As soon as Joseph Wiesenberg of Poway, Calif., knew that he wanted to attend California State Polytechnic University, he turned his browser to the school’s website and applied online. There, the 18-year-old was able to transfer his high school transcripts, upload personal essays and learn more about his prospective computer science major. He even paid the $55 application fee (with his parent’s credit card). Time elapsed: about one hour.Online college applications, many of which are due Jan. 1 for the the next school year, are not new. Admissions experts say that more than 75 percent of colleges nationally offer similar online applications. What has changed: Students (and their parents) are now much more comfortable submitting their qualifications online, with almost 60 percent of students applying without paper of any kind. That’s a sharp rise from two years ago, when the journal eSchool News cited a sub-30 percent rate at many schools. Students tout the technology for its convenience, while academics and admissions officers hail it for streamlining a data-entry laden admissions process that historically cost millions. Some schools have announced that they will require all students to apply online by 2005.Cal Poly is one of those schools. The online application for the Pomona, Calif.-based institution is the brainchild of programmers at Xap Corp. of Culver City, Calif., which hosts a similar feature for more than 700 schools nationally. Applicants visiting one of these sites enter their applications into pages hosted by the Xap server. Nightly, technologists at each school download the data through a webpage with secure sockets layer encryption, then upload applications directly into their administrative systems. In minutes, they do what formerly took data-entry workers months. And students can visit Xap.com or CollegeNET.com and apply to multiple schools at once. Some schools have homegrown systems. At the University of California, Senior Online Communications Analyst Hosanna Stevens says she’s spent the past year building Pathways, which enables admissions directors at 10 schools to download data directly into their systems. “On both sides of the screen, students and admissions people are amazed at what we’ve been able to do,” says Stevens. Related content opinion Website spoofing: risks, threats, and mitigation strategies for CIOs In this article, we take a look at how CIOs can tackle website spoofing attacks and the best ways to prevent them. By Yash Mehta Dec 01, 2023 5 mins CIO Cyberattacks Security brandpost Sponsored by Catchpoint Systems Inc. Gain full visibility across the Internet Stack with IPM (Internet Performance Monitoring) Today’s IT systems have more points of failure than ever before. Internet Performance Monitoring provides visibility over external networks and services to mitigate outages. By Neal Weinberg Dec 01, 2023 3 mins IT Operations brandpost Sponsored by Zscaler How customers can save money during periods of economic uncertainty Now is the time to overcome the challenges of perimeter-based architectures and reduce costs with zero trust. By Zscaler Dec 01, 2023 4 mins Security feature LexisNexis rises to the generative AI challenge With generative AI, the legal information services giant faces its most formidable disruptor yet. That’s why CTO Jeff Reihl is embracing and enhancing the technology swiftly to keep in front of the competition. By Paula Rooney Dec 01, 2023 6 mins Generative AI Digital Transformation Cloud Computing Podcasts Videos Resources Events SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER From our editors straight to your inbox Get started by entering your email address below. Please enter a valid email address Subscribe