Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Why all the judgement? It's such a BURDEN to fill out a good application complete with supplemental essays! More power to all these kids who are doing a ton more work!

My senior took an enormous amount of time to write thoughtful essays and burned out after the 6th application.
I wish he could have done more, but I saw his effort, and didn't say a word.

Unless you've ever filled out 30 applications for college, I really don't think you're in a position to criticize! It's not hitting a button 30 times, people.

Sure we can criticize. Because it is one of the reasons apps are up 10 percent every year.

Except you're criticizing the victims, instead of criticizing the perpetrators! The perpetrators are the colleges who built and encouraged this system. The victims are the students, who are either shut out because they didn't apply to many schools, or have to do a ton more work by applying to a lot more schools.

I really dislike how easy it is for some people to default to victim-blaming, whether it's for college admissions or any other situation (ex: "you were in a mini skirt - no wonder someone took an upskirt photo!"). It's like you guys just ignore millenia of evolution, bypass your prefrontal cortex entirely and stick to the lizard brain

+1 - second paragraph goes off the rails put first paragraph is spot on. Blame these hedge funds that circumscribe supply and educate as a sidenote.

If applications were limited, they should only be limited at the schools that are the most popular among students at that particular high school. So, at Wilson HS in DC, the kids might be limited to no more than 10 schools found on a list that some administrator compiles of the colleges that received the most applications over the prior 5 years from Wilson students. This would probably be the Ivy schools, MIT, Stanford, UVA, UNC, Michigan, NYU, and UMD.

Every other school out there would be fair game. You can apply to as many schools are you want so long as they don't include schools on that list. Apply to every single community college in Arkansas, Arizona, Alaska, and Alabama! Apply to every bible college below the Mason Dixon line! Apply to every HBCU on the Black Common App! Kids could do this without impacting on anybody else in their class. The only person who would be put out by this would be the Wilson guidance counselor who has to click send a few more times when the kid asks for transcripts to be sent.

"This is one reason why percentages of kids accepted and yield has gone down at T20 schools. Instead of applying to 6-8 school, students are applying to twice that. More applicants and the same number of acceptances. If the same kids get into numerous schools, then most of those schools will take a hit to their yield."

By definition, only 10% of the applicants nationally in any given year have SAT scores in the top 10th percentile. Let's say that's 50,000 kids in a given year. Before TO, nobody below that percentile was making it past the first cut for admission to Princeton or Stanford. They weren't considered "qualified" without that score and a GPA of 3.8+. Five years ago, the fact that hundreds of thousands of kids who scored in the 50th or 70th percentile on the SAT threw their applications into the Princeton pile alongside the 50,000 who were qualified didn't make admission to those schools any more difficult than it already was, FOR THOSE KIDS WHO WERE QUALIFIED. Sure, the Princeton overall acceptance number that included average students with zero chance of ever being admitted might have gone down. But Princeton could just weed out those mediocre performers and then turn their attention to choosing from among the top applicants. In that scenario, Perfect Peter with his 1580 and 3.8+ was never going to lose his spot to Mediocre Martin who only scored 1200 on the SAT even if Martin also had a 3.8+. Today, with TO, we've changed the pool of people who have a shot at admission at Princeton because people with crappy SAT scores can now try to slip in among the qualified kids. And we've blindfolded the AOs at Princeton and Stanford so that they can't use the SAT score to tell which kid has an inflated GPA and which one is the real deal. THAT, using TO, is what decreases the acceptance rates for the kids like Perfect Peter with top GPAs and top 10% SAT scores.

If we had access to the acceptance rate by GPA+ rigor and SAT scores at Princeton and Stanford, we'd likely see that the acceptance rate for QUALIFIED applicants (those in the top 10% SAT and a 3.8+) hasn't actually decreased by more than the increase in the pool of students who meet the schools' threshold stats. (There are more of these qualified kids in raw numbers now than there were five years ago due to population growth.)

My child has a 1450. We applied to 14 schools: 1 ED and the others either EA (if available or RD). Rejected ED. Rejected at one EA. Accepted at the safety EA with nice merit. Deferred everywhere else. So, waiting. And, yes, we were hoping to compare merit, but are now thinking we have a bunch more rejections on the way on will have only one choice.

