rhodes scholar tours

How to Become a Rhodes Scholar

Recipients of this prestigious award must exhibit academic excellence, leadership and a commitment to service.

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To become a Rhodes scholar, students are typically encouraged to apply during their junior year of college.

Because of its prestigious reputation, the Rhodes scholarship draws applications from thousands of the world's top college students each year. But only a select few who best demonstrate academic excellence, a commitment to others and character traits like courage and kindness are chosen for the scholarship, which allows students to study at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom.

There's a level of cachet that comes with being a Rhodes scholar, but that's just one aspect that draws students to apply.

"It's an honor that will be mentioned in every introduction to every speech they give for the rest of their life, and will be mentioned in their obituary decades from now," Doug Cutchins, director of global awards at New York University Abu Dhabi, wrote in an email. "It means being connected to other extraordinary young people at Oxford for several years, and then being introduced into a global alumni community of amazing people who are working for the common good. It can open doors that they don't even know exist right now."

What Is a Rhodes Scholarship?

The Rhodes scholarship is managed by the Rhodes Trust, a British charity created to honor the wishes of Cecil Rhodes, a British businessman and politician who established the scholarship in his will. The first scholars arrived at Oxford in 1903, making it the oldest international scholarship.

Each year, the Rhodes Trust selects roughly 100 students from around the world, including 32 Americans, through an intensive application and interview process. The organization doesn't reveal the number of applicants.

The scholarship covers tuition and fees for at least two years of study at Oxford, where scholars can earn a second bachelor's degree, a master's degree or a doctorate degree in one of various subjects.

Scholarship winners must still apply for admission to Oxford, and the scholarship covers application fees. The scholarship also covers the fee for a student visa, flights to and from the U.K., health care coverage and an annual stipend for living expenses – nearly $25,000 for the 2023-2024 academic year.

The total amount of the scholarship varies but can reach about $250,000, representatives at the Rhodes Trust say.

Eleanor Wikstrom, a senior at Harvard University in Massachusetts and winner of a Rhodes scholarship to begin studying at Oxford in fall 2024, says the value of the Rhodes goes beyond the doors it will open. A social studies major with a focus on colonialism, she plans to earn a master’s degree in global and imperial history at Oxford. The ability to study that period of history in the U.K. with students from around the world was a major draw for the scholarship, she says.

“I also think that Rhodes offers this really amazing cohort that is not quite as prevalent with any other scholarship,” Wikstrom says. “Of course, you’re going to be part of an amazing legacy no matter what you do, but the Rhodes scholarship being expressly global and also having this locus at Oxford allows you to interact with scholars from other backgrounds, and it facilitates that much more fluently than the other scholarships would.”

Who Can Apply for a Rhodes Scholarship?

Requirements vary by country, but in the U.S., students must be at least 18 years old and not have passed their 24th birthday on Oct. 1 of the year in which they are applying.

In some instances, older applicants who completed their undergraduate degree later than usual may apply up to age 27, according to Babette Littlemore, director of communications at the Rhodes Trust. Applicants also must have completed or will have completed a college or university undergraduate degree with a GPA of 3.7 or higher.

The scholarship's eligibility requirements for U.S. students have been expanded in recent years to include legal permanent residents and DACA recipients, which refers to an immigration program called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

The list of countries from which students can apply has expanded, as well. "With the arrival of the Global Rhodes Scholarships, individuals from any country across the globe are now able to apply," Littlemore wrote in an email.

Applicants are chosen by "constituency," which is the country, region or district where they live. Applicants who have dual citizenship or have lived in multiple countries should choose the country they have the strongest connection to, such as where they have citizenship or where they've lived the longest, according to the Rhodes Trust website.

U.S. states and territories are grouped into 16 districts. U.S. applicants typically choose the district in which they have a permanent residence or have spent the most time.

Who Should Apply for a Rhodes Scholarship?

Because of the competitive nature of the applicant pool, successful applicants typically possess at least a 3.9 GPA, says Kyle Mox, associate dean of national scholarship advisement at Arizona State University . But strong academic chops are just one part of the equation, experts say.

The scholarship has continued to promote largely the same values and qualities over the course of its existence, including leadership and public service. The selection committee is looking for applicants "that are going to provide value to the world," Mox says.

“It is intensely service-driven,” he says. “Any students that I’ve worked with who have succeeded, progressed and have been offered the award were passionately motivated by a desire to serve the world. They were high-achieving but not for the sake of being high-achieving. They were high-achieving because they had things they wanted to fix. That’s got to come through in the application."

Because applicants must still apply to Oxford after being awarded the scholarship, the committee looks for well-rounded students who would be easily admissible, Cutchins says.

"They have to have excelled in multiple areas, and at least ticked the box in most if not all of the major facets of student life: athletics, service , the arts, etc.," he says. "Someone smarter than me once said that Rhodes scholars are 'well rounded with a bump.' They are good at everything, and exceptional in one or more dimensions."

Students should take an honest look at their achievements and determine if they meet the criteria, he says. He encourages students who are on the fence to apply, even though "the vast majority of students who apply for the Rhodes – 98%+ – are not going to win."

The application and interview process can be an immensely beneficial experience for students as they embark on their professional life, he says.

"I usually set a low bar, asking students if they are feasible, realistic, plausible candidates," he says. "If a student wants to be a Rhodes scholar, then I think they should make someone else say no to them, rather than them saying no to their own goals."

