Niche concluded its previous direct admissions program for fall 2024, having sourced over $165M in first-year tuition revenue for participating institutions
PITTSBURGH, Aug. 15, 2024 /PRNewswire/ — Niche, the country’s leading platform connecting students with colleges, has launched its 2025 direct admissions program for high school seniors enrolling in the fall of 2025. Now in its fourth consecutive cycle, Niche Direct Admissions® has expanded to over 100 college and university partners with dozens more expected to participate in the coming weeks and months.
Niche is revolutionizing the college admissions landscape by modernizing the way students and families choose their best-fit colleges, and how institutions build their future classes. With Niche Direct Admissions, colleges come to students by sending them real-time acceptance and upfront scholarship offers based solely on a student’s online profile with Niche.
The most recent Niche Direct Admissions program, for freshmen enrolling in the fall of 2024, delivered outstanding results for both students and higher education institutions:
- In total, 91 institutions across the country participated in the 2024 Niche Direct Admissions program, more than any other direct admissions offering to date.
- This translated to nearly 930,000 students receiving at least one acceptance and scholarship offer, with the average number of offers per student at just over five.
- Nearly two-thirds of admitted students identified as Hispanic, Black or African American.
- The average annual scholarship provided through the program was $18,500.
- The 2024 Niche Direct Admissions program helped source an estimated first-year tuition revenue of over $165 million and an incredible 9% of our partner institutions’ deposits, with some as high as 30%.
“We believe direct admission will become the primary way most students enroll in college within the next five years,” said Luke Skurman, founder and CEO of Niche. “The growing popularity of programs like ours and at the state-level validates the need to modernize the admissions process because the status quo isn’t cutting it. Students, families and institutions alike are turning to Niche Direct Admissions for a simpler, more innovative and transparent solution — and it’s working.”
Unlike other direct admissions programs, Niche’s student-first approach removes unnecessary barriers many students face during the traditional college admissions process, such as the application itself. Niche Direct Admissions is completely free for students and open to all high school seniors, allowing them to receive acceptance and scholarships to colleges both in and outside of the state they live in, including both public and private institutions.
For institutions, Niche Direct Admissions enhances admissions teams’ competitiveness and agility as they navigate a rapidly changing industry, providing a new source for enrollment and revenue that seamlessly complements an institution’s existing strategies.
“Through Niche, UMSL sent direct admissions offers to over 800 students for this fall, of whom 114 have committed to enrolling and 76 have registered to attend,” said University of Missouri-St. Louis Vice Chancellor for Strategic Enrollment Reggie Hill. “That’s a fantastic return on our initial investment with Niche. It’s helped us attract students of the same quality as through other channels, many of whom we might never have reached otherwise. UMSL is already up and running within the 2025 direct admissions program, which Niche made very easy for our team to integrate and customize in order to maximize success.”
More than 100 four-year colleges and universities across 33 states have already formally committed to offer direct admissions via the Niche platform during the 2024-25 admissions cycle. These institutions will be added on a rolling basis in the coming months along with dozens of other institutions expected to join as well. Students and their families can review the institutions that have already been added to the program here.
Niche Direct Admissions is now available for the high school class of 2025. High school underclassmen who create a Niche Profile will automatically be eligible for direct admissions offers during their senior year. Over a million high school seniors create a Niche Profile each year, which is roughly one out of every two college-bound seniors. Higher education institutions seeking more information on how to accelerate and increase enrollment by meeting students where they are should visit www.niche.com/about/partners/direct-admissions.
ABOUT NICHE:
Niche is changing how colleges connect with students and build their future classes. As the trusted partner to hundreds of colleges, Niche is helping higher education institutions across the country streamline operations, forge genuine connections with students and achieve their enrollment targets. Our nationally recognized Niche Direct Admissions® program enables colleges to proactively accept qualified students based on their Niche Profile alone. Through real-time acceptance and scholarship opportunities, Niche Direct Admissions offers a modern experience for today’s students, resulting in more enrollments for college admissions teams. Learn more about how over 100 institutions are already leveraging Niche Direct Admissions.
Press contact:
Nick Liberati
Director, PR
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SOURCE Niche
