Last week in the College Office, the tables were turned: We hosted members of the communications team from a highly selective liberal arts college who were in town and wanted feedback from us about their marketing. “Of course,” we agreed, “but while you’re here, you really need to speak with our students.”
Typically, this particular college receives 10-20 applications from Colorado Academy Seniors; this year, one student applied. When Associate Director Sara Purviance drops this statistic, the conversation shifts into gear; the stakes are high.
“Students who declined us last year said that we sounded more laid-back and less academic,” a communications representative offered.
“I’m looking through this catalog,” Sara continued, “and I don’t see any real mention of the programs that are differentiators for [your school].” They knew.
In the race to appeal broadly and compete with peers, football games, and AnyState University TikTok videos, colleges sometimes soft-pedal their core value propositions. I saw this recently when the president of my own school, formerly a women’s college, posted a picture of cheerleaders at a campus basketball game. “Not my SLC,” chanted alumni in the comments.
At our November Junior Kickoff conversation, veteran vice presidents from four colleges and universities agreed that they never expected to learn so much about marketing: Every email you receive from us is designed exactly for you, curated for you, just you. “How do we get you to open them?” Bethany Perkins from Miami of Ohio poked in her light-hearted way, but with a serious undercurrent. What do kids want? What does belonging look and feel like to a generation so hungry for connection?
Later in the day, I asked Sara for her take. “Things feel different,” she reflected. Both of us have been in this profession (with all its vicissitudes, testing changes, application cycles, mind-numbing amounts of writing, idiosyncratic timelines, and overwhelmed kids, counselors, families, and faculty) for two decades. We are fortunate to work with Associate Directors David Jones (CA ’09) and Alex Castro, who have more recent college admissions experience and who quickly draw from current enrollment practices and accept new norms.
David is especially protective of his counselees when he feels a gulf forming between parent and student values. Alex transitioned to our office this past year from the undergraduate admissions office at the University of Southern California and still has the muscle for objective assessment. We turn to him to contextualize our students in the competitive national landscape: USC reported 79,936 applications last year. “When I read, I don’t ask myself if an applicant should get in,” Alex says; “I think about whether we want to be with them on their journey.”
The data confirms what we see here at CA: College applications have ballooned dramatically in the last five years. The Common Application (that supports just over 1,000 institutions, mostly in the U.S., only one-third of which are exclusive users) reports that the volume of first-year applicants jumped from 572,849 in 2020-2021 to 904,860 in 2024-2025; the number of applications themselves doubled in that time period, from 2,018,696 to 4,017,250. “It’s so competitive now! I don’t think I could even get into my own college anymore,” parents often tell us.
We’ve also noted trends in CA students (and many of their independent school peers) applying to warmer regions, universities that were open and friendly during the pandemic, universities abroad, bigger schools where they can wear that Saturday jersey for a lifetime, schools where they feel comfortable and not thrust into a political spotlight. (They’ve already experienced protests during campus tours.)
And yet, our matriculation map shows that Seniors have landed out West, in the Northeast, and in the Midwest in greater numbers. Four students applied to Clemson University in the Class of 2019; thirteen applied from the Class of 2024. Despite spikes like this, no students have chosen to attend.
Back around the conference table, our focus group of six Seniors are poised and parsing through small stacks of publications. The visiting communications team opens with a gesture of goodwill: “We are the people who have been spamming you.”
“What have you seen that you really liked and that helped you make a decision?” another guest adds.
“I like getting a lot of stuff. It feels like you’re being heard and really seen.” Wisdom from the group begins to flow. “What sets it apart from other schools?” More voices chime in: “Unique stuff helps”; “It’s nice to review the majors and minors”; “I definitely think there are a lot of words. The average student in high school is going to skim this and spend a few minutes with it.”
My colleagues and I are beaming with pride. The kids ooze with ideas far more sophisticated than even we expected. They have been paying attention.
