ApplyTexas staff told the advisory committee on Nov. 6 that the states first Free College Application Week, held Oct. 1319, produced 263,891 submitted applications from about 60,000 students, an increase from roughly 44,000 during the same week last year. "The total number of applications submitted during the week was 263,891," ApplyTexas product lead Brandon Griggs said. He added the figure excludes some institution extensions requested after a Sunday outage.

The average student submitted about three applications during the week, staff said, and institutions reporting in the meeting described a mix of R1 and regional schools among destinations. "We saw that the average student submitted only 3 college applications," Griggs said, and the committee concluded many students applied with apparent intent rather than indiscriminately to dozens of campuses.

Committee members described operational issues that followed the surge in activity. Maria Juarez, director of enrollment services at Amarillo College, said many applicants were "getting kind of booted out of the system" while creating profiles and suggested outreach to have students create accounts in advance. Amanda Ritchie, director of admissions at Angelo State University, said her office received unexpected volumes from some high schools and that some students applied to multiple terms or duplicate applications, creating substantial cleanup work.

Staff said automated bot traffic contributed to system strain. "We did notice some bot activity," Griggs said, and staff responded by adding tighter security roles and instituting Cloudflare CAPTCHA across ApplyTexas pages. Product staff also said they will expand institutional toolkits and communications for high schools and counselors before future events and will share a more detailed dataset with committee members once it is finalized.

Committee members asked whether the October timing could be moved; Griggs said the week is specified in statute and cannot be moved without legislative action. Several admissions officers recommended clarifying messaging for counselors and students about fee waivers and application timing to reduce duplicate or rushed applications. Staff agreed to incorporate the feedback into next years outreach materials.

Why it matters: The volume of applications and the technical issues underscore both demand for fee‑free application opportunities and the operational consequences for campuses and the ApplyTexas platform. Committee members urged clearer school‑level communications and pre‑application account creation to reduce peak‑period load.

Sources: Brandon Griggs, assistant commissioner; Maria Juarez, director of enrollment services, Amarillo College; Amanda Ritchie, director of admissions, Angelo State University. The data point 263,891 was provided by ApplyTexas staff and was stated to exclude some extensions granted after an outage.