Up to now, prospective students applying through UCAS could find out how much competition they were up against when it came to the number of other applicants to the university of their choice.
But that's not going to happen from here on in - or at least, according to UCAS, not until the autumn. But that's going to be too late for those planning to put in their applications this summer.
Whether UCAS’ decision to delay releasing data relating to application numbers is a response to pressure from the universities themselves remains to be seen, but Chief Executive Mary Curnock Cook explains that it reflected concerns that this kind of information could be "over-interpreted both by institutions and applicants and give rise to unintended market effects".
When UCAS released last year's enrolment figures, they actually highlighted severe declines in the number of applications - like a drop of 43% on the previous year just for London Metropolitan alone. Granted, it did have its problems, thanks to the UK Border Agency and its investigation into students from outside the EU.
But it's not just those not-quite-elite institutions that are suffering from fewer applications: Russell Group universities' losses are put at "above average", and even though Warwick University said it was only due to increased entry requirements, their applications for some subjects fell by 21%.
And all this isn't great news for potential students and their parents: a fall in application numbers represents a fall in income. And a fall in income is not a heartening prospect for any university.
It does have to be said, though, that recent headlines have been shouting out about enormous pay rises for university chancellors and vice-chancellors while noting that lecturers are suffering from real-term pay cuts.
So students face the uncertainty of not knowing whether or not a university's financial issues are going to affect them in the short, medium or even in the long term.
It could be, then, that UCAS' decision to delay releasing application numbers is going to conceal exactly what prospective students are looking for. Until it's far too late to make any difference.
This could lead to even lower application numbers this year and in years to come ... and which could well help to boost the popularity of apprenticeships even higher than it is already.
And that's not such a bad thing, is it?
