There are many reasons to leave an application open, and reasons like “maybe I’ll change my mind”, or “maybe they’ll make a better financial offer than the initial one” are good reasons. Even using is as a bargaining chip for schools which will negotiate on aid. However this sounds like pure vicarious ego inflation.
On the other hand, as @cptofthehouse mentioned, sometimes people say one thing because they refuse to admit that they really would like to see their kid at that college, but do not want to admit it. Instead of the parents immaturely needing bragging rights, the parents immaturely are trying to maintain so illusion of who they are (I’m too cool a parent to care whether they are accepted, I’m just doing it for bragging rights". People are strange and a lot of 40 year old “adults” maintain middle school behaviors.
In the first case the kid did all the work and submitted the application with good intentions. I have no problem with her seeing it through. You really don’t know…maybe they will find the money somewhere if she gets in. Or maybe it will help with closure and her being happy with the big OOS school if she doesn’t get into the LAC anyway or if she gets to see the schools financial offer on paper and how it will not work out.
Guilty… for DS09, we applied to and visited 6 schools that we knew we could afford to send him to. He liked the schools and they were real contenders. For the most part they were match and safety schools. Well after a discussion with a teacher, who informed him that she did not see any Ivy’s on his list and she thought he was underestimating his abilities he came home and informed me of this conversation. I got upset because I knew that I could not afford the schools that she recommended he apply to. This teacher may have been joking but told my son that if he didn’t apply that she was not going to give him a recommendation. In the end I caved and just added those two schools to the application (call it people pleasing). Well, he ended up getting waitlisted for one of the schools and admitted to the other. Though we did not originally plan this he ended up attending the Ivy that he was admitted to with decent financial aid. So , for us it was not ego or bragging rights, I guess it was pressure. I am finding with many parents that I have been in contact with that they have an enormous amount of pressure from schools who are trying to build their reputation and stats and placing doubt in the minds of the student and their parents regarding their affordable choices.
Students applying to a large number of admission safeties may be trying for large scholarships, which are typically not safety unless automatic for the student’s stats.
I think applying to a school you have not intention of attending makes zero sense - particularly considering what a pain it is to fill out the apps and pay all the fees. Now if it’s a school you genuinely wanted to attend and you’ve already done the work of applying - eh I can’t really fault them for wanting to see how it plays out - especially if they’re not binding on big OOS school. My daughter had a hard time pulling all her apps after her ED school. She had only chosen schools she genuinely wanted to attend and had done a ton of work on the apps. There was a bit of - would they like me as much as I like them in her head, but ultimately as she was bound so she pulled them. If it was an EA school instead of ED, I can see her wanting to see those applications play out - even if she had a strong running favorite.
It’s not limited to just kids. Adults are guilty of that too (heavy sigh). I went into “prestige shopping” mode with my last job search. I interviewed all over the country and we found out that we REALLY like living where we are, so I took a job locally (less money). Since then, my daughter hasn’t had much desire to apply to elite universities…probably because we can’t afford it.
Agreed but on the same post i also said basically said those people will not have any need base scholarship and very little to none merit aid. I know there were NOT looking for money. That’s why it’s so strange to me.
He recently received a likely letter to one of the HYPS colleges. The only apps he pulled afterwards are those that required more work, such as an interview request. The rest are still pending even though he will choose the likely letter offer over most of them.
Why? Because he’s already done the work of applying and I’ve paid the application fees. And a likely letter is almost an offer of admission, but it’s not an official offer.
More likely, it will calculate a yield estimate for each admit and add that partial expected student to the tentative class.
But if the number of apply-with-no-possibility-of-attending applicants is different from what the college’s yield model expects, then it can over or under admit.
Both of my sons pulled or didn’t complete apps after getting into some of their top choices EA. They were both in selective admit HS programs where most of the students were applying to the same limited list (as in 35% of the class to MIT EA at one school and 28% to Yale at the other).
They both kept a couple apps in play for merit/FA purposes, but decided not to collect acceptance letters for the heck of it. Their lists were only schools where they wanted to be academically and knew they would be happy.
One applied to two Ivies, purposely didn’t send in everything for one of them (I found out months later), and the other had decided Ivies were too reachy and focused on the next tier.
I appreciate the differentiation between the two scenarios. On the first one, the school was a contender. Her list was quite the eclectic mix. Early on my friend said she could apply ED to the elite LAC. Later, the stance on that was changed - not sure why. I am guessing because friend decided no desire to pay that much. I have no idea if they offer merit. I don’t know much about elite LACs. Anyway, friend pulled that option, and daughter did not apply ED there. These are well-informed parents, and this is their second time through the process. She does not go to an elite private high school (she is at a large public that sends most students in-state), so no one on the school side is asking her to keep the app open for admission stats for her high school. I guess I can understand the wanting-to-know aspect since she has put the work into the application. I asked my friend if she was going to want to go to the elite LAC if she gets in. Friend says they have discussed, and she knows at this point it’s just to see how it all turns out. It is absolutely ego on the part of my friend (no idea how the daughter feels), but I do wonder what will happen if she gets in and then wants to go. I do not know if she has deposited yet at the Big State U.
