<p>I think the colleges that are “safeties” for so many top ranked students could be caught in a bit of a bind. The excessive number of college apps from so many has got to play into yield. Safety schools may think the credentials of their application pool is radically improving and they are counting on previous yields from the application pool. However, many of the top students will go to one of the " ten other" more prestigious colleges they applied to and the safety may have to deal with the fact the applicant pool has not changed as much as they were counting on. IMO the college scramble has more students adding more than one safety to their list (understandably so).</p>
<p>If colleges are trying to attract more male applicants, they should not be making their application process more difficult. They should continue the trend of common, online, 2 essay applications. </p>
<p>Sorry guys, but you know it’s true.</p>
<p>Umm…that was a ridicilious comment. Believe it or not, the point of feminism is to equate men and women as equal, not force men and women to switch gender roles in the context of a feminazi’s dream. Yeah…that coment was more than a little sexist.</p>
<p>Anyways, what’s wrong with being able to apply to a lot of colleges?</p>
<p>College apps aren’t too easy. I actually didn’t end up applying to Princeton, Brown, Penn, and Cornell because I was too lazy to do the apps.</p>
<p>Sounds like the application itself is the first form of weeding kids out…
I applied to three schools - a safety, the one I wanted, and a reach (well, sort of). I would have applied to TONS more if the application fees had been lower. $40-$60 per application adds up fast when you’re applying to 10 schools!</p>
<p>Those who can afford to apply to more schools have every right to apply to more schools. You can’t just RESTRICT someone’s college applications…it isn’t right.</p>
<p>Yea lol…I must be the only kid that let his laziness limit him from applying to schools. I only ended up applying to 9, each deadline doing multiple college apps in 1 day. I barely spent any time on them, but somehow luckily got into all of the schools, including Harvard.</p>
<p>I’m probably applying to 11…</p>
<p>Heavenwood - men and women are equal, but different. :)</p>
<p>I’m a feminist, but I do believe that teenage boys prefer online vs paper, common vs. individual forms asking for different stats and questions, and are generally less excitied about writing essays than their female counterparts. I don’t think males are necessarily lazier, however.<br>
Just my observations, based on being a parent of both genders, and watching kids apply for college for the last six years. There are always the exceptions, of course.
And I agree - why limit applications!</p>
<p>True, as males tend to excel in math and science while females tend to favor the humanities.</p>
<p>I’m a weird mix of both. I excel in math, hate the physical sciences, and do very well in the social sciences.</p>
<p>Currently, students in need can only get 4 fee waivers. Does this put them at a disadvantage to their peers who can afford to write ten checks for $50?</p>
<p>For me it wasn’t completely an issue of affordability - my parents COULD write the checks but they wouldn’t because I wasn’t positive of my major and I ‘could get a perfectly good education’ at UA, where I was accepted w/honors & scholarships.</p>
<p>IMO, the increase in apps is a direct correlation to the randomness of selection. As adcoms repeatedly strive to design their community, great grades, great ECs, great recs no longer have the importance which they used to carry. The randomness has generated fear in the college applying set. Hence, in order to gain admission, the roulette wheel has to be spun more than in the past. The kids and the parents have, in essence, responded to the marketing and paper deluge they receive in the mail, email, phone solicitations etc. with a greater number of apps.</p>
<p>At my S’s school, with the results coming in, there is a randomness that has never been experienced. Schools, which used to be guaranteed admittance for genius/gifted applicant, reject them. Kids who applied for financial aid rejected while those with lesser stats admitted (whose families are quite wealthy). Even kids who are passionate about their ECs are playing with the randomness of what captures the adcom fancy.</p>
<p>I have to say that the reason that I applied using the Common App to a lot of my schools was simply because I applied to 13 schools. I found it stupid to write a separate and different essay for each of the 13 schools, and of course, these schools all had to write more than one essay. </p>
<p>If a school wasn’t on the COmmon App, I wasn’t deterred. I just used their application. It all depends on where you really want to go. My friend had a fee waiver, and applied to 2 or 3 schools just for the hell of it. I had to pay, so I couldn’t do that. Otherwise, I might’ve done more safeties or reaches, instead of mostly middling.</p>
<p>The Commonapp really is kind of too easy.I wrote my personal statement in about an hour, filled in all the details of my applications(extracurriculars, contact info, stuff like that) in about a half hour. </p>
<p>That’s not to say I didn’t put thought or care into my application, but considering that the whole college application process made to be such a harrowing and stressful time, submitting my Common App online was a huge anticlimax.</p>
<p>As if filling out all those supplements isn’t enough work already…why bother with indiviual apps - sounds like a nightmare.</p>
<p>Some schools applications were super easy. </p>
<p>I applied to Loyola Chicago, it was free, and it literally took me 15 minutes.</p>
<p>I was going to do the same for Grinnell because it was free, too. </p>
<p>I mean, it’s hard to turn down applying to a college when all it costs is $7 to send test scores.</p>
<p>I did 6 other full apps and I didn’t find any particularly difficult, with the exception of U.Chicago’s essays.</p>
<p>From time-to-time, the idea of a national college-choice registration center is mentioned here. The basic idea is that a student could apply to as many colleges as he wants, but hed tell the center which schools are his top four (or so) choices. </p>
<p>A college trying to decide on a particular applicant could send the applicants ID number to the center, and the center would tell the school whether it was one of his top choices. That way the college would get a better idea of their potential yield, and the student would get a better chance at the places he really wants to go to. </p>
<p>(Imagine a situation in which a student applies to, say, Amherst and Williams, because he really loves Amherst, but would be ok with Williams if his other choices didnt come through. Wouldnt the student have a better shot at Amherst if the Amherst adcoms knew the student really wanted to go there? Wouldnt someone whose first choice was Williams have a better shot at getting in if the Williams adcoms werent giving a spot to the similarly-qualified Amherst-lover?)</p>
<p>A strategically-minded student might register two reaches, a match, and a safety with the center, whereas a super-star student might register four reaches. The system should work to the advantage of both students and all the schools as far as I can tell. </p>
<p>It would still be worth applying to more than four schools in case one of the less-favored ones wanted to entice a student to go there. For example, a school thats desperate for a clarinet-player might have to pick someone who didnt list them as a top-four choice. Since theyre not at the top of her list, if they’re a merit-based aid school, theyll probably also need to come up with a good financial aid package to get her. That seems fair.</p>
<p>The registration center seems like a good idea to me, and Im not sure why it doesn’t catch on. Am I missing some big downside?</p>
<p>The system you desribe is a lot like the residency “match” for medical school grads.</p>
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<p>Yeah. If you don’t get accepted to your first-choice school, then you’re absolutely screwed over. Schools don’t like being the second choice, and thus your options for college will be substantially limited. Your system works to the detriment of the students, as students won’t “risk it” by applying to reaches anymore, because reaches would take up spots on your “registration center list”. By taking up space on your “registration center list”, you won’t be able to get into schools that are qualified as “matches” for you.</p>