Lakeside School

Each year, throughout December and January, early application decisions are released. Most of these outcomes are not surprising to the college counseling team; after all, our assessments of students’ admissibility prove highly accurate for each class. Occasionally, however, a decision gives us pause—often disappointing news from a college where we believed a student had a strong chance of admission. When this happens, we talk it through as a team and revisit the application, searching for what might have been missing. And then, almost inevitably, a collective light bulb flicks on: we check our attendance lists for college visits hosted at Lakeside and realize, with a heavy heart, the student might not have demonstrated interest.

In this article, I will explain what students can do to show their sincere interest in a college, why that’s meaningful from the college’s perspective, and how to assess how important demonstrated interest is for your child’s admissions process. 

What is demonstrated interest, and how do students show it?

Demonstrated interest refers to intentional, trackable actions applicants have taken to express their interest or enthusiasm for the college. Students can demonstrate interest in a wide range of ways, such as:

• Visiting a college campus (and registering for that visit, so the college knows that you came).
• Attending the college rep visit at Lakeside in the fall of their senior year. 
• Registering for and participating in one or more virtual programs.
• Attending a regional informational session hosted by the college in your area.
• Participating in an admission interview, if applicable.
• Stopping by the college’s table at a local college fair.
• Emailing your admission officer with meaningful questions (i.e., questions for which the answers cannot be easily found on the college’s website). 

Students and families should view this as a menu of possibilities, not a checklist. Colleges do not expect students to engage in every activity, and students should feel empowered to engage in ways that make the most sense for them. Admission offices understand, for example, that traveling to visit campus is not feasible for everyone, and virtual or local programming is a perfectly acceptable and meaningful way to demonstrate interest. 

Why do some colleges consider demonstrated interest? How do they use it? And what happens if a student doesn’t demonstrate interest?

Each year, admission offices must “make their class,” meaning they must admit and enroll enough students to fill all available seats in the first-year cohort. Some colleges must take more strategic actions to fill their seats compared to others because their strongest applicants are also competitive candidates at peer or competitor institutions. For schools like these, demonstrated interest can be an important data point, as it helps admission offices understand which applicants are likely to enroll if admitted and which are not. At colleges where demonstrated interest is considered—for example, Tufts University, Case Western Reserve University, the University of Rochester, and many small liberal arts colleges—a student’s level of engagement can meaningfully influence an admission decision.

When reviewing applications, admission readers often take note of a student’s interactions with the institution. Did the student attend an information session? Visit campus? Email the admission officer? Speak with the regional representative at a college fair? These interactions help admission officers begin to gauge an applicant’s level of interest. And as Judd Wexler, assistant director of admissions at Oberlin College, once shared with me, no engagement with the college can actually be interpreted as “demonstrated disinterest.”

Beyond individual notes in a student’s application, many colleges also use predictive modeling to estimate the likelihood that a student will enroll. This modeling analyzes applicant behavior and helps identify which students in the pool are most likely to matriculate. For example, predictive modeling can indicate that there's a much higher likelihood that students with high or sustained forms of engagement (e.g., attending virtual or in-person information sessions, emailing admission reps, participating in an interview, etc.) will enroll compared to students with brief or unsustained forms of engagement (e.g., stopping by a table at a college fair once with no other engagement).

At many institutions, demonstrated interest can become especially important during the final stage of the application reading process, often referred to as “shaping the class.” (For more information on the reading process, please read my previous blog post, "An inside look at the reading process at highly selective institutions.") When shaping the class, the admission team reviews the initial decisions made in committee and makes final tweaks to their admitted pool to ensure they fulfill their institutional priorities, stay within their budget, fill seats in each department, and are poised to admit students they believe will enroll. For instance, imagine a scenario in which a university has initially selected too many biology students and must remove some from their admit pool. In this case, admission officers might choose to instead deny, defer, or waitlist some students who are interested in biology and have not demonstrated interest to date. This allows them to achieve two goals: ensure a more academically balanced class and protect their "yield" or enrollment numbers by admitting students they believe will enroll based on their demonstrated interest. 

While there are many U.S. colleges and universities that consider demonstrated interest, there are also several that do not—highly selective institutions such as the Ivies, Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Pomona College, Swarthmore College, and Washington University in St. Louis are just a handful. At these institutions, students' interest in the university has no weight or bearing in their admission decisions. Even so, the college counselors often observe that Lakesiders who are eager to explore some of the nation’s most selective colleges prioritize these schools in their college process and sometimes neglect to demonstrate interest at other institutions where their interest level actually matters. And unfortunately, this can significantly reduce a student’s chances of admission at colleges where they would otherwise be competitive applicants. As JT Duck, dean of admissions at Tufts University, shared last year with Lakeside parents and guardians attending our Deans and Directors program, “Prioritizing schools that don’t consider demonstrated interest without consideration for those that do will set a student up for a waitlist from [the schools where they had their strongest shot].”

When does a student need to demonstrate interest in a college?

Now, you may be thinking, “If demonstrated interest is so important, my child must start immediately!” But I want to assure students and families that it is neither necessary nor expected for 9th and 10th graders to be demonstrating interest in colleges and universities. Meaningful engagement should begin once a Lakesider enters the college counseling process in the winter and spring of their junior year, and continue through the application process in their senior year. This timing allows students to communicate genuine and current enthusiasm rather than interest expressed years too early.

While demonstrated interest may seem primarily beneficial to colleges, taking these steps offers juniors and seniors an important opportunity for reflection and clarity in the college process. Engaging with colleges in these later years allows them to assess fit through a more mature lens—grounded in who they are now and what they will need as they prepare to soon enter college, rather than assumptions formed earlier in high school. (To learn more about the importance of fit, please read Ms. Singh’s recent blog post.) Additionally, the research a student does on a university goes a long way in writing strong and compelling supplemental essays that clearly express why they are a good match for the college or university.

How do I know if a college considers demonstrated interest?

There are a few ways students and families can determine whether a college considers demonstrated interest, including a quick online search (e.g., “does Skidmore College consider demonstrated interest?”) and reviewing the school’s Common Data Set, which can also be found online for many institutions. The Common Data Set is a comprehensive report that most U.S. colleges and universities release after each admissions cycle to share information about their admissions practices. These reports often include a table indicating which factors are considered in an institution’s admission decisions. In the bottom row of the image below, you can see for this university, “level of applicant’s interest” is considered “important”: 

That said, online searches and Common Data Sets are only starting points. Not all relevant information about demonstrated interest is publicly available. Once a student is assigned a college counselor in January of their junior year, counselors can provide specific guidance about which schools on their list consider demonstrated interest and how heavily it is weighed. For example, the college counselors know that the University of Rochester places significant emphasis on whether a student completes an admissions interview; without one, a student is far more likely to be waitlisted. This level of insight is not readily accessible online.

Demonstrated interest can feel like yet another moving piece in an already complex admissions process, but it doesn’t have to be overwhelming. At its best, it’s simply about students engaging with colleges in thoughtful, authentic ways that help both applicants and admission offices make informed decisions. Demonstrating interest does not require constant outreach or doing everything possible; instead, students can choose opportunities that genuinely help them explore a school. Through that engagement, they not only signal enthusiasm to the college but also gain clarity about whether the institution truly aligns with who they are and what they want from their college experience.

Erin Foster is an associate director of college counseling at Lakeside School. Reach her and other members of the team at info@lakesideschool.site. Read more articles about college admissions on Lakeside’s college counseling blog.