Early Application Trends for Class of 2027

With students eagerly awaiting their early admissions status, several universities have publicly announced their data, foreshadowing the trend for this year’s college admissions. 

Common App First-Year Early Application Trends 

The Common App, which released its November 1st Deadline Update, showed that this season, the number of first-year applicants have increased 26% since the 2019-2020 cycle. This trend is directly observable for top colleges like Yale, which received its second-highest early applicant pool on record. 

With Common App including more colleges this cycle and more universities switching to test-optional in response to the challenges posed by COVID-19, this year’s trend confirms an increase in diversity among applicants.  

Early Application Trends for Class of 2027 

Taking a deeper dive into the colleges that have released their early admissions data, schools like Dartmouth have confirmed an increase in student diversity with over 17% of accepted applicants coming from low-income areas. This is likely attributed to Dartmouth’s elimination of required loans in aid packages. On a macro-level, schools that are committed to diversity have shown an increase in admitted early students, like Georgia Tech and Brown. However, with the growing number of applicants, this means that more selective institutions like Harvard have shown to have more competitive early admissions. Given this, we predict that other highly selective colleges will also see similar trends. 

Early Admission Results for Class of 2027 

Key Takeaways

• Schools on Common App have confirmed a larger diversity pool 
• Highly selective schools are likely to see a more competitive applicant pool