by Dave Best
What is a dream college? For some it starts with the Ivy League, its eight schools and historic academic reputations. Many kids strive for excellent colleges with prominent brands and rich in school spirit. Other students focus in on the schools in our greatest cities.
When we focus on the schools that most high school seniors like, it essentially becomes a popularity contest. They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Some students value academics and a school’s academic ranking, equating the most selective schools as providing the best education. Others grow up as a legacy of a particular school where one or several of their parents or grandparents attended, and that dream is continued to the next generation. With the huge popularity of college sports, many kids already root for certain schools and aspire to be a student on campus come game day. The rankings they may value is the top schools for football and basketball.
One way to score which colleges are most popular is simply by counting which schools receive the most applications for their freshman class. Just like we vote in an election, high school seniors essentially vote for their top schools by applying for admission. Besides time and application fees, nothing limits students from applying to one or even twenty or more colleges. Some applications are placed based on affordability, so many of those are at in-state schools. So it is not surprising that many of the schools receiving the most applications are in California, Texas and New York. Note there is no minimum standard necessary to apply at any school regardless of its selectivity.
By far the most “popular” school based on number of applicants is UCLA with almost 100,000. That is a lot of California dreaming and almost 60,000 applications more popular than Harvard to put things in perspective. Below I share the colleges the most students applied to in each region of the United States with a few of the reasons they are so popular.
Northeast:
New York University (NYU)
Top Reasons Students Dream to Attend:
- Live in the heart of New York City
- Stern School of Business has solid connections to Wall Street
- Tisch School of the Arts has a strong pipeline to Broadway
Location: New York, NY
# Applicants: 56,092
# Freshman: 5,917
# Applications per Seat: 9.5
Southeast:
Duke University
Top Reasons Students Dream to Attend:
- Excellence in academics and research
- Location in Research Triangle (with mild winters)
- School spirit for Duke Blue Devils 5-time national basketball champions
Location: Durham, NC
# Applicants: 32,111
# Freshman: 1,731
# Applications per Seat: 18.6
Midwest:
University of Michigan
Top Reasons Students Dream to Attend:
- Direct admit Ross School of Business, a top national undergraduate program
- Encouraged to attend by one of the 575,000 living alumni
- School spirit for the Michigan Wolverines 11-time national football champions
Location: Ann Arbor, MI
# Applicants: 55,504
# Freshman: 6,689
# Applications per Seat: 8.3
Southwest:
University of Texas
Top Reasons Students Dream to Attend:
- Automatic admission for Texas students in Top 7% of their high school class
- Hook ‘em Horns with solid school spirit and 100,000 fans at football games
- Austin is a very cool city with a great music scene and excellent weather
Location: Austin, TX
# Applicants: 43,952
# Freshman: 7,566
# Applications per Seat: 5.8
West:
UCLA
Top Reasons Students Dream to Attend:
- Most applications of any college because students dream to be in California
- Combination of excellent academics, beautiful campus and great weather
- Nearby the beaches, Beverly Hills, Downtown Los Angeles and Hollywood
Location: Los Angeles, CA
# Applicants: 97,121
# Freshman: 6,546
# Applications per Seat: 14.8
