Currently our system of college admissions is dependent on what college comes to mind when you think of college. Try it. What college did you think of first?
It’s probably an Ivy League college, or a college with a great football program, or one down the street. This works well for these colleges because it basically means that all 20 million applications are first going to these colleges. The same 30 colleges…
Meanwhile the colleges that will fund you and graduate you on-time are just hoping that you find out about them another way. You may Google “colleges near USC” or “colleges like Harvard” and that sort of works for a handful of students, but your Googling didn’t tell you if you’re a great fit for that college.
And we know from data and listening to students over the past few decades that you had no intention of going to those colleges. You were applying just to apply.
Your Googling also didn’t tell you about great campuses that may be in other great cities, or have interesting programs, or great funding. It’s not that you’re bad at Google. That information is just impossible to find.