2025 Was a Historic Mess

Well…it goes without saying that 2025 might’ve been the wildest year ever in global college admissions. While applications and enrollments declined overall, and AI made it difficult for recent graduates to obtain jobs (even for tech majors from elite universities!), we saw the second Trump administration, newly in power, really take center stage in shaping the narrative. For the first time since COVID-19, the worldwide college admissions process felt highly uncertain for everyone. Many hedged their bets and started considering more schools in Europe and elsewhere, thus decentering the American system as the sole destination for study abroad.

Nonetheless, high schoolers, both domestic and international, kept applying (in high numbers) to undergraduate programs, as they decided that a US education is still the envy of the world. We can expect this same pragmatic philosophy to drive 2026. And in that spirit, we give you the TOP 10 COLLEGE ADMISSIONS HEADLINES OF 2025 (see Part 2 for the second half), with commentary on how each matters to YOU for 2026.

1. Trump vs Harvard and Other Elite Colleges

Obviously, this story was going to be our #1. There’s an old phrase in US politics, used to explain voters’ approval or disapproval of the president and their political party: “It’s the economy, stupid!” In a similar way, we can talk all the different structural changes and other news involving the global college admissions process in 2025, but the hot topic that dominated every discussion had a single name: TRUMP. His 2024 presidential campaign built on a nativist, anti-DEI platform that had been gaining popularity in recent years, including the 2022 repeal of Roe v. Wade, the 2023 repeal of affirmative action in college admissions, and the return of required standardized testing in college admissions, beginning around 2023.

Why It Should Matter to You

Still, it was quite a shock to see the US federal government set its sights on Harvard and similar elite institutions. The Trump administration’s argument was that America was allowing too many international students study within its shores, and universities should conform to the federal government’s desires if they wish to receive federal funding (an essential funding source for most universities, even the wealthiest private institutions). In its wake, we saw universities such as Columbia acquiesce to many of the administration’s mandates (including the renaming/dismantling of DEI programs), a protracted legal battle with Harvard, F-1 student visas paused and given additional scrutiny, a new $100,000 fee for H1-B visa holders, and a proposed set of mandates for universities to sign in exchange for federal funding. Based on these trends, DEI has clearly been a primary focus for the second Trump administration, and it may be prepared to fight further into successive admissions cycles, making admissions more difficult for immigrants of any kind while also limiting support for racial/ethnic and gender/sexual diversity. Applicants may feel increased pressure to sanitize their application essay writing and interviews from DEI-related subject matter.

Yet, since we saw so many Ivy League universities (and others of similar prestige and wealth) reject these mandates, while keeping their essay prompts focused on concerns of identity and dialogue across diverse viewpoints, DEI is certainly not dead. Major university websites still feature the language of “diversity,” “equity,” and “inclusion.” International undergraduates by and far eventually received their F-1 student visas for the fall 2025 term. Plus, international applicants have still submitted a high number of applications for 2025-26 thus far. The Trump administration itself has relaxed the pressure of some of its mandates (such as the H-1B visa fee rules); now seemingly satisfied with making a big global statement to begin its term, it seems to be focused on other issues, such as Venezuela, Greenland, and Iran.

2. Universities Turn to AI in Admissions Evaluation

In a delicious twist of irony, we learned in 2025 that several top universities have incorporated AI into their process of evaluating college admissions applications. You know, the same schools that repeatedly warn applicants not to use AI to actually write their essays? Places such as Caltech, Virginia Tech, and UNC–Chapel Hill have been confirmed to use AI for scoring essays and conducting interviews—a reality that would’ve sounded unthinkable just a few years ago, when admissions departments seemed uninterested in letting their work become dehumanized. (Most telling is the UNC–Chapel Hill exposé, which reveals a breakdown of their scoring framework…by the official student newspaper!)

Nowadays, with such a high volume of applications, and thus overworked AOs reviewing thousands of applications for months on end without vacation, admissions departments appear more open to adopt more efficient processes that remove human beings from the grunt work of the process. Their rationale is that AI helps to filter their workload, so that AOs can focus on the concerns where their human judgment really counts.

Why It Should Matter to You

Dystopian as it may sound, this trend is likely to continue into the near future. It’s only a matter of time before a hybrid admissions evaluation process (human and AI) becomes the norm. Which means that applicants will need to be all the more authentic and quirky in their applications, because AI-generated essays or bland interviews will only appear formulaic and robotic to AI models trained on styles common to platforms such as ChatGPT. “Generated” and “generic” share the same etymology…

3. Standardized Testing Now Reinstated at 7 of 8 Ivy League Schools

We’d seen the trend building since at least the 2023-24 admissions cycle, when top places such as MIT returned to standardized testing requirements. This year, however, feels like the nail in the coffin. UPenn added its name to the list, leaving only one remaining Ivy permanently test-optional: Columbia. (Princeton will reinstate the policy for the 2027-28 admissions cycle; Cornell’s requirement begins for 2026-27; Yale is now “text-flexible,” as you don’t actually have to submit SAT/ACT, but you must submit an equivalent AP or IB test.) Meanwhile, other Ivy+ schools, such as Stanford, announced the same.

