Behind the Scenes of an Extremely Complicated Year in College Admissions
Unprecedented changes have college applicants and their advisers rethinking everything—from what to study to where to apply to school. Here’s what you need to know.
Fear and uncertainty for international students looking to study in the U.S. due to President Trump’s war against elite universities. Confusion around AI and how and if it can be used to write a college essay. Ongoing nervousness about students’ safety on campuses in the wake of the Israel–Palestine protests that erupted last year. A dismantled Department of Education, i.e., the government body that oversees federal loans and grants for college students, a year after a botched rollout of the FAFSA form causing complications for families.
Welcome to the 2025 edition of Applying to College: Could it get any more anxiety-inducing and confusing?
The answer? Not really.
As high school seniors gear up to begin submitting college applications this fall, the mood in college admissions circles is decidedly bananas this summer, with families rethinking plans that have been set in place, in some cases, for years, due to all the turmoil. With Trump on the warpath against elite universities—Harvard, in particular—slashing their federal funding and attempting to limit their international student populations as punishment for what he deems the schools’ “woke” chokehold on American academia, some families who had once been dead set on the Ivies are now asking: Is Harvard still Harvard? Is Columbia safe? Even the University of Virginia has been dragged into the ring. In late June, its president, who had ushered in major DEI reforms at the school, resigned under pressure from the Trump administration.
As a result, families are continuing a trend that began following the social unrest movements of 2020, looking at schools down South, which have for the most part remained untouched by social and political unrest. But today the search is growing even wider, with families now considering schools that aren’t even in the U.S.
“The advice we’re giving is, Well, why not cast a wider net?,” said Lindsay Tanne, founder and CEO of LogicPrep, a college admissions consultancy based in New York and Connecticut.
International families caught in the crosshairs of the Trump administration’s crackdown on foreigners are getting this advice the most. Although a federal judge blocked Trump’s attempt to bar Harvard from enrolling any international students—students beyond those eyeing Harvard are also being affected. In June, the government banned citizens from 12 countries from entering the U.S. and heightened visa restrictions on another seven nations. Also in June, the State Department announced that it would “aggressively” revoke visas for Chinese students and increase scrutiny of future applications from China and Hong Kong.
“It’s been a stressful couple of months given the uncertainty around visas and what that looks like,” said Tanne. “We’re fielding a lot of calls with a lot of questions.”
(The situation is also stressing out universities, whose coffers rely heavily on the fact that most international students pay full tuition as they are not eligible for state and federal grants or financial aid.)
Tanne said that in some cases families are opting to “stay the course” and keep their sights set on the Ivy League. “For them it feels very much like business as usual. They’re almost nonchalant, like their enthusiasm for attending school in the U.S. is pretty much unwavering. Part of it is that for many of these families this has been the dream and the plan since childhood. So I think they’re saying, OK, this will blow over. Let me ride this out.”
Still, she said there is a noticeable uptick in families who “are applying to schools in Europe, the U.K. and Canada to diversify their options.”
On the list are universities like St. Andrews in Scotland, the Prince and Princess of Wales’s alma mater; Università Bocconi in Milan; IE University, an international business school whose primary campus is in Madrid; and the London School of Economics.
“Some families are thinking about it like, Let’s reach for the tippy top (in the U.S.) for my most aspirational schools, and if that doesn’t work out, maybe my safer option would be St. Andrews,” Tanne said. “I’d get to have this amazing international chapter that I wouldn’t have otherwise had rather than being in some remote college town in the U.S. that I’m less excited about.
“I know a couple of families tagging on college visits to their European summer vacations, which is something I’ve never seen before.”
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On a more granular level, college essays are also prompting calls to college consultants as students grapple with how and if they can use AI in the writing process.
Tanne is advising students to not use AI in any part of the college essay process—from brainstorming to writing. “Really for two reasons,” she said. “For the voice reason, part of the point of the essay is to authentically capture the student’s voice, and, even if it’s being used for editing, it has the potential to take out some of the rough edges that I think is what creates impact and meaning. Those imperfections are sometimes where the most compelling and personally resonant writing actually lives.
“Then from the practical perspective, more and more colleges are beginning to implement checks and tools to detect AI generated content. I expect this trend to grow, and the last thing we want is for a student to be flagged or questioned.”
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Government attacks on elite schools as well as the fear that issues of safety and free speech on those campuses haven’t been completely resolved, meanwhile, are pushing more families to look beyond the Ivy League.
Tanne urges students and parents to educate themselves on this front by visiting colleges earlier and picking up a copy of the student newspaper while on campus. “Read about the issues. Read the editorials by the students to get a sense of the vibe and the tenor. I think that is more important than it has historically been because it’s such a good window into how students in that moment are thinking about what’s going on.”
The excerpts above are from a Town & Country article authored by Nicole Laporte. Read the full piece, originally published on August 15, 2025, here.