Rhodes Scholarship Application Process

To become a Rhodes scholar, students are typically encouraged to apply during their junior year of college , experts say. The online application opens in early July each year and closes in early October.

Individual schools often set varying internal deadlines for different checkpoints within the application. While students are explicitly prohibited from receiving help on the personal essay, many schools help guide them through various aspects of the application, such as interview preparation.

1. Required Application Materials

While several pieces of the application are consistent across all constituencies, some details among them change, Cutchins says. All selection committees require a 750-word, original personal statement and a 350-word academic statement. Applicants must also supply an official transcript, a full resume and five to eight letters of reference.

"All constituencies ask that some of the letters are written by people who can comment on the student's academic ability and others serve as character references," he says. "Some constituencies detail the exact number of each kind of letter that should be submitted."

The personal essay should be an incredibly strong and original piece of writing, experts say.

2. University Endorsement

To be considered for the scholarship, applicants must first be nominated and endorsed by their university. Then applicants compete with others within their constituency, or district.

During the endorsement round, many universities organize a nomination committee, which typically consists of faculty members, staff and, if possible, Rhodes scholar alumni, Mox says.

When students are nominated, the university produces an endorsement letter signed by the university president or a high-ranking dean. This endorsement should include confirmation that the student has satisfied or will satisfy the requirements to receive a bachelor's degree in the year following the submission of the application, if the student is an undergraduate.

3. National Round and Interviews

Shortlisted candidates must attend a district reception and interview in November, after which each district committee selects a maximum of two winners.

Wikstrom says she was alerted roughly two weeks prior that she was selected for an interview. In that interim, several fellowship advisers at Harvard conducted intense mock interviews and held a mock reception.

Though the reception is not an official part of the selection process, “if you say something during that reception, it is fair game during the interview,” Wikstrom says, so it's worth preparing for.

The Importance of Being Authentic

While it's wise to prepare, experts say the selection committee values authenticity. Wikstrom says some of the feedback she got during mock interviews was to be less "canned" and show her natural personality more. She spent the final days leading up to the interview re-reading her favorite books, pieces she wrote and essays she wrote in class.

"I wanted to steep myself in those materials that meant a lot to me and were really formative for the way I thought about things. There’s nothing that you can do in that last week or last two weeks that will save you. There’s no new fact you’re going to learn. There’s no new method that’s going to save you. You are the sum of everything you’ve done up to that point. You just kind of have to trust the muscle memory will be there when you need it to be there."

- Eleanor Wikstrom, Harvard University Class of 2024, Rhodes scholar

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Traveling With Road Scholar (Formerly Elderhostel International)

An avid freelance writer, Tamsen has penned multiple published articles along with books using her advanced degrees and certifications.

Learn about our Editorial Policy .

Do you want to add some education to your travels? Road Scholar , formerly Elderhostel International, is a world leader in educational travel for adults. Even with the name change, however, it is still the same great service that will let you discover and learn about the world via travel.

A Brief History of Elderhostels

Founded by Marty Knowlton and David Bianco in 1975, Elderhostel International began as just an idea as the two men spoke after Marty returned from a European walking tour that lasted four years. During that time, Marty traveled with only a backpack, staying in youth hostels.

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Creating Senior Hostels

After returning home, the former educator and free-spirited activist told David Bianco, a university administrator, about his journey. He also talked of the affordable youth hostels where he met fellow travelers and of the folk schools of Scandinavia. In the folk schools, senior citizens shared their skills and traditions with the younger generations, passing down their country's folklore, music, dance, and folk art. He told of seniors throughout Europe being active in their communities, and the two men wondered why American seniors quietly disappeared into retirement.

Inexpensive Elder Hostels and Education

It was then that David Bianco decided that his campus did not need a youth hostel. It needed an elder hostel instead. The two men developed a program combining inexpensive accommodations with interesting not-for-credit classes. The first year, 1975, five New Hampshire universities and colleges hosted 220 senior citizens in campus elderhostels.

Growing Into Elder Hostels in Europe

Word of Elderhostel programs quickly spread, and by 1980 there were programs in every state and most provinces of Canada. The following year Elderhostel offered international learning programs in Great Britain, Scandinavia, and Mexico.

Growth of Programs

As Elderhostel International continued growing in numbers, they introduced types of travel learning adventures including:

• Programs for grandparents and grandchildren
• Day of Discovery one day programs
• Road Scholar series of adventurous learning programs

Today, Road Scholar offers a vast array of different programs in more than ninety countries, all fifty states, and aboard ships. Travelers no longer stay in college dorms; instead, accommodations are in hotels and inns throughout the world.

Elderhostel International Becomes Road Scholar

Although the Elderhostel International Corporation still exists as the parent company, beginning in 2009 all the programs of Elderhostel International became known as Road Scholar. Remaining a not-for-profit 501c corporation, Road Scholar depends on private donations.

Learn Through Travel

Road Scholar excursions are appropriate for seniors who enjoy travel and who want to explore interests or learn about different cultures or locations. Though many of the trips are meant to be active, there are some trips designed specifically for lower activity seniors.

Road Scholar Offers Thousands of Learning Adventures

Each year, Road Scholar offers more than 8,000 learning adventure programs in ninety countries throughout the world including:

• The United States
• The Middle East
• The South Pacific
• The Caribbean
• South America
• Central America

Types of Road Scholar Programs

The following is a very small sampling of the thousands of educational adventure programs offered by Road Scholar.