Why It Should Matter to You

Whereas the disruptions of COVID-19 led universities to relax their test requirements, seeing as many applicants (especially international students) couldn’t access testing centers, the unintended effect was record-high application volumes, featuring many underqualified applicants. Formerly test-optional universities now want to prioritize quality, and amid recent anti-DEI trends (which reject progressive ideas that standardized tests are biased against marginalized populations), they see standardized tests as the best predictors of applicants’ success in college. Expect test-required policies to again become the norm, not the exception, at elite US universities.

4. More Institutions Favor Binding Early Decision Options

Changes in Early Decision (ED), the option to apply early and receive an early binding admission to your chosen university, seemed all the rage this past year. Michigan introduced its inaugural ED option, as did the Marshall business school at USC (a two-year pilot). Earlier, for 2024-25, Rice began offering ED II (Early Decision with a deadline following most universities’ ED I or (nonbinding) Early Action (EA) deadlines and results notifications), clearly a sign that they want to lock down more qualified applicants into a binding decision instead of competing with rival universities for Regular Decision (RD).

Curiously, Carnegie Mellon discontinued its ED II option, perhaps with the intent to cease being a secondary choice for top applicants. Traditionally, many applicants have elected to pursue Ivy League and Ivy-adjacent universities such as Stanford in the first early round (ED or EA), then pursue Carnegie Mellon for ED II, knowing that it can be a commendable “backup” in case their dream school says no or defer in December. (As if a school with a 12% admit rate could ever be a backup!)

Why It Should Matter to You

All this shows just how competitive the applicant market has become for elite universities, which vie for the same top students each year. The highest echelon of US universities almost never offers ED II, save for UChicago, which had the most interesting development of all: the introduction of its Summer Session Early Notification (SSEN), colloquially known in external circles as the “ED 0” option. For the first time, applicants had the ability to attend a UChicago summer program at some point and then apply and receive a result notification as early as mid-September, well before even the standard ED I and EA deadline of 3 November!

Traditional wisdom had always held that attending a summer program at a given university doesn’t make you more likely to gain admission there, but UChicago is now instituting just the opposite idea. If it works well, we’ll probably see more universities implementing similar policies, trying to to hook the best applicants by keeping them within their system from summer program to undergraduate studies.

5. Dialogue and Civility Portfolios Enter US Admissions Process

Again (you guessed it), as the US political climate has become increasingly polarized, against the backdrop of hotly contested issues such as the Russo-Ukraine War and the Israel–Hamas War, universities have been highly focused on building diverse academic environments where students of opposing opinions and perspectives genuinely learn from each other. This desire has reflected in their changing supplemental essay prompts, which increasingly ask about how you once engaged in a difficult conversation or confronted a different perspective.

Taking things one step further, in 2025, eight top US universities (MIT, Columbia, UChicago, Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, NYU, and Colby) announced plans to pilot a new application component: the “dialogue portfolio,” “civility portfolio,” or “civility transcript.” Basically, applicants engage in a form of intellectual debate or discourse in a 1-on-1 peer-to-peer setting, often regarding a provocative topic such as gun control or abortion. Each is assessed based on their performance along several parameters, such as “curiosity,” “empathy,” and “open-mindedness.”

Why It Should Matter to You

Strange and subjective as it sounds, the process isn’t terribly different from the seminar or workshop format of teaching, which undoubtedly serves as the model. University lecture-based courses often break up into smaller, more intimate discussions among ten or so students and one faculty member who facilitates. Some courses only ever meet in this setting, forgoing large lectures altogether.

Either way, for future applicants, the so-called “dialogue portfolio” becomes yet another hurdle to clear, a hoop to jump through, amid an already complex and mysterious admissions process. If interviews were already nerve-wracking, they will now be interacting with direct competitors (apparently—the actual background of the peer graders is unclear), getting scored on how well they don’t come off like merciless sharks. And although several partners—MIT and Vanderbilt—(after the understandable backlash) have recently withdrawn from the pilot program (which is hosted by a third-party peer-tutoring platform, Schoolhouse.world, founded by Khan Academy CEO Salman Khan), we can predict that such ideas will persist in the admissions process, in some form.

Check out our follow-up post (Part 2) for the remaining 5 headlines of 2025.