The yearly set of stories about students accepted to large numbers of colleges, 2025 edition:
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Iâm really tired of these stories, especially the click-bait headlines of âearned 1.1 million is scholarshipsâ.
No, Tucker, they didnât earn that much in scholarships, unless they are also paying $3 million for tuition for all of the colleges which are providing the scholarships. It is so idiotic, and such a good example of the crappy sort of news coverage of higher education.
Supermarket tabloids provide better coverage than this lazy incompetent clickbait.
Applying to 100 colleges does not provide any inherent advantages over applying to 10, especially when 80 of them are safeties. Merit scholarships from different colleges do not stack. Earning full ride merit for colleges that you wonât attend does not help you financially. Applying to 80 safeties that you would never attend just to rack up the number of acceptances is a waste of everybodyâs time.
But none of those facts look good on a clickbait article.
There are also issues that are hidden in those stories, that the stories are glossing over. Specifically, that 13 year-old. There are so many thing wrong with that story. The more you dig, the worse it gets.
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Yep. Thatâs like getting more than one job offer and adding up the salaries to claim thatâs what you were offered.
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Or getting pre-approved for a mortgage and then claiming your house is worth the aggregate value of the three homes you bid on (only one of which you actually purchased.)
These stories themselves donât bother me. Itâs the ripple effect of parents thinking that if a kidâs chance at Princeton is 3%, applying to 20 elite colleges makes their chances 60% and who wouldnât take those odds? Then add another 10 safety schools and youâre good!
Poor kids.
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Agree with everything thatâs been said so far. Adding that plenty of private schools (Iâve not seen a public school do this, but maybe some do) will add up all the discounts that students get from all their acceptances and report the amount of âscholarshipsâ the seniors received in aggregate. Wrong on so many levels.
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My sonsâ public high school asked them to report how much they were offered in scholarships. I told them not to answer because I was ticked off at how unhelpful the guidance counselors were in their college application process (thankfully I had this site to help me guide them!)
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Yawn
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Some of these students who shot gun applied to hundreds of schools, they should do a follow up study on these kids and see what really happened to them after the end of their freshman year
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These stories also drive me bonkers too!
MANY, MANY kids, if they did every direct admission on Niche and college vine and lots of likely schools would match this. Just a bit waste of everyoneâs time
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Agree. Most of the time the kids who do this are from families who get application fee waivers. Not only is it the case that many of these âscholarshipsâ are financial aid, but in some cases LOANS are included in the âscholarshipsâ which some high schools tout.
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Also, often with many colleges on shared applications that means less work per college. Many of the colleges are less selective, so that can result in lots of admissions and scholarships from them (with relatively few essays and such) for a good student who makes an application.
Also make me mad to see high schools post our kids got $$$$$$$$$$.$$ in scholarship. Our guidance Counceller told my kid you can apply and get outside scholarship to cover the tuition, and the kid is arguing $90,000 scholarship is coming. Also, some kids say I got full ride to NYU, BU etc. itâs financial aid.
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This is a huge pet peeve of mine. Every year there are a number of news stories about kids getting a full scholarship from an ivy or school that has no scholarships. It is bad reporting.
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Of course, Harvard calls its need-based financial aid âscholarshipâ.
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fascinating! Ok, then I guess reporters can call harvardâs one technically..do other schools I wonder? Maybe I have been wrong all this time..
Regardless, I think reporters are implying the kids are extra-wanted by the colleges (when it is about finances). Still SO impressive to get into any of these tippy top schools, but donât think they need to exaggerate.
Dartmouth calls them scholarships too
Ok, I can drop this pet peeve down a notch:)
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Most of the âaccepted to [a large number] of collegesâ stories involve mostly less selective colleges, not the highly selective ones people on these forums focus on. Many of them do offer large merit scholarships to attract high-end admits.
I have split views on this topic. I teach in a Texas public high school, title I campus. This kind of headline always boost our studentsâ excitement about college. They need constant confirmation that going to college is a practical option, and that it is possible to not be a financial burden. Those just below the state auto-admit cutoff respond to this kind of headline very positively - âif they can do so well, l may not be too far behindâ.
On the other hand, applying to that many colleges is a waste of time, and â1M scholarshipâ really isnât hard to achieve. Private college tuition is around 60k a year. receiving tuition waver from 4 such colleges amount to 1M total, many music students get more than that.
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A few years ago there was a football player who got a âfull ride athletic scholarship to Dartmouthâ reported in the Denver Post, sports page. So I wrote an email to the reporter that that wasnât true as the Ivy league doesnât give athletic scholarship. I pointed out getting accepted to Dartmouth was a great accomplishment but that the full ride was based on need, not athletic talent.
I got no reply.
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I clicked on one of the stories and it said the girl worked through a federal program since 7th grade with a goal of getting into college. Iâm sure the idea of the program, to steer students toward college and help them with course selection while in school (and other help?) and application help is a good one, having them apply to 100 schools is, to me, a waste of time and resources. Is a student from GA really going to go to a community college in Kansas? Very unlikely. Is the computer reviewing applications in Kansas going to accept the student from GA? sure, and then someone is going to have to issue the letters, process the paperwork, even pay for the stamp. Itâs just wasteful. Why not put them into zones and focus on 10-15 schools within 100 miles? For the true unicorns, have a counselor work with that student to apply to 5 schools with fee waivers.
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