Adventures Afloat

Adventures Afloat provides a wonderful way to gain knowledge, explore new areas and have fun. Adventures take place aboard riverboats, ocean liners, and small ships. Popular Adventure Afloat programs include:

• Enchanting Rivers of Europe: Amsterdam to Budapest - small ship
• Discovering the Jewels of the Mediterranean: Athens to Istanbul - small ship
• Beyond the Pharaohs: Egypt Past and Present - riverboat
• Ancient Portugal: Life Along the Douro River - riverboat
• The South of France by River: Wine and History from Sarlat to Bordeaux - riverboat
• Voyages to Antiquity: Athens to Rome - ocean liner
• An Insider's Perspective of the London Theater Aboard the Queen Mary 2 - ocean liner
• The Southern Caribbean and Panama Canal: A Journey Through History and Nature - ocean liner

Independent City Discoveries

Independent City Discoveries combine independent discovery with structured learning. These programs include accommodations, lectures and field trips by local experts, outlines for self-guided tours and some meals. Programs include:

• Mystical Lands: The People and Culture of India and Nepal
• The Greatest Road in Europe: Camino De Santiago
• Exploring Natural Wonders: The Real Costa Rica

Day of Discovery

Day of Discovery programs are one-day programs in various American cities such as:

• Molly Brown: A Look at Life and Legend, held in Colorado
• Sidewalk with a View: An Exploration of Downtown Los Angeles Architecture, held in California
• Preserving Museum Treasures at the Mütter Museum, held in Pennsylvania

Intergenerational Adventures

Intergenerational adventures include special programs for grandparents and grandchildren, or families with children:

• Family Ties: Grandparents, Grandchildren and Great Times held in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania
• Adventures on the Sea of Cortez: People and Wildlife
• Rocky Mountain New Year: A Family Ski-In, Ski-Out Adventure in Park City, Utah

Women-Only Programs

Women-only programs provide a variety of educational travel adventures such as:

• Wilderness Canoe Camping Trip in Maine
• Sedon'a Healing Arts for Women: Yoga, Tai Chi, Ayurveda, and More
• Hiking Adventure for Women: The Magic of Glacier National Park

Small Group Programs

Small group programs limit the number of participants to ten to twenty-four. The programs are grouped into eight activity levels. Examples of these types of programs include:

• Wolves in Winter: Track the Pack in the Minnesota Northwoods
• Autumn Whales and Seabirds, Exploring Tide Pools, Lighthouses of Grand Manan
• Walking the English Countryside: the Cotswolds and Cornwall

Individual Skills Adventures

Examples of individual skills adventures include:

• Learn to Play the Appalachian Dulcimer in West Virginia
• Photography and Natural History on the Oregon Coast
• A Culinary Voyage in Victorian Cape May, New Jersey

Cost of Traveling

The cost of the trips through Road Scholar vary widely depending on:

• The location and experience you choose
• Whether you book travel through Road Scholar or another provider
• Whether you qualify for a scholarship or grant
• If you select an experience that is on a special sale

The "Value Promise"

Road Scholar makes the claim that their excursions are around 20% less expensive per night than comparable trips from other providers.

Pros and Cons

Reviews appearing online of the Road Scholar experiences are largely positive, yet some criticisms appear. Among the negative comments, the purchase of additional insurance is mentioned as a negative aspect of the program as is rude staff; however, the positive comments far outweigh the negative comments on Yelp . Stride Travel reviewers give a cumulative 4.5 out of 5 with 87% of reviewers recommending Road Scholar. Again, reviewers on the site mention problems with the additional insurance as a concern. Insurance is brought up again by reviewers on SiteJabber , though the overall reviews are mostly positive.

The Insurance Issue

Optional trip protection is offered through Road Scholar, and it's a fairly standard policy. It reimburses you if a covered problem prohibits you from taking the trip or forces you home early. Most of the negative reviews mentioning the insurance are about people who had to cancel their trips but hadn't purchased the trip protection, and as a result, felt taken advantage of when their money wasn't refunded. Trip protection is typical when booking trips through any provider, so this is not an issue exclusive to Road Scholar.

Travel Opportunities for Seniors

Since its beginning, Elderhostel International was, and still is, dedicated to continued learning through travel. The organization is one of few that encourages seniors to travel the country, as well as the world, and provides many programs to help seniors do just that.

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The Scoop: What to Know About Road Scholar

This nonprofit tour company has an inspiring educational focus..

The Scoop: What to Know About Trafalgar Tours

Part of what we do here at TourScoop is use our (human) travel expertise to vet tour companies so you have an easy way to get a bunch of trustworthy information all in one place. Today we’re digging into Road Scholar, a popular tour company that’s been around for nearly 50 years. Read on to find everything you need to know to confidently make the decision about whether it’s a good fit for you.

Road Scholar (previously known as Elderhostel) is a tour company with a difference: Since 1975 the company has been run as a nonprofit organization with an educational mission as its primary focus. That means a few things: since it’s a nonprofit, Road Scholar offers excellent value (tours aren’t priced for profit). I also like that it’s unusual among tour companies because it offers both financial aid and caregiver grants. And since it’s education-driven, the tour operator attracts a particularly curious and educated group of travelers, including many retired educators. 

Road Scholar’s 4,000 offerings include small group tours, grandparent-grandchild trips, cruises, private jet adventures, and tours focused on passions including birding, food and drink, and history.

