Jeffrey Selingo, author of the book "Dream School: Finding the College That's Right For You," breaks down the college admissions process and how to pick the best school for you, as some early decision deadlines approach.

The college admissions process has become increasingly competitive, with application numbers tripling since 2001 and early decision deadlines now as significant as regular decision. Jeffrey Selingo, author of 'Dream School,' notes that students are applying to more schools with greater ease, leading colleges to implement strategies like deferrals and waitlists to manage their incoming classes and maintain selectivity.

Selingo emphasizes that while top-ranked schools remain highly competitive, students can find valuable educational and networking opportunities at a wide range of institutions. He highlights the importance of choosing a relevant major and developing in-demand skills, especially in fields impacted by AI, and suggests that regional universities can offer strong local networks. For those not pursuing college immediately, he recommends considering gap year programs or employment with tuition benefits.

Navigating the college admissions process

It is the scariest time of the year, not just because it's Halloween, but because college applications are due soon. By the way, the deadline to apply early decision or early action is November 1st for a lot of schools. And if you have a kid applying to college, you know all too well that schools, which used to be so-called safeties, are now reaches for many. So what is happening? Part of what's happening is the number of applications to colleges has tripled since 2001, when I was applying to college. So how do you increase your chances of scoring a spot at your dream school? The process is anything but straightforward, so we decided to call in a pro. Jeffrey Stelingo is the author of the book, Dream School, Finding the College That's Right for You. And he joins us now. Jeffrey, welcome. It's great to be here. Thanks for having me. Thank you for joining us. So what has your research shown in terms of what the trends are with college applications and admissions? So basically, we used to think about applying to college in like January of our senior year when we would find out in March, in many cases, or as the applications came in. And now, the amount of applications delivered on November 1st for early decision and early action now almost equal those that come out in January in terms of regular decision. And students now are sometimes finding out as early as December. So the entire process has been moved essentially to the junior year, and now students are starting to think in ninth and 10th grade what to do for college. So from what I understand now, you apply all at once, right? It used to be that you had to mail individual applications to the schools. And now, I just found this out recently with my nephews, that you just check off the boxes of the schools you want to apply. That seems less stressful. But just talk about how parents and children might feel stress and what they can do about the stress that goes along with this. Well, what has happened, you know, when I applied to college, I had to type it out on a typewriter. And so I got tired after a couple of applications. And now, it's literally with the press of a button, you could apply to 10, 12, 14 colleges. And some now are applying to 15 or 16 colleges. And when that happens, colleges really don't know who's really interested. And they want to protect what's called their yield. That's the percentage of students who actually enroll, because it makes them over time look more selective, and thus students think they're better. And so what ends up happening is they often delay students. They will defer students from early action to regular decision. They'll put them on a wait list. They kind of string them along throughout this process, which just increases the stress for students. So particularly around this time of year where they're trying to decide, do I even apply early action? Do I apply early decision? And to which schools do I do that? I think we need to bring back the typewriters to make it harder to apply to so many schools. But Jeffrey, in terms of college rankings, I mean, I remember when that was a big deal when I was in high school. Do they really matter as much? And is it harder to get into the top schools? Well, it's definitely harder to get into the top schools today. On average now, across the top 25 of the U.S. News and World Report rankings, the average acceptance rate is less than 10% in many cases. So they're turning away 90% of applicants. And so in my book, in Dream School, I give a formula for how you can look at deeper in the rankings. There are so many good schools out there, including schools, by the way, where you're going to get to know faculty members, where you're going to find mentors in some ways better than the top schools, where the professors are more interested in their research often and graduate students. So the question, of course, is when it comes to these rankings of these schools, what happens after graduation? I think that that's the issue that a lot of people are sort of concerned about. Because I went to a state undergraduate university, but I went to an Ivy League graduate school. I found the networking opportunities, you went to two Ivy League schools, that those networking opportunities are, you can't sort of, you can't put a price on that, right? And so when parents are considering where their kids are going to go to school, how important is it, oh, this school has a particular program that I'm interested in, versus what the potential for after graduation means? You know, there's no doubt about it that the Ivy and Ivy Plus schools have great networks. And essentially, by the way, that's what you're buying. You're not necessarily buying a better education, but you're buying a network. But again, very hard to get into some of those places. And what we found in our research is that sometimes your major, and oftentimes your major matters more, and the skills that you have matter more. In other words, what you do in college matters more than where you go to college. So if you have the right major, and more than that, get the skills that are in demand, in a job market, as we all know, changing drastically right now, because of AI, you're going to do really well after college, no matter where you go. Okay, two quick questions, because we're running out of time. What is the right major if you are interested in AI, one? And then two, for people who don't want to go to college, college isn't for them, maybe they can't afford college, what is the best way for them to prepare themselves for a successful career? Well, no matter what you major in, in terms of AI, make sure you focus on those human skills, problem solving, writing, things that are going to be much more important, I think, in an AI world. And in terms of whether you want to go to college or not, eventually you're going to need a degree. Do you need to get one right after high school? No. But then look at gap year programs, or look at jobs that actually might provide you tuition benefits, so you can actually go to college eventually. Yeah, the other thing I would just add, I know we're running out of time, is that because I went to a state university in Rhode Island, that if you choose to stay in that state, sometimes that degree can be more beneficial than even an Ivy League degree. Yeah, if you go to a university in Ole Miss, and you stay in Mississippi, that network is beyond anything that you could expect from an Ivy League school. No doubt about it, most of those people are hiring regionally. So if you go in the South, you're going to stay in the South. If you go out West, you're probably going to stay out West. Really good advice. Jeffrey Selingo, thank you very much with today's By the Way. We appreciate you.

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