Should we limit the number of schools you can apply to?

[Anonymous]

My kid's HS limited it to 10 applications. I was very happy about that. He applied to places he knew he could get into and we had 10 schools to compare FA packages.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:For the top 20 schools, it's really a crap shoot, not just for the top 5 or 10. Because admission is so idiosyncratic, there are really no target schools, just reaches and safeties. That makes it hard and my kid has ended up applying to lots of places as a result. It gets $$ and exhausting.

There are absolutely target schools if you look outside of the top 20-40. Your just feeding into the issue at hand by saying its such a crapshoot then I am going to apply to every top 20 school. There is potential to create a much more efficient process if we limited application or considered some type of ranking system.

You are just wrong. If you define 'target' as a place that matches your kid's qualifications. Outside the top 40 there can be a lot of great schools, but the vast majority of students there will not match a high stat kid's qualifications.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am truly amazed how many schools some kids are applying to - from my perspective it just creates more complication for admissions offices to have so many applications from kids that probably aren't going to attend. My child applied to 10 schools and honestly that seems like overkill.

No we should not mandate how many schools a student applies to . For one who is going to decide that and are you mandating no OOS as well etc…

We have enough issues coming where only white makes will be accepted to college .

Musk Mr Apartheid is about to up end college admissions only whites and only males .

I’m not wrong nor will this take long.

Elections have consequences

You all want to believe college will continue like it has nope and even if it did you won’t be affording it.

You’re crazy.

NP here
I don't know if it's just one person, or several, but that crazy rambling, poor grammar style is used often here. You see the exact same style whenever someone mentions a college in the south where the poster immediately posts to talk about abortion.
It's best to just ignore them, just like when you see a mentally ill person on the street muttering and yelling to themselves.

[Anonymous]

I don't know that I'd want to go as far as officially limiting the number of applications a student can submit, but I agree it is crazy.
Maybe just some public shaming for the people that do this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid's HS limited it to 10 applications. I was very happy about that. He applied to places he knew he could get into and we had 10 schools to compare FA packages.

Wow -- what kind of school is this? How is the policy enforced? Once the reports/ letters are all up on the Common App, can the school prevent a student from applying to additional places?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I agree!!! And we should also rank that list (kind of like rushing Greek life) to get a weighted score of some sort.

If you can't figure it out with 10-15 schools, then OH WELL.

Forces actual targeting and real sense of what schools want to see

I really like that. If you're applying to 20+ schools and a school knows that they are a student's 18th or 19th choice, maybe they don't even bother to send out the acceptance package in the mail. They can just indicate the acceptance on the admissions portal and save the expense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I agree!!! And we should also rank that list (kind of like rushing Greek life) to get a weighted score of some sort.

If you can't figure it out with 10-15 schools, then OH WELL.

Forces actual targeting and real sense of what schools want to see

I really like that. If you're applying to 20+ schools and a school knows that they are a student's 18th or 19th choice, maybe they don't even bother to send out the acceptance package in the mail. They can just indicate the acceptance on the admissions portal and save the expense.

This kind of a system would force all the schools to buy in and agree as well as the applicants. I imagine that would be difficult or impossible. The reason UK schools can limit students to five applications (which would be a dream!) is that it is a government-controlled system. Good luck getting more state control adopted in the US.

[Anonymous]

Welp, my kid is applying to maybe 17, we'll see. It's great to limit the list, but the fact is the kid is trying for some of the "named" scholarships at a few schools, fishing for merit at others, and trying for some of the Tuition Exchange schools (spouse works at a participating TE college). Plus there are 2-3 Ivys. None of that is guaranteed, so the net is pretty big -- would have been smaller, but they were deferred at Yale SCEA. Cost is not a factor in the applications because my kid is at a poor school where application fees are waved. It is what it is.

[Anonymous]

I think it would help a lot of things for the better. Acceptance rates would stabilize, kids wouldn't have burn out from writing essays for 20 different schools (ok some overlap, but not all of them do). And people would be focused on each place more intently, rather than just vaguely throwing out applications to gain bragging rights, which does sometimes happen.

My kid applied via UCAS for UK colleges. Normally they encourage 1 reach, 2 targets and 2 safeties. But because he had AP grades in hand that met the entry requirements he was able to apply to 5 (the total allowed) targets. He got 5 offers within a month and chose the place he wants to attend. So this was all over for him by the end of October.

A much saner time for everyone, as a result.

[Anonymous]

Worst idea ever.

Colleges don't want it.

Applicants don't want it.

The only people who advocate this are people who think it will somehow increase Larlo's chance of getting into Yale.

It won't.

So, how does this useless idea help anyone?

[Anonymous]

i think most kids ED to 1 school and several EA schools. If the kid doesn't get into ED, then they scramble and apply to many more RD. I think if they are able to, apply to as many as they want. its their future and choice.

[Anonymous]

HELL NO!

OP, I don't want to control what other people do and limit their choices. It's their college application and their choice. Students should have the freedom to apply to as many universities as their heart desires. The last thing the American society needs is an entity stripping students' freedom.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:HELL NO!

OP, I don't want to control what other people do and limit their choices. It's their college application and their choice. Students should have the freedom to apply to as many universities as their heart desires. The last thing the American society needs is an entity stripping students' freedom.

[Anonymous]

That would certainly be “equitable.” I also think they should cap how many times a student can take the SAT or ACT. But they won’t do any of the above because…money.

[Anonymous]

No