It's the height of college application season, and if there's a prospective member of the class of 2024 in your life, you know that the anxious questions are swirling.

Will my GPA be high enough to get into my dream school? What about my SAT scores? What should my major be? Will the schools I get into meet or exceed my standards for mascot excellence?

But applicants aren't the only ones who are nervous.

A 2019 Inside Higher Ed survey found that 54% of admissions leaders at colleges and universities were very concerned about meeting their enrollment targets for the current academic year; another 32% said they were moderately concerned.

Competition in college admissions has escalated, not only among top applicants but among college admissions officials. Every year, colleges work hard to attract qualified students, have them apply, then convince them to enroll so the institution hits its enrollment targets.

More than half of admissions officials said they missed their enrollment goals for 2019. This year, almost 80% of admissions officials told Inside Higher Ed that they have increased their efforts to recruit full-time undergraduates.

To address this issue, higher education administrators are turning to the latest generation of admissions and enrollment management software to give them an edge in recruiting. However, some of these technologies raise questions about fairness and privacy.