Hundreds of students in the St. Louis area have won admission to Missouri colleges without ever submitting a formal application. The University of Missouri-St. Louis and other state universities are trying out direct admissions to boost student enrollment.
Students are accepted based on their academic profiles, allowing them to bypass the usual fees and essays. UMSL and six other Missouri universities use the college search website Niche to send students an acceptance letter and scholarship options without a separate application.
Universities extend conditional offers based on grade-point averages, test scores and academic interests. After high school seniors create a Niche profile, they can opt in for direct admission into UMSL, the University of Central Missouri, Northwest Missouri State University, Missouri S&T, Maryville University and Southeast Missouri State University.
“We can get approved for a car, a house and a credit card within minutes, but a college application is the only thing that you can't get approved for within minutes,” said Reggie Hill, UMSL’s vice chancellor for strategic enrollment.
The direct admissions program aims to change that and offers students an instant answer. Hill said the initiative simplifies the application process for first-generation and low-income students in particular.
“It takes the fear out of applying to college,” Hill said. “Instead of actually applying … submitting your transcripts and then waiting, twiddling your fingers … we actually reverse engineer that process.”
While similar direct admissions initiatives exist in Illinois and other states, they’re limited to state schools. The direct admission program allows both public and private universities to provide students with automatic offers and a list of scholarship opportunities.
UMSL accepted a small number of students through a pilot direct admission program in 2022 but opened it to all students this fall. St. Louis native Jalen Walker-Wright learned about the program after graduating from UMSL in May with a bachelor’s degree in business administration.
“I wish I would have had that,” Walker-Wright said. “That would help significantly. It saves time and stress, instead of having to search out and apply for every competitive scholarship. Everything is just right there for you to see what you're eligible for.”
This semester, UMSL accepted more than 800 students based on their online profile. While only 76 of those students enrolled, Niche CEO Luke Skurman said it’s still a worthwhile recruitment effort.
“There's a lot of questions on value … but really the reason to do the program was simply to make the process more efficient, reduce the unnecessary friction, create more leverage for the college admissions staff, make the families feel more wanted,” Skurman said.
Several universities in the St. Louis area face enrollment decline and rising tuition. More than 1 million fewer 18- to 24-year-olds are going to college now than in 2011, according to the Pew Research Center. The online direct admission initiative aims to speed up the process and “flip the model.”
“This generation of students … they didn't want to wait three to six months to see if they've been accepted,” Skurman said. “They're really keen on knowing the transparency and getting to the truth on cost … so this all about being in tune with this market, and I think no one felt like status quo was working.”
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