A Rant About Direct Admissions

I’ve been thinking a lot about the The Chronicle of Higher Education piece on Hampshire College by Taylor Swaak. Not because Hampshire’s situation is unique, but because it highlights a mistake we’re still making across the industry: treating Direct Admissions like “real” admissions.

It’s not. Direct Admissions is inquiry generation not an admissions process. Full stop.

A Direct Admit should not be counted, forecasted, or evaluated the same way as a student who actively applies after learning about your institution. When we do that, we end up with inflated expectations and distorted yield math.

Hampshire had its highest number of applications in more than a decade after rolling out Direct Admissions. And yet, enrollment landed at just 56% of goal with a 9% yield.

Students who self-select into your application pool already understand something about who you are, what you offer and why you might be right for them.

Students who receive a Direct Admit are different. Many have little to no context for your value proposition. They haven’t made a choice. They’ve received an option. You haven’t generated an admit, you’ve generated awareness.

Those are two fundamentally different populations. If you merge them in reporting, you lose the early signals that tell you something is wrong. Thank you Ned Jones for saying this from Day 1!

Vendors who position Direct Admissions as equivalent to traditional admits are doing institutions and this industry a disservice. Not because DA is bad, but because overselling it undermines trust, planning, and outcomes. Direct Admissions can be powerful when it’s framed honestly as top-of-funnel work and supported accordingly.