St. Louis—The traditional admissions calendar is changing. During a session here on “application creep,” Phillip Trout, college counselor at Minnetonka High School, in Minnesota, described the proliferation of early deadlines he’s seen in recent years.

There’s early decision (in which acceptances are binding) and there are various versions of nonbinding early-action programs, which, many counselors say, are increasingly popular among students. Some colleges have adopted “priority” deadlines for regular-decision applicants. And others have embraced “fast-track” applications, which promise a quick decision.

Mr. Trout recalled that he once promised to meet with every senior in his high school before Thanksgiving. Now, he said, some families wanted everything done by October 1. As of mid-January of this year, 582 of Minnetonka’s 746 seniors had applied to at least one...

St. Louis—People often talk about why students decide to apply to particular colleges, but perhaps it’s just as important to think about when they do so.

On Wednesday afternoon, Larry Erenberger, an enrollment consultant at the National Research Center for College and University Admissions, presented data on how high-school students’ awareness and opinions of colleges change over time. The research was based on information collected through the organization’s “My College Options” program, which asks students to state their top college choices. The study included 2.7 million “declarations” of interest in specific colleges made by more than one million students during the 2009-10 academic year.

A major finding was that big-name colleges lose “market share” as students progress through high school. During that time, students become more aware of lesser-known institutions—and find them...

St. Louis -- Just a few blocks from the Gateway Arch, everyone’s talking about college admissions. Today’s the first day of the National Association for College Admission Counseling’s annual conference, and deans and high-school counselors from all over the nation have descended on this city to discuss recruitment, testing, financial aid, and the elusive notion of “fit.”

On my walk to the convention center early, two counselors talked to me about the challenge of getting colleges interested in students who are “good, but not great.” A few blocks away, two admissions deans traded tales of dealing with presidents who are never satisfied. Said one: “So I told him, ‘Look, we made our class. What else do you want?’”

Later this morning, I was a panelist in a session sponsored by TargetX, a higher-education marketing company. The topic: how colleges can meet enrollment challenges during a time...

On Wednesday, I caught up with James W. Jump, the departing president of the National Association for College Admission Counseling, on the eve of the group’s annual conference, in St. Louis. Mr. Jump has been academic dean and director of guidance at Saint Christopher’s School, in Virginia, since 1990.

Q. Since taking the helm of the association, what insights have you gained from folks on the college side?

A. I think the job is getting harder for everyone. One of the things I worry about for us as a profession is that the pressures put on people on the college side and pressures put on people on the high school side are drawing us apart.

Q. Right. There’s a strong sense among some of NACAC’s members, particularly high-school counselors, that college admissions is in crisis, infected with commercialism, and that the sky is falling fast. Then again, people have been saying the same...

Fall is here, and another harvest of college applications has begun. Over the next few months, hundreds of thousands of high-school seniors will apply to college through the popular portal known as the Common Application, a standardized form used by an ever-growing list of institutions.

 
Now in its 35th year, the Common Application began as a small membership association of 15 private colleges. Today, more than 400 institutions use the form, which many admissions deans say has helped them recruit more first-generation and minority students. Recently, the nonprofit group welcomed its first two international members.
 
Among the most-selective colleges, the decision to adopt the application seems almost inevitable—a question of when, not if. Two years ago, the University of Chicago, long known for its distinctive Uncommon Application, joined the party after years of principled objections....

For the first time in history, white students account for fewer than half of freshmen at the University of Texas at Austin, according to a preliminary anlaysis of enrollment data released on Tuesday.

The university's Office of Information Management and Analysis reports that 47.6 percent of 7,275 first-time freshmen identified their ethnicity/race as "white," compared to 52.1 percent last fall. Hispanic students constitute 23.1 percent of the freshman class (up from 20.8 percent), and black students account for 5.1 percent (up from 4.9 percent). And 17.3 percent of students identified themselves as "Asian only" (down from 19.6 percent).

As of the fall semester, the university must report its ethnic and racial breakdowns in accordance with new federal  guidelines, which allow students to specify more than one category. In a news release, Kristi Fisher, associate vice provost and...