Hailey Melendez already has a list of colleges that have accepted her, even though she hasn’t applied.

The 17-year-old senior at Benjamin Franklin High School in South Baltimore is benefiting from a program that’s been gaining popularity in recent years: direct admissions.

Students fill out their demographic information and their grade-point averages into the Common App, which facilitates applications for hundreds of colleges across the country. Schools get that information even before a student has applied and can offer them admission on the spot, if their GPA and test scores are good enough and they’re from a low- or middle-income background or would be the first in their family to graduate from college.

That has worked out well for Melendez, who will be the first in her family to graduate from high school and go to college. She said she’s feeling calmer about the college application process now because of the program, which began in 2021.

“It has introduced me to colleges I’d never heard of before,” the prospective nursing major said. “It is encouragement and motivation for me to succeed and value academic excellence.”

The program has growing popularity in Maryland, with three additional universities signing on this year, bringing the total to seven:

• Capitol Technology University
• Coppin State University
• Goucher College
• Mount St. Mary’s University
• Towson University
• Washington College
• University of Maryland Eastern Shore

Nationally, the direct admissions program has grown from 119 participating colleges in 25 states last academic year to more than 200 colleges in 41 states and Washington, D.C. Last year, 733,000 students were offered direct admission.

Coppin State is reaping the benefits already. The university welcomed its largest incoming class in over 25 years, which Jinawa McNeil, the school’s director of admissions, said was partially because of direct admissions.

“It allows us to get in front of students and show them that we are an option, even if they live across the country,” McNeil said.

Last year, the historically Black university in West Baltimore extended direct admissions offers to 450,000 students, McNeil said. This year, they’re looking to match that, especially for out-of-state students.

“We had more than 1,000 students enroll this year, and a decent amount of them are from out of state,” she said. “Having the reach from the direct admit program definitely helped us bring in more students.”

Roughly 14,700 of the 450,000 students who received direct admissions offers at Coppin State ended up submitting a formal application to the university, McNeil said.

Each college that participates in the Common App’s direct admissions program can set its own GPA and test score requirements. At Coppin State, students considered for the program must have a GPA of 2.5 or above and don’t have to submit any additional essays or personal statements.

Some schools, like Towson University, keep their criteria internal.

At Towson, direct admissions are used to “expand the pipeline” up and down the Eastern Seaboard, according to Amy Moffat, the university’s assistant vice president of admissions.

“This initiative really helps us connect to students who might not have had Towson University on their college list,” she said.

The data backs Moffat up.

A little over 20% of students who received at least one direct admission offer at a college they weren’t previously considering added that school to their “official” college list, said Samantha Karp, a senior product manager at Common App. A student’s official college list is the collection of schools to which they plan to apply.

Additionally, 75% of students who add a college to their official list end up actually applying.

“We’ve heard over these last several years from students that get admissions offers that they feel more confident and worthy of being college-going because of these offers,” she said.

That makes direct admissions all the more appealing to colleges, especially as the “demographic cliff” creeps up. That’s the shrinking number of college-age adults in the coming years. During the Great Recession, couples had fewer children, and colleges are starting to feel the impacts 18 years later.

That’s why Goucher, which requires students to have at least a 3.0 GPA to qualify for direct admission, is starting the program this year, said Michael Marshall, the college’s vice president for enrollment and student success.

“We’re starting to think about ways we can get in front of more students,” he said.

There’s also an increase in first-generation, low-income students attending college, Marshall said. Because the direct admissions program through Common App helps directly target those students, it’s a win-win, he said.

“We’re already seeing at Goucher with our own enrollment pipeline a shift of what students are going to college,” Marshall said. “This helps us meet them halfway.”

About the Education Hub

This reporting is part of The Banner’s Education Hub, community-funded journalism that provides parents with resources they need to make decisions about how their children learn. Read more.