from early decision to legacy preferences came under intense scrutiny.
Brian Kim, the Common App’s director of data science, research and analytics, said the results don’t surprise him.
“We can’t speak definitively about the impact of the Supreme Court ruling yet … but a lot of these trends are basically straight-line continuations of those we’ve been seeing since coming out of the pandemic,” he said.
Kim said the boost in minority applicants is likely connected to the growing number of minority-serving institutions using the platform—which jumped from 99 to 159 since the launch of Common App’s MSI outreach initiative in 2021—and the expansion of the company’s new direct admission initiative.
He added that the surge in applications shouldn’t necessarily translate to bullishness on enrollment, which, despite largely recovering from the pandemic nosedive, has struggled to return to pre-pandemic growth rates.
