The end of the semester marks the beginning of a new frontier for students—college applications.

While the deadline for California State Universities has passed, there is still time to apply to other colleges across the nation. After your applications are done and sent, the waiting game begins.

The frenzy of applying to colleges is finally over. The wait is possibly the most stressful aspect of the process. But if you apply to multiple colleges, a definitive decision must be made. Recently, colleges are noticing that these decisions are being made.

A study by The National Admission for College Admission Counseling shows that while applications are going up, yield rates have declined considerably. “Yield” rates are the percentage of admitted applicants who actually enroll. Both public and private colleges have reported significant declines since 2002.

Public school yield rates have dropped from 51.4 percent in 2002 to 42.6 percent in 2011. Private school yield rates have dropped from 47.8 percent in 2002 to 36.4 percent in 2011. These numbers may scare some students, but think the contrary.

If yield rates grow among colleges, then colleges become even more selective when it comes to admitting students. Colleges must realize that students are applying to a variety of schools. This leads to the decline in yield rates. Students must keep applying to a variety of schools and keep these yield rates declining.

According to David Hawkins, director of public policy and research at the National Admission for College Admission Counseling, “Yield declines have prompted colleges to re-evaluate their strategies and ways to keep the rates steady.”

This is what the focus needs to be on, making colleges re-evaluate themselves. But what makes colleges so selective to begin with?

According to the study, different aspects of applications factor differently into a colleges decision. For example, some colleges may take your class rank into more consideration than your candidate interview, and vice versa.

Is this fair in some cases? No, it’s absolutely not fair. But unfortunately, it is the sign of the times. A students’ admission to a four year university should not depend on one certain aspect of an application. The selectivity of colleges has been an ongoing problem for some time now.

If the decline in yield rates is forcing colleges to look at their admission practices, then change will hopefully come soon.