As to the second case, it’s just such a head-scratcher to me. I do not know this family (as I said, friend of a friend), but the kid did score a 35 on the ACT as a 9th grader. Obviously, that doesn’t guarantee anything at a reach school, but it’s not like it’s only speculation if he will at least be in range.
Students apply to reaches, matches, and safeties to see where they can get in. Unless they apply ED, they have every right to collect all their acceptances and make a decision in April just like everybody else. Maybe there’s really only one affordable acceptance in the mix, but that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t get to review all the offers and make a choice.
Well we went through it with two kids. It’s a numbers game. Plus you want to see what merit /financial aid will look like. It can be vastly different at different schools. . I just think that both parents and their students are not well informed. I think the schools need to do a better job of it. If I knew then what I know now the application landscape would be so different. I had my poor son apply to way to many safeties due to my insecurities of him not getting into a good school for engineering. But we learned about some great programs and he definitely got some great merit at some great schools. The unknown is kinda scary. For my daughter we did play one school against another and got increased merit.
Plus yes holding out for some magical money tree or merit landing in our laps.
I don’t know, but seems to me people do this for the same reason we see kids year after year apply to safeties they hate and have no intention of attending. It seems to occur on both ends - apply to reaches you can’t/won’t attend; apply to safeties you hate. I think the bigger world outside of CC is much less knowledgeable on the process, so look at it in a completely different light. I know several people who just think “it will work out” when Johnny gets into an $80k reach.
^^^ this seems like a good friend of mines that is asking me advice for her brilliant daughter, who is also just a lovely, nice, mature kid. Hate when they have it all… Lol
Her mother keeps telling me the places she will get in easily next year due to her stats like John Hopkins, Stanford, Yale and I could go on. Now this might be THAT kid that does but I frequently give her mother the stats and chances and me and her sisters and friends in the know keep telling her about matches /safeties. Keep telling her that colleges just don’t throw out full rides because they like you and finally gave her stats about all the kids with the same stats. That finally opened her eyes.
Then she tells me all the Lacs she’s looking at since of course those are easier to get in since the school is smaller…
LOL. Just start naming Lacs on the East and West coast that are tough to get into and you will be correct… Lol
So I sent her some safeties with full merit possibility and she is finally starting to change her tune. I just asked her “when she gets into JH… How are you paying for it”?
Why do people think just because their kid gets in somewhere that means free tuition?
Well sure. But yield management is something that colleges (and for that matter the entire travel industry) have understood for a long time.
Let’s take a concrete example: Carnegie-Mellon, an elite college with some departments among the best in the nation.
Using numbers from collegdata.com, 24351 students applied, of which about 4140 students were admitted, and 1805 enrolled, giving a yield rate of 44%. But that includes ED, which is nearly 100% guaranteed. If we back out the 345 ED students from both admitted and enrolled, we end up with an RD yield of 1460 enrolled / 3795 admitted = 38%.
CMU admitted 109 students off its waitlist, or 6% of its class (it’s unclear how many of them enrolled). So even though they had to admit more than 2.5x the number of RD students as they needed to fill the class, they were able to get close to the number they needed to fill the beds. Also, realize that the ideal number of waitlist admits is small but not zero. The waitlist is useful to fill unexpected gaps in the admitted class. Perhaps not as many humanities students enrolled as expected, or they need to fill an orchestra spot. The waitlist bails them out.
To answer the original question, some people do things just for the challenge of it.
It’s a huge accomplishment to get accepted into a competitive university, and even if some middle class kid from Kansas doesn’t want to go to a school like Yale, he may still want to prove to himself and others that he worked hard enough in high school to have earned admissions there.
When I see things like this I’m either happy for the kid or at worst don’t consider it enough of my business to care one way or the other.
I don’t consider it anything to judge someone over.
@knowstuff I have a friend with a D like that too! She got really snippy with me when I tried to suggest to her that U Michigan wasn’t a good safety for her OOS engineer major. At least they have the cash to pay for it!
“I know several people who just think “it will work out” when Johnny gets into an $80k reach.”
Those are anecdotes, and the data shows that most people that apply to $80K reaches can afford them. These colleges are usually 50% full pay, and assuming a 70% yield, would mean that 70% of the applicants are full pay. Of the remaining 30%, a majority are right below the full-pay income/wealth. You’re only looking at 11-12% of the applicants that hope it works out if they get in.