Here's the thing you are missing. By limiting the amount of applications to people serious about the school, you will see increases in acceptance rate for those that really want to go there and a higher yield. And isn't that the point?

No. It's about a colleges ability to build the class they want, and they have decided they best do it by getting the greatest number of applicants.

You should be competing with people that have a desired interest in that school and aren't using for clout or because one of their friends went there or to satisfy some need to stockpile acceptances.

Limiting apps for the small minority who may do that greatly penalizes the much larger number of students who are sincerely trying to cast a wide net in a crazy process. It hurts many people and helps almost no one.

Perfect example. My DC is interested in a good OOS school and told several friends it was a top choice. A group of about 10 or more at the school then just applied there despite having no real interest, never visiting or having a realistic plan to attend. Now they're all competing with each other despite one truly wanting to attend. Maybe that shines through in the application but it's still changes the calculation with more applicates from the school.

They can't enroll in more than one college. Same number of applicants, same number of spots.

One way you can limit this is to raise the application fees and then allow those fees to be applied to tuition if the person accepts the offer.

Hmm... colleges can do this, and they haven't... wonder why? Maybe because it is not a problem?

You'd streamline out a lot of people who are unserious. Yes, the drawback is that favors families that have more resources but I doubt you'd see 30 applications if the fee was like $250.

This is the worst idea in the history of the college forum.

For those with financial constraints, there could be refund option if accepted or lesser expense. But you'd definitely see behavior change if you asking families to spend $5k on shotgun applications.

Except for the affluent, so you streamline the process nicely for them.

Not sure why there is so much judgment against kids who apply to 20+ schools. For the most part the burden is on the kids to write the essays and supplementals. For counselors, recs etc it is mostly recycle, button clicks.

If the kid is ready to put in the work, why restrict? Seeing how results are going these past 2-3 years, when my kid applies I am not going to encourage that he caps it. For selective schools, it is a lottery. Might as well shoot as many as possible.

Anonymous wrote:Let's say you are strong contender for Dartmouth. You want to go there badly. No matter who you are, you might not get in.

With the way college admissions is now, you may not get into NYU, or USC either.

Let's say you don't get into any of the above schools... then you have to settle for... like, Indiana? If you could have applied to Brown, Cornell, and Penn-- one of them may have worked out. But no-- that's TOO MANY applications (when including all of the "safeties" that are needed).

So you just have to go that state school you're not that excited about? This is actually playing out for many students and it is sad.

Let them apply where they want.

Here's the thing you are missing. By limiting the amount of applications to people serious about the school, you will see increases in acceptance rate for those that really want to go there and a higher yield. And isn't that the point? You should be competing with people that have a desired interest in that school and aren't using for clout or because one of their friends went there or to satisfy some need to stockpile acceptances. Perfect example. My DC is interested in a good OOS school and told several friends it was a top choice. A group of about 10 or more at the school then just applied there despite having no real interest, never visiting or having a realistic plan to attend. Now they're all competing with each other despite one truly wanting to attend. Maybe that shines through in the application but it's still changes the calculation with more applicates from the school.

One way you can limit this is to raise the application fees and then allow those fees to be applied to tuition if the person accepts the offer. You'd streamline out a lot of people who are unserious. Yes, the drawback is that favors families that have more resources but I doubt you'd see 30 applications if the fee was like $250. For those with financial constraints, there could be refund option if accepted or lesser expense. But you'd definitely see behavior change if you asking families to spend $5k on shotgun applications.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Why all the judgement? It's such a BURDEN to fill out a good application complete with supplemental essays! More power to all these kids who are doing a ton more work!

My senior took an enormous amount of time to write thoughtful essays and burned out after the 6th application.
I wish he could have done more, but I saw his effort, and didn't say a word.

Unless you've ever filled out 30 applications for college, I really don't think you're in a position to criticize! It's not hitting a button 30 times, people.

Sure we can criticize. Because it is one of the reasons apps are up 10 percent every year.

