Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Those of us in DC don't have an instate option where we get preference. We also are looking hard for good deals on tuition for the same reason.

Dude, you get instate at all 50 states.

Nope. You can get 10K knocked off at public schools with the DCTAG.

3 safeties
3 on target
3 reach
1 Hail Mary

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is pissing me off in all of this is once again the middle class gets screwed. Lower income get waivers and the rich can afford it.

Applications, sending in test scores, and ironically having to pay for FAFSA and CSS submissions puts each college at about $100 each to apply to.

The irony of trying to save for college and spending $1000 to submit 10 applications. Sick of this bullshit.

I can understand paying for the app when you mailed it. You were paying someone to retrieve, place it, put it in the computer, and also read over it and send it to the right college. Common App should cost $30 max. Sending test scores should be a one time cost. Just money grabbing.

There are plenty of colleges that offer free applications, and most are between 50-75 so it's not as bad as you think. Colleges have multiple readers of each application and discussions about candidates. That's much more expensive then paying someone to deliver it to the right college. I would say students who are trying to go to highly selective schools are the ones that do a lot of admissions--others can get by with less. Also if you apply early action to a top choice, you can only do one if you're lucky.

Little rinky liberal arts schools wanting more apps to fudge their acceptance rates maybe. I don’t know if any ivy or large public university that offers free applications.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is pissing me off in all of this is once again the middle class gets screwed. Lower income get waivers and the rich can afford it.

Applications, sending in test scores, and ironically having to pay for FAFSA and CSS submissions puts each college at about $100 each to apply to.

The irony of trying to save for college and spending $1000 to submit 10 applications. Sick of this bullshit.

I can understand paying for the app when you mailed it. You were paying someone to retrieve, place it, put it in the computer, and also read over it and send it to the right college. Common App should cost $30 max. Sending test scores should be a one time cost. Just money grabbing.

There is no fee required to send FAFSA reports. There is a fee for CSS reports.

You pay for more than 9 on FAFSA

Anonymous wrote:Those of us in DC don't have an instate option where we get preference. We also are looking hard for good deals on tuition for the same reason.

Dude, you get instate at all 50 states.

My child had selected 7 promising schools by the beginning of senior year (two safeties, three targets and two reaches). At her first meeting with a Montgomery County public school counselor that fall (a W school), we were advised..."8-10 is preferable." This was a child with a high GPA, who was not reaching for anything elite.

Because we had not done this with another kid, and considered him the professional, we quickly scrambled and came up with 2 more schools. In retrospect, 7 would have been fine.

Those of us in DC don't have an instate option where we get preference. We also are looking hard for good deals on tuition for the same reason.

Anonymous wrote:What is pissing me off in all of this is once again the middle class gets screwed. Lower income get waivers and the rich can afford it.

Applications, sending in test scores, and ironically having to pay for FAFSA and CSS submissions puts each college at about $100 each to apply to.

The irony of trying to save for college and spending $1000 to submit 10 applications. Sick of this bullshit.

I can understand paying for the app when you mailed it. You were paying someone to retrieve, place it, put it in the computer, and also read over it and send it to the right college. Common App should cost $30 max. Sending test scores should be a one time cost. Just money grabbing.

There is no fee required to send FAFSA reports. There is a fee for CSS reports.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What is pissing me off in all of this is once again the middle class gets screwed. Lower income get waivers and the rich can afford it.

Applications, sending in test scores, and ironically having to pay for FAFSA and CSS submissions puts each college at about $100 each to apply to.

The irony of trying to save for college and spending $1000 to submit 10 applications. Sick of this bullshit.

I can understand paying for the app when you mailed it. You were paying someone to retrieve, place it, put it in the computer, and also read over it and send it to the right college. Common App should cost $30 max. Sending test scores should be a one time cost. Just money grabbing.

There are plenty of colleges that offer free applications, and most are between 50-75 so it's not as bad as you think. Colleges have multiple readers of each application and discussions about candidates. That's much more expensive then paying someone to deliver it to the right college. I would say students who are trying to go to highly selective schools are the ones that do a lot of admissions--others can get by with less. Also if you apply early action to a top choice, you can only do one if you're lucky.

My DC applied to 14 colleges (1 public, the rest SLACs). We do not qualify for a fee waiver.

Only 6 colleges required an application fee. The biggest expense was sending the CSS (where needed) and SAT test score reports. Four of the schools allowed students to self-report SAT/ACT scores on their apps, and send official ones in only if admitted.

Colleges still do data entry for each app - primarily entering your transcript into their own system, adding SAT/ACT/AP scores, so they can re-weight according to their own system. FWIW the coalition app requires students to self-enter all of their grades, and apparently the Common App will do the same -- this is to save the colleges the time of keying in that data.

Anonymous wrote:What is pissing me off in all of this is once again the middle class gets screwed. Lower income get waivers and the rich can afford it.

Applications, sending in test scores, and ironically having to pay for FAFSA and CSS submissions puts each college at about $100 each to apply to.

The irony of trying to save for college and spending $1000 to submit 10 applications. Sick of this bullshit.

I can understand paying for the app when you mailed it. You were paying someone to retrieve, place it, put it in the computer, and also read over it and send it to the right college. Common App should cost $30 max. Sending test scores should be a one time cost. Just money grabbing.

There are plenty of colleges that offer free applications, and most are between 50-75 so it's not as bad as you think. Colleges have multiple readers of each application and discussions about candidates. That's much more expensive then paying someone to deliver it to the right college. I would say students who are trying to go to highly selective schools are the ones that do a lot of admissions--others can get by with less. Also if you apply early action to a top choice, you can only do one if you're lucky.

What is pissing me off in all of this is once again the middle class gets screwed. Lower income get waivers and the rich can afford it.

Applications, sending in test scores, and ironically having to pay for FAFSA and CSS submissions puts each college at about $100 each to apply to.

The irony of trying to save for college and spending $1000 to submit 10 applications. Sick of this bullshit.

I can understand paying for the app when you mailed it. You were paying someone to retrieve, place it, put it in the computer, and also read over it and send it to the right college. Common App should cost $30 max. Sending test scores should be a one time cost. Just money grabbing.

College acceptances are more random now. You can’t be assured of getting in to your safety school like when we were kids and everybody applied to 4 or 5 places.

Competitive majors with audition/interview requirements (music, art, theatre, etc.)

1) Declining admit rates...because people send out 10 -20 applications.

2) Chasing the money. College is getting more expensive and aid dollars are competetive.

3) Common app.

Are these students looking for a best fit or trying to win a popularity contest? Seems like a tremendous waste of resources? Can colleges see that a student has applied to an exorbitant amount of schools or Is it a money grab?