Colleges are racing to comply with a Trump administration order that seeks detailed applicant and admissions data from institutions nationwide. Institutional research offices warn the request — which calls for multi-year breakdowns by race, sex, test scores and family income — will strain campus resources and privacy protocols as schools scramble to assemble records they don’t uniformly collect. Institutional researchers, admissions leaders and state higher-education officials say the scale and scope of the data call is unprecedented. Schools warn that producing consistent files across different student-information systems will take weeks and could generate errors; several states and a coalition of attorneys general have already filed suit to block parts of the survey. Why it matters: the data could prompt federal investigations into admissions practices and shift enforcement of race-conscious admissions. For admissions officers and registrars, the order is a compliance and communications problem; for presidents and trustees, it presents governance and reputational risk as Washington tightens oversight.