Also, fire all the enrollment managers. That kids have to “demonstrate interest” and strategize around yield protection is criminal. I know colleges are businesses, but they’ve lost all sight of what’s good for students.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That is exactly what I would do, for starters. Pick your five schools, and get on with it. This applying to 20 schools ridiculous.

Who benefits from this? How would this improve anything?

Schools don’t need to manage yield and will be making their decisions solely on whether they want this student. If they know they are one of five, they know you are serious.

So basically, you all mostly just want to make it easier for the students. Got it. That's what it should be all about.

6:29. Also, with a single essay there is no stress over tailoring it to a particular school to convince them of your undivided love and perfect fit. The “fit” thing is grossly overstated. Yes, there are dealbreakers for individual kids but those are usually things that can be determined at a glance - the school is too big, too rural, etc. Barring those, the kids will overwhelmingly grow where planted.

Anonymous wrote:I personally think kids should apply to as many schools as they want. It is a money maker for the university, and if they can make money another way besides raising tuition, I am happy. Also choosing a university is like choosing a life partner or a forever house. Good to have options.

It's not all like this.

There is room to enter or write about ONE meaningful extracurricular activity. The arms race to build a resume by age 17 is burning our kids out.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:That is exactly what I would do, for starters. Pick your five schools, and get on with it. This applying to 20 schools ridiculous.

Who benefits from this? How would this improve anything?

Because when so many kids apply to a gazillion schools and schools have to wade through so many applications, the numbers make is more like a lottery. Way more stressful for the applicants, because there is less assurance that certain qualifications correlate with admission.

I personally think kids should apply to as many schools as they want. It is a money maker for the university, and if they can make money another way besides raising tuition, I am happy. Also choosing a university is like choosing a life partner or a forever house. Good to have options.

Anonymous wrote:That is exactly what I would do, for starters. Pick your five schools, and get on with it. This applying to 20 schools ridiculous.

Who benefits from this? How would this improve anything?

Love these suggestions. I would remove questions pertaining to parents - like where they went to school, occupation etc. Make it all about the applicant and less about reading tea leaves.

"Emotional striptease," yes, that's it exactly. The UK personal statement is completely academic in nature.

Since my kid also went through UK process and I found it much more humane, I would borrow two other key things from it - a single application and a single essay, which is a personal statement, not American style bare all emotional striptease

It also costs only 25 quid for those five applications, as opposed to say, Stanford's application, which costs 90 dollars on its own.

That is exactly what I would do, for starters. Pick your five schools, and get on with it. This applying to 20 schools ridiculous.

We all acknowledge that the college application and admissions process is just insane. If you had a clean slate and could redesign the college admissions process, what would you do? For example in the UK students are permitted to apply only to 5 schools, This restriction as you can imagine creates a very different mindset among all the stakeholders - students, counselors, parents.....not saying it’s better.... but it is certainly a different way than we do things in the states.