You could still apply to more colleges – just not using the Common App.
Colleges would benefit from fewer applications to review. Students would have fewer essays to write and test scores to pay to submit.
I presume acceptance rates would go up as a result. What are the unintended consequences? The first I can think of is low-income students looking for aid having fewer options to pursue. . .
I’m not strongly in favor – just interested, as it feels like the whole admissions scandal is getting us to a point where something needs to give. Not sure this is the solution, but worth discussion!
@OHMomof2 – could there be an exception for low-income, first gen students? Sort of like the SAT waivers – you could get a waiver to apply to more based on family income or status?
Not in favor. My kid applied to 13 schools, wait-listed at 4, expecting number 5 or a rejection today. And he only applied to 2 reaches. So, I feel like, as long as the common app is in place, you can’t limit the number of applications. Now, doing away with it entirely? I could go for that.
What is low income? There are many kids who HAVE to have financial aid to go away to college. When you are going for a lot of money, you really need to have spread out. The most generous schools in aid are the most selective. So you lower your chances of admissions as you focus on those schools that can meet full need.
IMO the ability to apply to a lot of colleges may lower admit rates but it also lowers yield, so in the end, shouldn’t make any difference. All things being equal, colleges will just accept more because fewer will enroll.
The bigger problem is that too many kids want to go to the same 10, 20, 50 whatever colleges.
A. Bottom quarter income. Approximates eligibility for full Pell grant.
B. Bottom half income. Approximates eligibility for (not necessarily full) Pell grant.
C. Needs/gets financial aid at some colleges if admitted. Approximates bottom 96-97% income.
D. Anyone who has to consider cost when sending kids to college. Approximates bottom 99.5% income.
While most people outside of these forums would probably use definition A or B or something similar (e.g. eligibility for free or reduced price lunch in K-12), it is likely that many on these forums use a definition more like C or D.
@Trixy34 – you could still apply to as many colleges as you want – just have to choose the 10 to do under the Common App. So it takes more effort to apply to more than 10 which means fewer would.
@OHMomof2 – agreed it ends up in a wash in terms of acceptance vs. yield – but all the collective effort from students submitting so many and colleges reviewing all those applications seems more than needed. Students would have to make more true choices before applying and colleges would have more time to do more robust reviews…
Agree the low-income and “I need $$ for college even if I’m not low-income” is tricky. I’d be in favor of wavier for low-income (household less than $80k?). Higher income students looking for money could still apply to more than 10 – just not through Common App.
I wonder how colleges would react to the idea. The CA gives them boosts in selectivity with more kids applying and it also streamlines the process for them.
I’d be in favor of the opposite direction. Common Application for all colleges, sliding scale fees, no limits on number of colleges selected.
Colleges don’t have to accept low-income students if they aren’t qualified or if the college doesn’t have funds to support them, however, low-income students can try their best to apply everywhere.
The only barrier should be willingness.
Re: Low income: Pell eligibility / local free or reduced lunch is a great proxy for this and I don’t see a need for anything else. I’m aware of the folks who somehow manage to make $250k per year with four kids and not save for college, but that’s another thread. (A very judgmental thread.)
I’d like some way to limit the mania (and somewhat reckelss nature of too many apps.) My usual idea is to shorten the window for apps. Eg, you can apply between 12/1 and 12/31. Something like that.
And then another 10 with the Coalition Application, another 10 with the Universal Application, and perhaps more with an application to all of your in-state public universities.
Interesting idea. I agree that so many applications are skewing results. There are threads here with “convince me why I should take top 10 school A over top 10 school B or C”. Or my favorite… “Tell me about school X. I just got in and now need help to figure out if it has what I want” We also can read today “I was denied by dream schools X and Y but I did get the lesser school M, N. O, P and Z, problem is I would never go to any of those” All variations of things I have read in the past few days. Why are kids applying when they know nothing about a school? Why are they applying if they will never consider going? these questions are insane at this point in the game.
Anyway, to the question at hand of limiting apps, people will always find a loophole to cheat the system. There will always be someone who has a special situation that exempts their children from staying within the parameters thus making it even more unfair to the typical family who plays by the stated rules and lets the chips fall where they may.
I love the idea! Limiting apps would help everyone, the current system is ridiculous.
Another idea would be for all schools to offer single choice EA. This is where I kid can say - this is the school I really want but unfortunately I can’t commit to ED because of finances. Schools would know this was the students first choice.
Both my kids had clear match first choices, but we cannot afford to apply ED because of merit. They would have happily applied scea and if they got the merit they would have attended and not applied to any more schools.
I would love to see the elite liberal arts college and universities move to a model more like the Match system for medical school residencies. I see how financial aid probably makes that a non-starter of an idea, but from a stress management point of view, it would have some benefits.
We have reached the point of insanity with the ED1, ED2, SCEA stuff and I think it has some negative psychological repercussions for students who get deferred or rejected from that first choice school in December and then have months of waiting before they get the bulk of their news from the elite tier. My kid is a junior, but I have seen what some of this year’s seniors have gone through.
What if prospective students could rank schools instead and be matched?
This would also mean that no one is holding on to eight elite tier acceptances while someone else has four elite waitlists, isn’t sure if they will get any of them, and therefore takes a slot at a competitive school in the next most elite tier, displacing someone who is waitlisted for that school. (Currently, we need kids to be able to get competing offers in order to play one school’s financial aid offer against another, but what if that somehow weren’t the case?)
My daughter would be equally blissfully happy at any of her top three (US News liberal arts colleges tied for #11, 30, and 41) and really, there are at least six colleges she would be overjoyed to attend. An acceptance to any one of them would make her heart sing. (And we may be able to add to that list as we visit more colleges.) I wish we could just submit all that information and say “She is willing to attend any of these with a big smile on her face” and have a result.
I will fully concede, by the way, that there are many excellent schools outside the elite tier. I am a professor at one of them, and I love my job. But for kids who are gunning for that elite tier, we certainly have devised a way to make this process stressful and agonizing. I feel like there could be a better way.
Sounds like Questbridge National College Match. However, Questbridge is for students from low income families, which the colleges will offer their maximum financial aid to, so financial aid and net price differences between schools should be minimal and therefore not so much of a concern.
But something like that could be worth considering within a state university system with fairly uniform need-based financial aid policies, although it could not be binding because students may also be considering private and out-of-state schools.
Another idea to make it work would be for students to apply for financial aid first, with the colleges delivering binding (to the college) financial aid offers (conditional on admission and matriculation). Then the students can use these offers to determine their preference ranking (or not rank at all any that are unaffordable) in a match system.