More high school seniors finding out which Minnesota colleges they’re admitted to — before they apply

A state program that tells high school seniors which Minnesota colleges they can attend without requiring them to apply is helping more students enroll in higher education — and there’s a bill this year that would require all high schools in the state to participate.

The Office of Higher Education debuted its Direct Admissions effort three years ago as a pilot program; this school year is its first permanent year, and about 180 Minnesota high schools are participating.

Minnesota is among a dozen states with this type of program, which provides colleges with basic information about students, including their GPA, and then informs students which schools they’re eligible to attend. Fifty-five colleges and universities in Minnesota are signed on, including community and technical colleges, tribal colleges, private colleges, Minnesota State schools and institutions in the University of Minnesota system.

“It’s just a great program to be able to give a kid a letter and say, ‘If you were to apply, these are the schools that you would be accepted to,’” said Jennifer Ring, a high school counselor in the Minnewaska district in western Minnesota. “So it kind of takes that worry out of a student’s mind [of], ‘Am I going to get accepted?’”

State officials say the program is having its intended effects: increasing the percentage of students enrolling in college right after high school, getting them to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA), and keeping more Minnesota high school graduates here for college, rather than losing them to other states.

“So far our findings for all three of those are yes, yes, and yes,” said Wendy Robinson, the Office of Higher Education’s assistant commissioner for programs, policies and grants. “We’re seeing, by and large, some really positive trends.”

The state has an “aggressive goal” to have all 800-plus Minnesota high schools voluntarily implement the program in the coming years, said Aaron Salasek, the state’s Direct Admissions program coordinator.

A bill introduced this session by Sen. Heather Gustafson, DFL-Vadnais Heights, would require all Minnesota high schools to participate by 2029-2030. That gives schools plenty of time, she said.

“The idea is that more and more students will then see themselves as being college material,” she said. “This really lets them know that they are qualified and will likely be accepted ... and then it’s just up to them to choose the school that fits best.”

Gustafson, a former high school teacher, said the program is especially important for first-generation college students. She said she’s seen the power of a similar program put on by one Wisconsin university in which students are told in the span of a day if they’re admitted.

“The doors are open to them,” she said. “They were closing those doors on themselves, but now they have just a whole new outlook.”

Gustafson said one criticism of the bill has been that it’s another mandate on schools without funding. But the program only requires high schools to put in 40 hours of work to set it up, and that’s spread over the first year, she said.

Of the dozen states with direct admission, Minnesota’s is the most comprehensive model in terms of the variety of participating colleges and universities. Many other states have contacted Minnesota for details on how it works, Salasek said.

“Honestly, I think Minnesota is leading the way with this initiative. We are the model,” Salasek said.

After high school seniors are notified about the schools they’re automatically admitted to, students can respond by saying which institutions they’re interested in; those institutions follow up with students and explain next steps. Students likely have to fill out colleges’ individual application forms and submit other materials.

An added benefit is that when seniors see that they’re already admitted to a few colleges, it may entice them to explore options beyond what’s on their list, said BG Tucker, executive director for College Possible Minnesota, an access program that prepares students for college.

“I see it as a momentum builder for a student,” she said. “So they might not end up at their Direct Admissions school, but honestly, it can be what ticks off their excitement and enthusiasm for the [application] process.”

College Possible works with students from 50 Minnesota high schools; they also partner with the state to run Direct Admissions programs at any school that doesn’t have the staff to do it themselves.

Augsburg University has taken part in Direct Admissions since 2022. Around the same time, the school was looking at simplifying their own admission process with a quicker turnaround time, said Stephanie Ruckel, Augsburg’s director of strategic enrollment management.

One plus of Direct Admissions is that it “forced schools to be really transparent about what their admission criteria would be,” she said. Once Augsburg realized they were already admitting everyone with a 3.25 GPA, it made them question the value of having students write essays and get recommendation letters. The school created a much shorter application for students who were already promised Direct Admission.

Ruckel said Augsburg has seen increased numbers of students applying from schools that do Direct Admissions, but it’s hard to determine why a student ultimately chooses to enroll. Some students who received Direct Admissions letters still fill out the traditional application.

At Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD), Melissa Huybrecht, vice president of enrollment management, said she feels the program is successful, with about 3% of incoming students having a tie to Direct Admissions.

At the University of Minnesota’s Rochester campus, about 19% of the school’s total applications come from Direct Admissions, along with 13% of admitted students, said Terry Whittum, associate vice chancellor for enrollment management.

The program is especially helpful for first-generation and immigrant students, he said, along with rural Minnesota students.

Several college officials said they worried about whether all high schools had the capacity to implement the program, especially with Minnesota’s high student-to-counselor ratios.

Though the program is free and the state provides some funding to schools, Salasek said schools may still have trouble fulfilling its technology or staffing requirements.

Amanda Sitron is a school counselor at Terra Nova School in Buffalo, a charter school that’s project-based and doesn’t use letter grades. Instead, the school submits test scores and other data to colleges for Direct Admissions.

“Direct Admissions has been great to advocate for a program like ours and to help our students get into college despite not having those traditional metrics,” Sitron said.

Jennifer Blair, a counselor at Buffalo High School, said the initial set up was “quite a bit of work” but the last two years have been easier.

“I see it as, if it helped even one student apply and go to college that didn’t think they could ... to me personally, it’s worth it,” she said.

Several counselors and admissions staffers said they had ideas for how to make the program better.

Blair wants the program to create a universal application so once students indicate which schools they’re interested in, they only have to fill out one more form. Now, there are several additional steps.

Some school leaders said they’d like to see financial aid information included when students get their Direct Admissions letter.

“I think if we can tie these together,” Ruckel said, “it can be a really, really powerful tool to say ‘you are admitted and there’s a pathway forward for you to actually be able to afford to go to school, too.‘”