Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

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Anonymous wrote:DC is not even planning to apply for that many, probably around 15, which is not much for high stat kids, since their reach and target schools overlap, it's like playing the lottery

Not independent odds, so no, it's not like buying more tickets.

Wrong, they are entirely independent events, despite this being impossible to gage WRT college applications. Your acceptance or rejection at one school does not change the odds of the decision at another school, so they remain entirely independent events. The bizarreness of this process does not change the rules of mathematics.

Dependent events are like pulling a red card from a deck reduces the odds of the next one being red also. It's how card counting is effective.

The event is not the reader, it's the applicant.

The event is the result - acceptance, rejection, or WL. Red or Black. 2 through 12.

Your decision from Harvard has no effect on your decision from Yale, Penn State, or anywhere else. Therefore they are absolutely independent events.

https://www.mathsisfun.com/data/probability-events-independent.html

https://www.cuemath.com/data/independent-events/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_(probability_theory)

Doing the same thing 14 times and expecting something different to happen the next time is stupid.

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.

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 wrote:Oh and if your instate VA, UVA is not a safety for anyone, Va Tech is not reliable as a safety either, W&M probably still is for a super high stats kid. When I say safety i mean a real solid safety.

My kid's high reach was Middlebury and her safety was Clemson, gives you a sense of the spread.

Virginia Tech is more of a safety than W&M for someone applying to the College of Liberal Arts & Sciences.

Anonymous wrote:1000 is nothing. Tuition is crazy. That being said...cut the list to 12.

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.

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Anonymous wrote:15 schools is just an unfocused “spray and pray” approach to college admissions…..not terribly bright.

That's silly. You really cannot say that without knowing the 15.

When people apply to Harvard, Datmouth and Duke, you know if its spray and pay.

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.

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Anonymous wrote:No, 15 is normal if you are an ambitious kid who wants to go to a brand name school. I applied to 12 schools about 8 years ago, now it’s harder to get into a ‘good’ college - ergo, 15 feels right. Since getting into a brand name college is a lottery, it’s good to ‘buy’ as many tickets as possible if you can afford it.

OP you can sometimes petition to reduce or waive the application fees.

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.

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.

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Anonymous wrote:15 schools is just an unfocused “spray and pray” approach to college admissions…..not terribly bright.

That's silly. You really cannot say that without knowing the 15.

When people apply to Harvard, Datmouth and Duke, you know if its spray and pay.

Anonymous wrote:No, 15 is normal if you are an ambitious kid who wants to go to a brand name school. I applied to 12 schools about 8 years ago, now it’s harder to get into a ‘good’ college - ergo, 15 feels right. Since getting into a brand name college is a lottery, it’s good to ‘buy’ as many tickets as possible if you can afford it.

OP you can sometimes petition to reduce or waive the application fees.

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.

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Anonymous wrote:The amount of work in crafting essays is going to be more than you realize! My kid applied to 11 schools and the lead up to the RD submission deadline was painful.

Applying to more schools should improve your probability of admission to at least one, as long as you’re qualified. My kid applied to 4 serious reaches (acceptance rate < 10%) and got into 1, waitlisted at 1, and rejected at 2. She got into all matches and safeties.

Calculating independent probabilities, if dc applies to 10 schools, 5 with a 5% probability of admission and 5 with a 10% probability of admission, then the probability of getting shut out is 46%. Add 2 more applications with a 10% probability of acceptance and the probability of getting shut out drops to 37%. You can use an online calculator like calculator.net to play around with the probabilities. It can help you understand that the probabilities may not be what you expect. For example, if you apply to 10 schools with a 10% probability of acceptance, your probability of getting shut out is 35%. Add 2 schools with a 75% of acceptance and the probability of getting shut out drops to 2.2%.

I am the PP above who pointed out that these are in fact independent events. However, the flaw in your approach is that you have no idea what any one persons odds of admission are at any one school - so you can't accurately calculate your chances this way and it is foolish to try. For example, your odds may be zero at all 15 schools.

You can't know the odds the way you know there are 52 cards in a deck, so this exacting method of calculation is useless. Despite that, they remain independent events. And the famous "Reach-Match-Safety" approach is essentially non-quantified game theory applied. It remains the best one I know of.

Seldom in risk assessments does anyone know the true probability! This doesn’t mean that it’s not helpful to know that 10 schools with 10 % probability does not mean a 100% chance of acceptance! Playing around with a reasonable range or probabilities can help create some reasonable expectations and some guidance in if it’s worth applying to an additional school.

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 wrote: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.

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.

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.

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Anonymous wrote:DC is not even planning to apply for that many, probably around 15, which is not much for high stat kids, since their reach and target schools overlap, it's like playing the lottery

Not independent odds, so no, it's not like buying more tickets.

Wrong, they are entirely independent events, despite this being impossible to gage WRT college applications. Your acceptance or rejection at one school does not change the odds of the decision at another school, so they remain entirely independent events. The bizarreness of this process does not change the rules of mathematics.

Dependent events are like pulling a red card from a deck reduces the odds of the next one being red also. It's how card counting is effective.

The event is not the reader, it's the applicant.

The event is the result - acceptance, rejection, or WL. Red or Black. 2 through 12.

Your decision from Harvard has no effect on your decision from Yale, Penn State, or anywhere else. Therefore they are absolutely independent events.

https://www.mathsisfun.com/data/probability-events-independent.html

https://www.cuemath.com/data/independent-events/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_(probability_theory)

Doing the same thing 14 times and expecting something different to happen the next time is stupid.

OK.... what is your point, exactly?

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Anonymous wrote:DC is not even planning to apply for that many, probably around 15, which is not much for high stat kids, since their reach and target schools overlap, it's like playing the lottery

Not independent odds, so no, it's not like buying more tickets.

Wrong, they are entirely independent events, despite this being impossible to gage WRT college applications. Your acceptance or rejection at one school does not change the odds of the decision at another school, so they remain entirely independent events. The bizarreness of this process does not change the rules of mathematics.

Dependent events are like pulling a red card from a deck reduces the odds of the next one being red also. It's how card counting is effective.

The event is not the reader, it's the applicant.

The event is the result - acceptance, rejection, or WL. Red or Black. 2 through 12.

Your decision from Harvard has no effect on your decision from Yale, Penn State, or anywhere else. Therefore they are absolutely independent events.

https://www.mathsisfun.com/data/probability-events-independent.html

https://www.cuemath.com/data/independent-events/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independence_(probability_theory)

Doing the same thing 14 times and expecting something different to happen the next time is stupid.

Anonymous wrote:15 schools is just an unfocused “spray and pray” approach to college admissions…..not terribly bright.

That's silly. You really cannot say that without knowing the 15.