Still need to find a four-year college?

It is now May 3rd.  Students were supposed to commit to their final choice of college by May 1st.  So, it's all finished, this latest college admission season.  Right?

Wrong.  Every year, around this time, the National Association of College Admission Counseling (NACAC) posts a list of colleges and universities around the country that still have space available for admissions.  As of this writing:

• 362 colleges/universities have space available for freshman students
• 374 have space available for transfer students
• 373 still have institutional aid (grants, scholarships, work-study) available
• 354 still have campus housing available
• 70% are private schools; 30% are public (source: www.nacacnet.org)

This data will continue to change and remain posted until June 29th.  This survey of colleges and universities is participatory, so there may be further colleges and universities with space that are not on this list.  According to the published fact sheet, an additional trend is that is that from 2005 to 2011, there were less than 300 schools with space available at this time.  Last year, in 2011, there were 279.  This year there are 375, a sharp increase.

So, which of your students might benefit from this information?

• Students who have yet to apply to a four-year school.  These may be some of your procrastinators, but these might also be students who were unsure if they would get admitted to a four year school based on past grades but have shown improvement and gained in maturity.  Further, they may be students who are first-generation college students who have struggled through the admissions process. 
• Students who applied to four-year schools and did not get admitted either to any of the schools on their list, or did not get admitted to any of their top-choice schools.  These students are looking for plan B's (or C's, D's, or E's).  They may have gotten accepted to a "safety" school, but have since decided that school is not really for them and are looking for other options.
• Students who have gotten accepted to schools, but who did not receive the financial aid package necessary for them to attend.  It is especially important to pay attention to the schools on this list that still have financial aid available.  As I've written about before, the stronger they are as students as compared to the general applicant pool of that college or university, the more scholarship and merit aid they are likely to receive.

If you have any students who you think may fit into these categories, it might be worth touching base with them as soon as possible to see if they would be interested in putting in additional applications.  Bon chance!