TourScoop Takeaways: Road Scholar

• Continents Covered: 7
• Tour Size Average: Road Scholar’s small group programs max out at 24 travelers, but the company also runs larger programs with hundreds of participants who are then broken into small groups for activities. 
• Tour Types: Coach, ship, plane, train

How to Book

Road Scholar tours can be booked directly through Road Scholar ; here are all the ways you can contact the organization for information about trips.

Credibility Check

Road Scholar is a BBB accredited charity that meets the standards for charity accountability, and has a low complaint number and a high response-to-issues ratio. It has a rating of 4.2 out of 5 on Facebook . Tour-focused online travel agency TourStride past guests gives Road Scholar a 4.4 out of 5.

Tour Destinations

Road Scholar operates tours on seven continents and to nearly 100 countries. In the U.S., it offers itineraries to most states, and internationally, its most popular destinations include Canada, Costa Rica, Cuba, and Italy. 

Road Scholar offers hundreds of programs on a variety of topics, with thousands of departures annually. Since it’s a nonprofit organization with an educational mission, everything it does is about learning, and it weaves in educational visits, lectures, and events into every trip.

On the website, you can filter trips by hobbies or what you want to learn about, from Military History to Native American Studies, Birding, Pickleball, or another topic. You can also filter the course catalog by activity level, from “Easy Going” to  “Outdoor: Challenging.”

Road Scholar also offers Adventures Afloat (cruises), skip-gen programs geared to grandparents and grandchildren traveling together, and virtual tours that range from one-hour lectures to multi-day online adventures. 

Tour Guides

As an education-focused tour organization, Road Scholar refers to its group leaders and instructors as faculty . Faculty members–many of whom have been working with Road Scholar for a decade or more–are local experts with years of experience in travel and academics. Group leaders receive initial training and receive yearly professional development to ensure they’re at the top of their game. 

In addition to faculty, tour participants meet a broad range of experts on tour, experts that range from shrimp boat captains to award-winning authors. 

Inclusions/Extras

Road Scholar programs are all-inclusive and have no optional extras or hidden expenses. The price of a tour includes: 

• Accommodations, 
• Experienced Group Leader
• Expert-led lectures and field trips
• Most meals (some meals during free time not included)
• Gratuities throughout the program, including group leader gratuities
• Road Scholar Assurance Plan   (24-hour assistance in the event of an emergency during a program and insurance for emergency medical evacuation)

Flights to and from the tour are not included in base program prices, but Road Scholar will book flights for participants traveling internationally. Flights booked through Road Scholar also include complimentary airport transfers.

Typical Travelers

If you don’t count kids in the mix on the Grandparent and Family programs, the average age of a Road Scholar participant is 72. But trips generally include a wide range of older travelers from people in their 50s through 90s. About 30% of participants are solo travelers, and of that 30% about 85% are women traveling on their own. Road Scholar trips are generally reported to be very welcoming to solo travelers. 

Communication 

Once you’ve booked a tour with Road Scholar, the company sends regular emails leading up to trip departures. You can also access your trip information online: once you’re enrolled in a program, all trip information is accessible via your online account.

Road Scholar’s U.S.-based contact center (800-454-5768) is open 9:00 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. (ET), Monday through Friday. Monday is the contact center’s busiest day, so to avoid long wait times, call midweek or at the end of the week if you can). Road Scholar has callback feature, which allows you to save your place in the queue without having to wait on the phone–a representative calls you back as soon as it’s your turn in line.

Loyalty Program

Because Road Scholar is a nonprofit organization, discounts are not offered, including for repeat travelers. But the company is dedicated to making travel affordable for more travelers, and offers financial aid and caregiver grants . 

Private Options

Groups made up of between 18 and 24 people can reserve private departures of existing itineraries with Road Scholar. If you organize a group of 20 or more, you can take advantage of group discounts or free travel for one person. 

Sustainability Efforts

Road Scholar offsets some of the carbon emissions created through travel on its programs. It invests in projects including rainforest preservation in Brazil, methane gas recapture in Florida, and reforestation in Kenya. The company also tries to use sustainability certified hotels, locally owned services, and restaurants that serve locally sourced meals whenever possible.  

Health and Safety Practices

Road Scholar has partners on the ground worldwide who monitor all areas visited by the company. If concerns arise, Road Scholar will find replacement content or cancel the program, depending on the severity and location of the issue.

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Moscow Metro Tour

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Description

Moscow metro private tours.

• 2-hour tour $87:  10 Must-See Moscow Metro stations with hotel pick-up and drop-off
• 3-hour tour $137:  20 Must-See Moscow Metro stations with Russian lunch in beautifully-decorated Metro Diner + hotel pick-up and drop off. 
• Metro pass is included in the price of both tours.

Highlight of Metro Tour

• Visit 10 must-see stations of Moscow metro on 2-hr tour and 20 Metro stations on 3-hr tour, including grand Komsomolskaya station with its distinctive Baroque décor, aristocratic Mayakovskaya station with Soviet mosaics, legendary Revolution Square station with 72 bronze sculptures and more!
• Explore Museum of Moscow Metro and learn a ton of technical and historical facts;
• Listen to the secrets about the Metro-2, a secret line supposedly used by the government and KGB;
• Experience a selection of most striking features of Moscow Metro hidden from most tourists and even locals;
• Discover the underground treasure of Russian Soviet past – from mosaics to bronzes, paintings, marble arches, stained glass and even paleontological elements;
• Learn fun stories and myths about Coffee Ring, Zodiac signs of Moscow Metro and more;
• Admire Soviet-era architecture of pre- and post- World War II perious;
• Enjoy panoramic views of Sparrow Hills from Luzhniki Metro Bridge – MetroMost, the only station of Moscow Metro located over water and the highest station above ground level;
• If lucky, catch a unique «Aquarelle Train» – a wheeled picture gallery, brightly painted with images of peony, chrysanthemums, daisies, sunflowers and each car unit is unique;
• Become an expert at navigating the legendary Moscow Metro system;
• Have fun time with a very friendly local;
• + Atmospheric Metro lunch in Moscow’s the only Metro Diner (included in a 3-hr tour)

Hotel Pick-up

Metro stations:.

