Fewer reasons now to dread the college admission process

Schools are making it easier to apply and accepting more students

- Jon Marcus

CAL STATE offers direct admission, in which some of its campuses - including Cal State L.A., aboveautomatically accept any student who earns at least a C in a list of required high school courses.

As she approached her senior year in high school, the thought of moving on to college was “scary and intimidating” to Milianys Santiago — especially since she would be the first in her family to earna degree.

Once she began working on her applications this fall, however, she was surprised. “It hasn't been as stressful as I thought it would be,” she said.

It’s not that Santiago’s anxiety was misplaced: The college admissions process has been so notoriously stress-inducing that students and their parents plan for it for years and — if social media is any indication — seem to consider an acceptance as among the greatest moments of their lives.

But getting into college is in fact becoming easier, with admissions offices trying to entice more applicants from a declining pool of 18-yearolds. They're creating oneclick applications, waiving application fees, offering admission to high school seniors who haven't even applied and recruiting students after the traditional May I cutoff.

The most dramatic change is in the odds of being admitted. Elite universities such as Harvard and Caltech take as few as 1 applicant in 33. But they are the exception. Colleges overall now accept about 6 in 10 students who apply, federal data show. That’s up from about 5 out of 10 a decade ago, the American Enterprise Institute calculates.

“The reality is, the overwhelming majority of universities are struggling to put butts in seats. And they need to do everything that they can to make it easier for students and their families,” said Kevin Krebs, founder of the college admission consulting firm HelloCollege.