For current high school sophomores — potential members of Georgetown University’s Class of 2031 — becoming a Hoya may be more difficult than ever.
These students will become the first with the option to apply to Georgetown using the Common Application, an online college application platform which over a million students use to apply to U.S. colleges.
College admissions professionals and data from Georgetown predict joining the Common App could significantly impact university admissions, including an influx of applications and increased accessibility for lower-income and minority students.
Georgetown is one of only a few top-ranked colleges that do not currently use the Common App. Over 1,000 U.S. colleges accept the Common App for undergraduate admissions — including each of Georgetown’s 10 self-selected “peer schools,” schools to which the university compares itself in student and faculty data.
Increasing Application Numbers
Georgetown officials see their decision to join the Common App, which The Hoya first reported March 24 and the university confirmed March 27, as a way of increasing its applicant numbers.
Interim Provost Soyica Diggs Colbert’s (COL ’01) presentation to the university’s faculty senate March 20 described joining the Common App as a way to ensure enrollment remains high to protect Georgetown against the “demographic cliff” — a predicted decline in college enrollment as the U.S. birth rate has decreased.
On an individual level, joining the Common App allows students considering applying to Georgetown to integrate their college search and application with their applications to other schools, according to Susan Chiarolanzio, the director of college counseling at the Flint Hill School, a private K-12 school in Oakton, Va.
“As we are talking with students about the process, we will always mention that there are some schools that use a different platform, and Georgetown is one of the ones that we’ll say, ‘Hey, if you’re planning to apply, there’s a different process,’” Chiarolanzio told The Hoya. “When we’re speaking casually about applying, we just refer to the Common App. It’s just such a ubiquitous term and system that it makes it easier for kids to just do everything, but also just to research colleges.”
Chiarolanzio said she expects more students, both at her Northern Virginia school and in general, to apply to Georgetown after it begins using the Common App.
Doreen Helmke, a New Jersey-based college adviser and educational consultant, said she expects to see a drastic increase in applications to Georgetown.
“My goodness, they are not going to even be able to conceive how many applications they’re going to get next year,” Helmke told The Hoya. “It’s so easy to hit that ‘apply.’ With kids applying to more and more schools every year, I think they’re going to see an astronomical amount.”
Helmke said she saw Georgetown’s separate application sometimes created barriers for students with whom she worked.
“It definitely, I think, impeded some kids from actually applying,” Helmke said. “There were definitely some barriers, because it was more challenging, more difficult.”
Joining the Common App has resulted in major increases in admissions at other large universities that have recently joined the Common Application, such as the University of Texas at Austin (UT-Austin) and Rutgers University.
After joining the Common App, UT-Austin received just over 10% more applications for entry — the university received 59,767 in Fall 2022, its last year before joining the Common App, before receiving 66,109 applications for entry in Fall 2023.
Rutgers joined the Common App in 2023 and saw over 76,000 students apply for first-year admission into the university’s three campuses — 35% more than the 56,200 who had applied the previous year.
Helmke said one side effect of a possible increase in applications is an increase in deferrals — where early applicants’ decisions are pushed to later in the year.
“I think it’s going to be hard for the admissions office to go through all of the applications,” Helmke said. “They’re going to feel very overwhelmed. Typically, what you see in schools when this happens is that they defer a larger percentage of kids just because they don’t have the time to read the applications.”
Reaching New Groups
The university has also touted joining the Common App to increase accessibility in the university’s admissions process.
Diggs Colbert said she expects joining the Common App will allow Georgetown to reach students who may not have otherwise applied.
“The Common App will ensure Georgetown’s applicant pool contains a rich set of backgrounds and life experiences,” Diggs Colbert wrote in a March 27 press release.
In her presentation, Diggs Colbert also said the Common Application has historically reached more lower-income and minority applicants than the Georgetown application.
Since 2013, the number of Black and Hispanic students applying to Georgetown has increased by 30% and 62%, respectively — in contrast to growth of 64% and 69%, respectively, in the number of Black and Hispanic students using the Common App to apply to Georgetown, according to data in Diggs Colbert’s presentation.
Asher Maxwell (CAS ’26), a student who advocates for admissions reforms, said joining the Common App will remove barriers impeding less wealthy students from applying.
“One of the reasons that the university continually has given us for why they have so struggled to enroll more working class and middle class students year after year is that they lack the kind of admissions tool that would allow them to do that,” Maxwell told The Hoya. “They talk about how they struggle to get working class and middle class students to apply.”
“Moving to the Common App would hopefully have the effect of bringing more students into the applicant pool and potentially making it easier for the university to enroll more middle class, working class students,” Maxwell added.
Maxwell said he was only able to apply to Georgetown because of a college counselor, a resource not all prospective Hoyas have access to.
“I would not have figured out the Georgetown admissions process in time if it weren’t for my college counselor, and Georgetown was my first choice,” Maxwell said. “I probably would have missed a deadline or something for the separate application process, just because I had a lot of other balls juggling at once.”
Helmke said joining the Common App will increase Georgetown’s geographic diversity, noting West Coast students interested in universities like the University of California (UC) schools may learn more about Georgetown through the Common App.
“It’s always on my radar, because I live on the East Coast,” Helmke said. “I’ve been to Georgetown. I know what an amazing school it is. For somebody in California who’s typically looking at the UCs, they’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, it’s a great school.’ But when they start reading all the stuff and more articles come up about Georgetown, and they start Googling, more people are going to be enticed to go to Georgetown.”
Maxwell said he hopes joining the Common App makes it easier for students from all backgrounds to apply to Georgetown.
“For students who come from prep schools, like I did, or who come from really wealthy backgrounds and have access to a lot of tutors and college counselors, they can take advantage of the admissions process every single time you put up a barrier like a separate application,” Maxwell said.
“Because of how time intensive the application process can be, every single time you make it harder for students to apply, that disproportionately makes it harder for the people who have to work a job after school, or people who don’t have college counselors and tutors and tons of alumni families in their communities who can help them navigate that process,” Maxwell added.