Komsomolskaya

Novoslobodskaya

Prospekt Mira

Belorusskaya

Mayakovskaya

Novokuznetskaya

Revolution Square

Sparrow Hills

+ for 3-hour tour

Victory Park

Slavic Boulevard

Vystavochnaya

Dostoevskaya

Elektrozavodskaya

Partizanskaya

Museum of Moscow Metro

• Drop-off  at your hotel, Novodevichy Convent, Sparrow Hills or any place you wish
• + Russian lunch  in Metro Diner with artistic metro-style interior for 3-hour tour

Fun facts from our Moscow Metro Tours:

From the very first days of its existence, the Moscow Metro was the object of civil defense, used as a bomb shelter, and designed as a defense for a possible attack on the Soviet Union.

At a depth of 50 to 120 meters lies the second, the coded system of Metro-2 of Moscow subway, which is equipped with everything you need, from food storage to the nuclear button.

According to some sources, the total length of Metro-2 reaches over 150 kilometers.

The Museum was opened on Sportivnaya metro station on November 6, 1967. It features the most interesting models of trains and stations.

Coffee Ring

The first scheme of Moscow Metro looked like a bunch of separate lines. Listen to a myth about Joseph Stalin and the main brown line of Moscow Metro.

Zodiac Metro

According to some astrologers, each of the 12 stops of the Moscow Ring Line corresponds to a particular sign of the zodiac and divides the city into astrological sector.

Astrologers believe that being in a particular zadiac sector of Moscow for a long time, you attract certain energy and events into your life.

Paleontological finds 

Red marble walls of some of the Metro stations hide in themselves petrified inhabitants of ancient seas. Try and find some!

• Every day each car in  Moscow metro passes  more than 600 km, which is the distance from Moscow to St. Petersburg.
• Moscow subway system is the  5th in the intensity  of use (after the subways of Beijing, Tokyo, Seoul and Shanghai).
• The interval in the movement of trains in rush hour is  90 seconds .

What you get:

• + A friend in Moscow.
• + Private & customized Moscow tour.
• + An exciting pastime, not just boring history lessons.
• + An authentic experience of local life.
• + Flexibility during the walking tour: changes can be made at any time to suit individual preferences.
• + Amazing deals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner in the very best cafes & restaurants. Discounts on weekdays (Mon-Fri).
• + A photo session amongst spectacular Moscow scenery that can be treasured for a lifetime.
• + Good value for souvenirs, taxis, and hotels.
• + Expert advice on what to do, where to go, and how to make the most of your time in Moscow.

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The Best of Scotland

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• Explore the beautiful islands of Mull, Skye and Iona.
• Journey on some of the world’s most famous trains — the West Highland line and the Jacobite steam train.
• Experience iconic Edinburgh Castle — dominating the skyline of the Scottish capital city — on a fascinating field trip to the top of the volcanic Castle Rock.

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Travel Themes

• Education / Learning
• National Parks
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Opinion Guest Essay

This Is Peak College Admissions Insanity

Credit... Illustrations by Pete Gamlen

Supported by

By Daniel Currell

Mr. Currell, a lawyer and consultant, was deputy under secretary and senior adviser at the U.S. Department of Education from 2018 to 2021. He is a trustee of Gustavus Adolphus College.

• May 1, 2024

Selective college admissions have been a vortex of anxiety and stress for what seems like forever, inducing panic in more top high school seniors each year. But the 2023-2024 admissions season was not just an incremental increase in the frantic posturing and high-pressure guesswork that make this annual ritual seem like academic Hunger Games. This year was different. A number of factors — some widely discussed, some little noticed — combined to push the process into a new realm in which the old rules didn’t apply and even the gatekeepers seemed not to know what the new rules were.

It happened, as these things often do, first gradually and then all at once.

It started with a precipitous rise in the number of people clamoring to get in. The so-called Ivy-Plus schools — the eight members of the Ivy League plus M.I.T., Duke, Chicago and Stanford — collectively received about 175,000 applications in 2002. In 2022, the most recent year for which totals are available, they got more than 590,000, with only a few thousand more available spots.

The quality of the applicants has risen also. In 2002, the nation produced 134 perfect ACT scores ; in 2023 there were 2,542 . Over the same period, the United States — and beyond it, the world — welcomed a great many more families into the ranks of the wealthy, who are by far the most likely to attend an elite college. Something had to give.

The first cracks appeared around the rules that had long governed the process and kept it civilized, obligating colleges to operate on the same calendar and to give students time to consider all offers before committing. A legal challenge swept the rules away, freeing the most powerful schools to do pretty much whatever they wanted.

One clear result was a drastic escalation in the formerly niche admissions practice known as Early Decision.

