What is Demonstrated Interest?

Demonstrated interest is an important factor for some colleges as they assess applicants. Showing your interest in a college can be handled in several ways. It is a factor that some colleges measure and track in their applicant pools. 

When you register for campus visits or virtual events, or even open unsolicited emails from colleges (no doubt you're receiving many of those...), colleges are keeping tabs on this. When they send you emails, they cannot only see when you've opened these, but also if you've clicked on any links they included in the messages, and for how long you visited those links. It may seem creepy, but it can actually be beneficial for you. You may learn more about the colleges this way, which is important in helping you to decide if you want to apply to a particular school and also informing you about a college should you need to write a "Why This College?" supplemental essay.

How will you know if a college tracks Demonstrated Interest?

Not every college tracks your interest. So how do you find the ones that do? 

Each year, nearly all colleges submit a report called the Common Data Set (CDS). There isn't a website for the Common Data Set; instead, you can find the report by searching in your web browser for "Name of University, Common Data Set". 

Once you open the most current year available, you will see there are several alphabetical sections. You will look for Section C, and then part 7. So C7 is what you're scrolling the report for, which has the heading, "Relative importance of each of the following academic and nonacademic factors in your first-time, first-year, degree-seeking general (not including programs with specific criteria) admissions."

The "Level of Applicant's Interest" data is at the bottom of that section and will range from "Very Important" to "Not Considered" (4 levels in total). 

Generally speaking, colleges with the lowest admissions rates do not track interest (although there are a few exceptions). They don't need to know how interested you are in attending their schools.

How can you show your interest in a college?

Request Information: Complete the form on the admissions website. To find this, go to the Admissions section of a college website. Sometimes, the "request information" tab is visible there or in the Visits part of that page. They all have them; it might take a bit of sleuthing to find them. 

Once you submit this, you will often receive a confirmation email-please open it and read it. 

Visits: *In Person, Virtual, Local Events Offered by a College/Group of Colleges 

Registering for an official, in-person campus tour is one way to visit, but colleges offer virtual programs, too (better than ever...one of the good things to emerge from the pandemic). You can sign up for a virtual information session and even take virtual live campus tours with some colleges.

*For in-person visits, please register for official tours; otherwise, they won't know you were there!

Emails: Opening the emails colleges send you, reading the messages to see if there are invitations to visit/local events, or other links of interest to you. When you click on these links, colleges will track the links and the amount of time spent on each one, using very sophisticated software.

Social Media: Colleges have dozens of social media pages, including Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Facebook, etc. They each have a main page, but often other pages, like "XYZ College Admissions" and "XYZ College Residence Life", "XYZ University School of Engineering", sports pages, club pages, etc., etc. You get the idea. 

If you have social media accounts with private settings, and colleges request to follow you, you do not have to accept the request. It won't impact your admissions chances if you deny the request. However, by following these accounts, you will gain a deeper understanding of the schools.

College Fairs/High School Visits: College fairs are held in person in the fall and virtually throughout the year. College admissions reps. visit your high schools throughout the year, too. These are great ways to ask questions and get information. For college fairs, if you register and show the scannable bar code to the rep. (most college fairs run this way now), your information will be entered into their contact system. For a visit to your high school, most admissions reps. will ask that you fill out your contact information.                     

Why does demonstrating interest even matter? What are the benefits?

Some colleges consider interest as one of the key factors in evaluating an applicant. With an increasing number of colleges protecting their yield (the number of admitted students who deposit and matriculate to a campus), demonstrated interest is more important than ever. 

If a college is considering two applicants with similar profiles (academic, test scores if submitted, extracurricular activities, strength of recommendations, and essays), the one who has shown interest will have the advantage.

Sometimes, for those who show a strong interest in colleges that offer merit scholarships, this can result in more merit aid being offered.

Reminder: not all colleges track interest; see the explanation about how to find out if they do.

Critical Tip: Colleges often deduct interest points for parents who reach out to admissions offices. This is an excellent time for students to learn these networking skills.

I've attended professional conferences where admissions staff of colleges have spoken about the importance of demonstrated interest and have even shown us how, through software demonstrations on their laptops, when reviewing an applicant's Common Application, they can use side-by-side screens-one of the application, the other with the summary of the various ways the applicant has engaged with them. 

Once your college lists are finalized, be sure that you've shown interest in the colleges that track this.

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