Potential undergraduate NC State students have faced many challenges during the end of their high school career due to COVID-19, which in turn affect the quality of their college applications. As a result, the NC State Office of Undergraduate Admissions has made slight changes to the fall 2021 application process. Despite these changes, the office’s core tenets have remained the same.
The most notable change to the fall 2021 application process is the fact that test scores, such as the SAT and ACT, are now optional. Making those scores optional allows every applicant an equal opportunity, regardless of whether they were able to take the tests or not.
John Westover, the associate vice provost and director of undergraduate admissions, explained that since the department takes more than just test scores into consideration when admitting students, making them optional will not greatly impact the application process.
“The overall review process is staying the same,” Westover said. “We are looking at the overall academic of the students — their transcripts, the type of classes they took, the activities they are a part of, the program they are applying to, their essays…”
Westover also stressed that the North Carolina Board of Education’s decision to change letter grades to pass/fail last spring will not have an impact on the applicants’ chance of being accepted.
“We certainly recognize there are a lot of challenges,” said Westover. “We still have two and a half semesters [prior to COVID-19] to indicate the student’s academics, and if the spring semester looks different, then that is an indicator of COVID-19’s effects.”
The admissions department added a question to the application in order to allow students the opportunity to explain how COVID-19 has affected them. Westover says admissions will use these responses to ensure all applicants are given a fair chance.
Despite the changes in the application process, Westover notes that the fall 2021 admission pool has not seen any significant changes in trends from years prior.
Based on the trends of early action applications, the number of applicants have increased slightly. According to Westover, admissions officers are seeing a significant increase in the number of regular decision applications; however, it is too early to assume much about the fall 2021 application pool.
International student applications are down slightly from previous years, but both in-state and out-of-state applications have increased. More out-of-state applicants are applying from states closer to NC State, such as Georgia and Virginia, rather than Northern and Midwestern states. Additionally, based on models using the raw numbers from the early action application pool, a higher number of underrepresented student demographics has applied.
The Office of Undergraduate Admissions looks to accept the same amount of first-year students as it did last year, approximately 4,775 new students and 1,400 to 1,450 transfer students.
Sara MacKenzie, director of operations in Undergraduate Admissions, says that one of the biggest remaining challenges in reaching the goal admission number of 4,775 is establishing the applicants’ connection to the campus and helping them find a sense of community.
“We know that it is an uphill battle with this group to try and get them to connect and commit,” MacKenzie said.
MacKenzie and Westover said the best way to predict if applicants will commit to NC State is to monitor their attendance and participation level in NC State admission events and Zoom calls.
More information will become available within the end of the month as early action application acceptance letters are distributed, but for now, the NC State Department of Undergraduate Admissions reports no major changes to the application trends of the fall 2021 application pool.
