Due to COVID, the current high school seniors in the United States faced record low acceptance rates for colleges this year.

In 2021, Northeastern University had an acceptance rate of 18%. This year for the college class of 2026, the acceptance rate dropped to 7%. 

Northeastern University wasn’t the only school that had a lower acceptance rate. According to the statistics from College Kickstart, Boston College’s acceptance rate dropped from 19% to 16%, Boston University’s dropped from 18% to 14%, and Fordham University’s dropped from 58% to 53%. 

For the senior class of 2022, COVID played a huge factor in impacting the college acceptance rates. Bobby Squires (‘22) said, “SATs test-optional now, a lot more people are applying so they have a lot more applicants at every single school and that makes it more difficult and inherently more competitive because there’s more applicants.”

Guidance counselor, Ms. Santa Maria said, “I think hearing from schools–because they have reached out and shared data points for us as well–there was an insane amount of applications this year. So schools found that they were getting tons and tons of applications. Some were up 20-50%, so big jumps. I think a lot might have to do with COVID, and schools getting rid of the test policy.  So that kind of opened up a lot of places for students to apply to that they maybe had not sent their scores previously, so I think that kind of bumped up applications as well as, since COVID happened, a lot of students have been deferring a year.”

With the college process almost over, rejection letters have been very common. Ms. Santa Maria shared, “I have been telling students, we don’t want to see it as a rejection, it’s a redirection. A lot of students have their mind set on a top school of theirs and that’s amazing and great, but it’s okay if you don’t get into that school because especially this year, it was crazy.  But I would say that there are definitely other options that are going to be a good fit for you as well…don’t take it personally that way, it’s ‘We’ll find a better fit somewhere else.’”