Then Covid swept through, forcing colleges to let students apply without standardized test scores — which, as the university consultant Ben Kennedy says, “tripled the number of kids who said to themselves, ‘Hey, I’ve got a shot at admission there.’” More applications, more market power for the schools, and for the students, an ever smaller chance of getting in.

Last year the Supreme Court’s historic decision ending race-based affirmative action left colleges scrambling for new ways to preserve diversity, and students groping in the dark to figure out what schools wanted.

Finally, this year the whole financial aid system exploded into spectacular disarray. Now, a month after most schools sent out the final round of acceptances, many students still don’t have the information they need to determine if they can afford college. Some will delay attending, and some will forgo it entirely, an outcome that would have lasting implications for them and, down the line, for the economy as a whole.

These disparate changes had one crucial thing in common: Almost all of them strengthened the hand of highly selective colleges, allowing them to push applicants into more constricted choices with less information and less leverage. The result is that elite admissions offices, which have always tried to reduce the uncertainty in each new year’s decisions, are now using their market power to all but eliminate it. This means taking no chances in pursuit of a high “yield,” the status-bestowing percentage of admitted students who enroll. But low uncertainty for elite colleges means the opposite for applicants — especially if they can’t pay the full tuition rate.

Canh Oxelson , executive director of college counseling at the Horace Mann School in New York, says: “This is as much uncertainty as we’ve ever seen. Affirmative action, the FAFSA debacle, test-optionality — it has shown itself in this one particular year. Colleges want certainty, and they are getting more. Families want certainty and they are getting less.”

In 2024, the only applicants who could be certain of an advantage were those whose parents had taken the wise precaution of being rich.

The Early Bird Gets the Dorm

For Ivy Wydler, an elite college seemed like an obvious destination and many of her classmates at Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School in Washington, D.C. were headed along the same trajectory. After her sophomore year of high school, she took the ACT and got a perfect score — on her first try, a true rarity. Her grades were stellar. So she set her sights high, favoring “medium to big schools, and not too cold.”

Touring campuses, she was dazzled by how great and exciting it all seemed. Then she visited Duke, and something clicked. She applied in the binding early decision round.

It’s a consequential choice. Students can do so at only one college, and they have to promise to attend if accepted, before knowing what the school’s financial aid offer will be. That means there is at least a chance an applicant will be on the hook for the full cost, which at Duke is $86,886 for the 2024-25 year. Students couldn’t be legally compelled to attend if they couldn’t afford it, but by the time they got the news, they would have already had to withdraw their other applications.

If full tuition isn’t a deal killer, as it wouldn’t be for Ivy’s family, the rewards are considerable. This year, just over 54,000 high school seniors vied to be one of only 1,750 members of Duke’s incoming class. The 6,000 who applied in the early decision round were three times more likely to get in as the 48,000 who applied later.

Until recently, early decision was a narrow pathway — an outlier governed, like the rest of this annual academic mating season, by a set of mandatory practices laid out by the National Association for College Admission Counseling, which is made up of college admissions officers and high school counselors. Those rules said, for example, that colleges couldn’t recruit a student who was already committed to another school or actively encourage someone to transfer. Crucially, the rules said that colleges needed to give students until May 1 to decide among offers (noting early decision, which begins and ends in the fall, as a “recognized exception”).

The Justice Department thought those rules ran afoul of the Sherman Antitrust Act, which bars powerful industries from colluding to restrain competition. At the end of 2019, NACAC agreed to a settlement mandating that the organization “promptly abolish” several of the rules and downgrade the rest to voluntary guidelines. Now if they chose to, colleges had license to lure students with special offers or benefits, to aggressively poach students at other schools and to tear up the traditional admissions calendar.

At that point, nothing restrained colleges from going all in on early decision, a strategy that allows them to lock in students early without making any particular commitments about financial aid. Of the 735 first-year students that Middlebury College enrolled last year, for example, 516 were admitted via binding early decision. Some schools have a second round of early decision, and even what amounts to an unofficial third round — along with an array of other application pathways, each with its own terms and conditions.

With the rules now abandoned, colleges got a whole new bag of tricks. For example, a school might call — at any time in the process — with a one-time offer of admission if you can commit on the spot to attend and let go of all other prospects. Hesitate and it’s gone, along with your chances in subsequent rounds. “We hear about colleges that are putting pressure on high school seniors to send in a deposit sooner to get better courses or housing options,” says Sara Harberson, the founder of Application Nation, a college advising service.

To inform these maneuvers, colleges lean on consultants who analyze applicant demographics, qualifications, financial status and more using econometric models. High school seniors think this is checkers, but the schools know it’s chess. This has all become frankly terrifying for students, who are first-time players in a game their opponents invented.

Application season can be particularly intimidating for students who, unlike Ivy, did not grow up on the elite college conveyor belt. When Rania Khan, a senior in Gorton High School in Yonkers, was in middle school, she and her mother spent two years in a shelter near Times Square. Since then she and her younger brother have been in the foster system. Despite these challenges, she has been a superb student. In ninth grade, Rania got an internship at Google and joined a research team at Regeneron, a biotechnology company. She won a national award for her study of how sewage treatment chemicals affect river ecosystems. Looking at colleges, she saw that her scores and credentials matched with those of students at the very top schools in the country.

One of the schools she was most drawn to was Barnard. “I like that it’s both a small college and” — because it’s part of Columbia — “a big university. There are a lot of resources, and it’s a positive environment for women,” she said. And it would keep her close to her little brother.