Except you're criticizing the victims, instead of criticizing the perpetrators! The perpetrators are the colleges who built and encouraged this system. The victims are the students, who are either shut out because they didn't apply to many schools, or have to do a ton more work by applying to a lot more schools.

I really dislike how easy it is for some people to default to victim-blaming, whether it's for college admissions or any other situation (ex: "you were in a mini skirt - no wonder someone took an upskirt photo!"). It's like you guys just ignore millenia of evolution, bypass your prefrontal cortex entirely and stick to the lizard brain

Anonymous wrote:

Why all the judgement? It's such a BURDEN to fill out a good application complete with supplemental essays! More power to all these kids who are doing a ton more work!

My senior took an enormous amount of time to write thoughtful essays and burned out after the 6th application.
I wish he could have done more, but I saw his effort, and didn't say a word.

Unless you've ever filled out 30 applications for college, I really don't think you're in a position to criticize! It's not hitting a button 30 times, people.

Sure we can criticize. Because it is one of the reasons apps are up 10 percent every year.

Why all the judgement? It's such a BURDEN to fill out a good application complete with supplemental essays! More power to all these kids who are doing a ton more work!

My senior took an enormous amount of time to write thoughtful essays and burned out after the 6th application.
I wish he could have done more, but I saw his effort, and didn't say a word.

Unless you've ever filled out 30 applications for college, I really don't think you're in a position to criticize! It's not hitting a button 30 times, people.

Our student applied to only 5-6 colleges all in state last year. Didn't want to waste *our* money on application fees to spam colleges they were not serious about in reality. Got offers from the two schools on top of list, picked one. Done.

These frugally-minded, quick-deciding kids are out there...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Man some of your people care a lot about what other families choose to do.

Only because it affects other people, and perpetuates a cycle where kids have no choice to apply to more schools each year to get the same number of offers.

I disagree. There are roughly the same number of seats for roughly the same number of applicants as there have been for some time. The only people it affects are the colleges who have to read the apps, and they all want as many apps as possible to pick from. It doesn't affect you at all. I know you think it does, but it doesn't.

Regardless, criticizing a kid who does the work necessary to apply to that many schools is distasteful at best, and likely a sign of bitterness.

Sounds like you let your kid apply to 30 schools.

HA! Fail. PP here. 2 kids, both admitted ED, 5 apps total (2 first kid 3 second kid), so sorry, no.

Anonymous wrote:Let's say you are strong contender for Dartmouth. You want to go there badly. No matter who you are, you might not get in.

With the way college admissions is now, you may not get into NYU, or USC either.

Let's say you don't get into any of the above schools... then you have to settle for... like, Indiana? If you could have applied to Brown, Cornell, and Penn-- one of them may have worked out. But no-- that's TOO MANY applications (when including all of the "safeties" that are needed).

So you just have to go that state school you're not that excited about? This is actually playing out for many students and it is sad.

Let them apply where they want.

You only need a few safeties, so to apply to Dartmouth, NYU, USC, Brown, Cornell and Penn and 3 safeties is 9 schools. We need target/matches so let’s add 4, that brings us to 13. Should be sufficient for nearly all high stats kids, give or take. Few schools.

No kid needs 30 schools and applying to that many just takes slots away from class mates that the 30 school kid doesn’t need and can’t use.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. Last year, when my kid was applying, some parent had twins, and they were maxing out Common and Coalition Apps to apply to 30+ schools each fishing for max merit aid.

To me, this is where it makes sense. If you're a donut hole family, it's not clear where the merit scholarship might come from, so you cast a wide net.

no such thing as a donut hole family

Let's say you are strong contender for Dartmouth. You want to go there badly. No matter who you are, you might not get in.

With the way college admissions is now, you may not get into NYU, or USC either.

Let's say you don't get into any of the above schools... then you have to settle for... like, Indiana? If you could have applied to Brown, Cornell, and Penn-- one of them may have worked out. But no-- that's TOO MANY applications (when including all of the "safeties" that are needed).

So you just have to go that state school you're not that excited about? This is actually playing out for many students and it is sad.

Let them apply where they want.