“This is for the parents,” a Senior breaks through, and the room laughs in knowing discomfort. “When I got into a couple colleges, my dad was the one opening the mail for me,” he adds.
“Yeah, and during visits, there’s always a parent who takes over the conversation,” a peer shares.
“We call those the lawnmower parents,” a representative says, almost apologetically.
Our current counselor cohort has yet to chaperone our own children through the search process, but we hear from colleagues around the country. A counterpart in the Twin Cities told me that while visiting campuses with his son he noticed that parent tours lasted 20 minutes longer than student tours. “It felt like 80-90 percent of questions during information sessions were from parents,” he added.
There is an energy around the table that is beginning to eclipse the vibe we felt a year ago with this class: “We” has shifted to “I.” Students who came into our office saying, “We decided to take the ACT,” have switched pronouns: “I really want to know how I’ll get to college, where it’s located in relation to airports and such.”
“We” is a hard habit to break. I find that “we” sounds less cute and more concerning as our kids get older. At the ice rink, moms report that “We are competing a few times this spring.” On the bumble ball soccer sidelines, fellow parents remind me that “we” are undefeated, and then rush the field during halftime. “College” is embraced in my own household, but “we” is pretty much banned.
In an effort to champion our children and fuel their purpose, we have a tendency to conflate their lives with our own. (By “we,” I mean “we.” I do it, too.) Like David Brooks stated in the fall, maybe we’ve found the wrong answers to the right questions. Are we devoted parents? How do kids know they matter? To what extent do we need to choreograph their lives for them? Or, as Brooks continues, can we see the person in front of us rather than the person we imagine?
The kids are all right
As educators at a Pre-K-12 school, we get to take the long view and, on occasion, enter the crystal ball.
Later that same week, I found myself at dinner with 2024 CA alumni Alaina Wharton and Alex Gonzales on their turf at Wake Forest University during a counselor fly-in. Both tell me that they don’t “do everything” in college but are more selective about how they spend their time. Alaina describes her recent, byzantine rush process for sororities, while Alex shakes his head, amazed by how simple his rush was in comparison. Both are only in their second semester of college and yet are already interviewing for summer internships and thinking about the summers that will follow. Last fall in Intro to Engineering, Alaina tells us, she was tasked with polishing her resume and online presence and searching for outside opportunities. “But Wake calls itself a liberal arts college,” I probe. “That might be a bit of a misalignment,” Alex responds, adding that the “Pro Humanitate” motto still feels important, though.
“So…Did you feel prepared for college?” (I have to know.)
“Yes,” both answer without hesitation. “Even overprepared by my ASR classes,” Alex adds.
“If you could do it over, would you do anything differently?” I ask, always interested in big questions that may have big answers. One student was scooped up immediately by Wake, and the other waited to hear back for a longer period when it would have been easier to pivot away. In the college process, there is value in playing the long game, though under stress in the winter of Senior year kids tell us, “I just want to be done.”
“I love Wake, so no. This is definitely my place,” Both agree.
My last stop is a quick lunch in downtown Winston, North Carolina, with CA alum Jack Lewis (’20), who radiates curiosity. He wears his grandfather’s analog watch and tucks his cell phone out of sight as we chat. Already a first-year medical student (and Wake Forest history major, as we predicted for him when he was in Kindergarten and memorized the names of every U.S. President), Jack is adulting in a world so far removed from college applications. But his fond memories of CA are legion.
“I used to be a picky eater,” Jack confesses to me as he shuffles pepperoni around his pizza. “But it’s hard to do that as you get older; it can be, you know, embarrassing.” I smile and take a beat.
Yet again, the hardest parenting advice feels the most true: If we let them walk through the jungle, the jungle will teach them.
I often think back to a summer day on the windy Oregon Coast. Our son was determined to fly his new Pterodactyl kite. We tried, and then tried again—too many times. I gave up and suggested that my husband do the same. “Let’s keep going,” he looked at me, “He has to know that we tried.”