Barnard now fills around 60 percent of its incoming class in the early decision round, giving those students a massive admissions advantage. It would have been an obvious option for Rania, but she can’t take any chances financially. She applied via the general decision pool, when instead of having a one in three chance, her odds were one in 20.

Officially, anyone can apply for early decision. In practice it’s priority boarding for first-class passengers.

Unstandardized Testing

When selective colleges suspended the requirement for standardized testing, it didn’t really seem like a choice; because of the pandemic, a great many students simply couldn’t take the tests. The implications, however, went far beyond mere plague-year logistics.

The SAT was rolled out in 1926 as an objective measure of students’ ability, absent the cultural biases that had so strongly informed college admissions to date. It’s been the subject of debate almost ever since. In 1980, Ralph Nader published a study alleging that the standardized testing regimen actually reinforced racial and gender bias and favored people who could afford expensive test prep. Many educators have come back around to regarding the tests as a good predictor of academic success, but the matter is far from settled.

Remarkably, students still take the exams in the same numbers as before the pandemic, but far fewer disclose what they got. Cindy Zarzuela, an adviser with the nonprofit Yonkers Partners in Education who works with Rania and about 90 other students, said all her students took the SAT this year. None of them sent their scores to colleges.

These days Cornell, for example, admits roughly 40 percent of its incoming class without a test score. At schools like the University of Wisconsin or the University of Connecticut , the percentage is even higher. In California, schools rarely accept scores at all, being in many cases not only test-optional, but “test-blind.”

The high water mark of test-optionality, however, was also its undoing.

Applicants tended to submit their scores only if they were above the school’s reported median, a pattern that causes that median to be recalibrated higher and higher each year. When Cornell went test-optional, its 25th percentile score on the math SAT jumped from 720 to 750. Then it went to 760. The ceiling is 800, so standardized tests had begun to morph from a system of gradients into a yes/no question: Did you get a perfect score? If not, don’t mention it.

The irony, however, was that in the search for a diverse student body, many elite colleges view strong-but-not-stellar test scores as proof that a student from an underprivileged background could do well despite lacking the advantages of the kids from big suburban high schools and fancy prep schools. Without those scores, it might be harder to make the case .

Multiply that across the board, and the result was that “test-optional” policies made admission to an elite school less likely for some diverse or disadvantaged applicants. Georgetown and M.I.T. were first to reinstate test score requirements, and so far this year Harvard, Yale, Brown, Caltech, Dartmouth and Cornell have announced that they will follow. There may be more to come.

The Power of No

On Dec. 14, Ivy got an answer from Duke: She was rejected.

She was in extremely good company. It’s been a while since top students could assume they’d get into top schools, but today, they get rejected more often than not. It even happens at places like Northeastern, a school now ranked 53rd in the nation by U.S. News & World Report — and not long ago, more than 100 slots lower than that — and which spends less per student on instruction than the Boston public schools .

“There’s no target school any more and no safety school,” says Stef Mauler , a private admissions coach in Texas. “You have to have a strategy for every school you apply to.”

Northeastern was one of the 18 other schools Ivy applied to, carefully sifting through various deadlines and conditions, mapping out her strategy. With Duke out of the way, her thoughts kept returning to one of them in particular: Dartmouth, her father’s alma mater. “My mom said, ‘Ivy, you love New Hampshire. Look at Dartmouth.’ She was right.” She had wanted to go someplace warm, but the idea of cold weather seemed to be bothering her less and less.

Meanwhile Rania watched as early decision day came and went, and thousands of high school seniors across the country got the best news of their lives. For Rania, it was just another Friday.

A Free Market in Financial Aid

In 2003, a consortium of about 20 elite colleges agreed to follow a shared formula for financial aid, to ensure that they were competing for students on the merits, not on mere dollars and cents. It sounds civilized, but pricing agreements are generally illegal for commercial ventures. (Imagine if car companies agreed not to underbid each other.) The colleges believed they were exempt from that prohibition, however, because they practiced “ need-blind ” admissions, meaning they don’t discriminate based on a student’s ability to pay.

In 2022, nine current and former students from an array of prestigious colleges filed a class action antitrust lawsuit — later backed by the Justice Department — arguing that the consortium’s gentlemanly agreement was depriving applicants of the benefits of a free market. And to defang the defense, they produced a brilliant argument: No, these wealthy colleges didn’t discriminate against students who were poor, but they sure did discriminate in favor of students who were rich. They favored the children of alumni and devoted whole development offices to luring the kinds of ultra-rich families that affix their names to shiny new buildings. It worked: early this year, Brown, Columbia, Duke, Emory and Yale joined the University of Chicago in conceding , and paying out a nine-figure settlement. (They deny any wrongdoing.) Several other schools are playing on, but the consortium and its rules have evaporated.

This set schools free to undercut one another on price in order to get their preferred students. It also gave the schools a further incentive to push for early decision, when students don’t have the ability to compare offers.

For almost anyone seeking financial aid, from the most sought-after first round pick to the kid who just slid under the wire, the first step remained the same: They had to fill out the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form, or FAFSA.

As anyone knows who’s been through it — or looked into the glassy eyes of someone else who has — applying for financial aid can be torture at the best of times. This year was the worst of times, because FAFSA was broken. The form, used by the government to determine who qualifies for federal grants or student loans, and by many colleges to determine their in-house financial aid, had gotten a much-needed overhaul. But the new version didn’t work , causing endless frustration for many families, and convincing many others not even to bother. At mid-April, finished FAFSA applications were down 29 percent compared to last year.

