Just realized application fee alone will cost $1000+
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Anonymous
That's silly. You really cannot say that without knowing the 15. |
Anonymous
Doing the same thing 14 times and expecting something different to happen the next time is stupid. |
Anonymous
OK.... what is your point, exactly? |
Anonymous
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Wow many of these statements are incredibly stupid.
If universities have institutional priorities (in other words, criteria for success which may or may not apply to a student), and we don't know what they are, then students have better chances at certain schools, can't know which ones those are in advance, and it makes sense to cast a wide net. Which is to say nothing of the need to assess different financial possibilities. But thanks for the probability lesson, Professor. |
Anonymous
First, you are welcome for the probability lesson, and apparently it was needed. Who said not to cast a wide net? Reach-Match-Safety. Based on stats, and (hopefully) Naviance scattergrams. An imperfect process but the best one we have. That's how you design your wide net, and not based on assumptions of chances or acceptance rates to calculate a false sense of likelihood of outcomes. Even though, technically, admissions decisions are independent events and it seems like it should work. |
Anonymous
I agree that calculating independent probabilities is a very good idea for people as a starting point: even well-educated folks who would not believe applying to 10 schools with a 10% chance of acceptance equals 100% seem to wrongly think it gives their kid a better than even chance of getting into at least 1. It doesn’t. However, these independent probabilities, as a second, more intuitive step, need to be played with: Take the “top” schools with 2-6% RD acceptance rates (RD rates are lower; don’t look at overall rates). Let’s assume your “typical” high stats kid with great curriculars who is not a recruited/semi-recruited athlete, URM, child of a long-term faculty employee, first-gen, or resident of North Dakota (the 5 huge admissions plusses; legacy only moves the needle slightly these days, and not at RD). Now take an educated guess as to the “real” probability of your child being admitted. For this type of applicant, my educated guess is that the probability is 0. Maybe it is 1-2% for a small subset (a male humanities kid, say; but yet another male CS or female biology kid is a 0). If you, more optimistically, assume your child has a 1% admissions probability at each of these schools, 11 applications would result in a mere 10% chance of getting into 1. Far more likely, the real chance of admission is 0 at half of these schools (there is no way to know which half). Your child would then have to apply to 22 of these schools to have a 10% chance of getting into 1. Stop doing this folks. There is a reason these schools are not timely sharing all of their admissions stats this year: they don’t want non-hooked kids, or their parents, to recognize that their RD applications are exercises in futility. |
Anonymous
My kids were both ambitious and wanted to attend "brand name schools" - they both applied to 6-7. More than enough if you actually take the time to look into programs and narrow down geography, size etc. |
Anonymous
When people apply to Harvard, Datmouth and Duke, you know if its spray and pay. |
Anonymous
Not more than enough if those 6-7 all have acceptance rates lower than 15-20%. Do that and there is a very high chance your kid will have no acceptances. My high stats kid had 5 reaches (all with less than 10% acceptances this year), 3 targets and 3 safeties. Kid got into the 3 targets and 3 safeties, with significant merit at all but 1 (and is attending that one ironically) and was WL at one reach and fall start soph year (while attending a required freshman year overseas) at another reach. I for one am extremely happy that we had good targets and safeties, because if you do, you will have several excellent choices. Also happy we set expectations that the reaches are just that---don't fall in love so much that you can't get excited about targets and safeties. My kid got over their rejections each time within a day. Oh and also glad we did EA everywhere it was available, so that by xmas we had one target and the favorite safety acceptances already in place with significant merit. That reduces stress and makes the reach rejections much easier to handle---as our counselor says "congratulation! You are going to college next fall!" For 2 months, my kid even placed the favorite safety above the one target school--which is a good thing, means they really liked their safety school. |
Anonymous
Yup---each school is so very different, there is no way someone should honestly put all of the top 20 on "their ideal list" unless that list solely revolves around "rankings"/percieved prestige. |
Anonymous
NP. I'd cut the list even more, but I came mostly to say that, yeah, $1,000 is nothing. OP, if your family has financial hardships, that's where you focus--financial aid. If not, and since you didn't mention it I'm guessing maybe you don't have financial issues -- if you blanch at $1,000 for fees you need to grow a thicker skin when it comes to outlay. Even if your kid doesn't end up going to a 70k-80k tuition school you'll still find many, many fees you'll need to pay. And thats not even getting into things like books and lab fees etc. etc. I'm not complaining here--it's all been worth it for our DC, I think, but I'm noting that the application fees are just the beginning. |
Anonymous
Virginia Tech is more of a safety than W&M for someone applying to the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences. |
Anonymous
| So I hear what Spay and Pray folks are saying. Had twins and one applied to like 12 and one 18 or so. We were shooting for certain high ranked schools and ended up getting an ivy each. Sometimes you gotta through a lot of spaghetti on the wall. Bottom of Ivy but Ivy nonetheless. |
Anonymous
Obviously, it's not "the same thing" 14 times, since each school is a different school, with different "hidden" profile needs, with different individuals reading a slightly different application. |
Anonymous
Except this is where anecdotes are particularly useless, of course there are people who only get into school number 15, but that does not mean adding one more school to the list does most applicants any good at all. Most people discover where they really stand midway through the process, and after that there aren't many surprises. |