“The FAFSA catastrophe is bigger than people realize,” says Casey Sacks , a former U.S. Department of Education official, now President of BridgeValley Community and Technical College in West Virginia, where 70 percent of students receive federal funds.

Abigail Garcia , Rania’s classmate and the 2024 valedictorian of their school, applied to in-state public colleges as well as Ivies. She couldn’t complete the FAFSA, however, because it rejected her parents’ information, the most common glitch. She has financial aid offers from elite schools, all of which use a private alternative to the government form, but she can’t weigh them against the public institutions, because they are so severely delayed.

For most students, 2024’s FAFSA crisis looks set to take the uncertainty that began last fall and drag it into the summer or beyond. “That’s going to reduce the work force in two to four years.” Ms. Sacks says. “FAFSA completions are a pretty good leading indicator of how many people will be able to start doing the kinds of jobs that are in highest demand — registered nurses, manufacturing engineers, those kinds of jobs.”

As the FAFSA problem rolls on, it could be that for the system as a whole, the worst is still to come.

Can Any of This Be Fixed?

On the numbers, elite college applicants’ problems are a footnote to the story of college access. The Ivy-Plus schools enroll less than 1 percent of America’s roughly 15 million undergraduates . If you expand the pool to include all colleges that are selective enough to accept less than a quarter of applicants, we’re still talking about only 6 percent of undergraduates. The easiest way to alleviate the traffic jam at the top is to shift our cultural focus toward the hundreds of schools that offer an excellent education but are not luxury brands.

Luxury-brand schools, however, have real power. In 2023, 15 of 32 Rhodes scholars came from the Ivies, nine from Harvard alone. Twenty of this year’s 38 Supreme Court clerks came from Harvard or Yale. If elite colleges’ selection process is broken, what should we do to fix it?

Here’s what we can’t do: let them go off and agree on their own solution. Antitrust law exists to prevent dominant players from setting their own rules to the detriment of consumers and competitors.

Here’s what we won’t do: legislate national rules that govern admissions. Our systems are decentralized and it would take a miracle for Congress not to make things worse.

But here’s what we can do: Hold the schools accountable for their processes and their decisions.

Institutions that receive federal funds — which includes all elite colleges — should be required to clearly state their admissions criteria. Admissions as currently practiced is designed to let schools whose budgets run on billions of taxpayers dollars do whatever they want. Consider Stanford’s guidance to applicants: “In a holistic review, we seek to understand how you, as a whole person, would grow, contribute and thrive at Stanford, and how Stanford would, in turn, be changed by you.” This perfectly encapsulates the current system, because it is meaningless.

Colleges should also not be allowed to make anyone decide whether to attend without knowing what it will actually cost, and they should not be allowed to offer better odds to those who forgo that information. They should not offer admissions pathways tilted to favor the rich, any more than they should offer pathways favoring people who are white.

It just shouldn’t be this hard. Really.

The Envelope Please …

Ivy has the highest academic qualifications available inside the conventional system, and her family can pay full tuition. Once upon a time, she would have had her pick of top colleges. Not this year.

Over the course of the whole crazy admissions season, the school she had come to care about most was Dartmouth.

Along with the other seven Ivies, Dartmouth released this year’s admissions decisions online on March 28, at 7 p.m. Eastern. Ivy was traveling that day, and as the moment approached, she said, “I was on the bed in my hotel room, just repeating, ‘People love me for who I am, not what I do. People love me for who I am, not what I do.’”

She was rejected by Duke, Vanderbilt, Stanford, Columbia and the University of Southern California, where Varsity Blues shenanigans could once guarantee acceptance but, as Ivy discovered, a perfect score on the ACT will not. She landed on the wait list at Northeastern. She was accepted by Michigan and Johns Hopkins. And Ivy was accepted at both her parents’ alma maters: the University of Virginia and Dartmouth, where she will start in September.

For Rania, the star student with an extraordinary story of personal resilience, the news was not so good. At Barnard, she was remanded to the wait list. Last year only 4 percent of students in that position were eventually let in. The same thing happened at N.Y.U. and at the City University of New York’s medical college.

A spot on a wait list tells applicants that they were good enough to get in. By the time Rania applied to these schools, there just wasn’t any room. “It was definitely a shock,” she said. “What was I missing? They just ran out of space — there are so many people trying to get into these places. It took two weeks to adjust to it.”

She did get lots of other good news, a sheaf of acceptances from schools like Fordham and the University at Albany. But then came the hardest question of all: How to pay for them? Some offered her a financial aid package that would leave her on the hook for more money than undergraduates are allowed to take out in federal student loans. Even now, some colleges haven’t been able to provide her with financial aid information at all.

Rania had all but settled on Hunter College, part of the City University system. It’s an excellent school, but a world away from the elite colleges she was thinking about when she started her search. Then at almost the last moment, Wesleyan came through with a full ride and even threw in some extra for expenses. Rania accepted, gratefully.

For Rania, the whole painful roller coaster of a year was over. For so many other high school seniors, the year of broken college admissions continues.

Daniel Currell, a lawyer and consultant, was deputy under secretary and senior adviser at the U.S. Department of Education from 2018 to 2021. He is a trustee of Gustavus Adolphus College.

The Times is committed to publishing a diversity of letters to the editor. We’d like to hear what you think about this or any of our articles. Here are some tips . And here’s our email: [email protected] .

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