<p>My D just went through a BFA for musical theatre admissions process that, as we learned over time, in terms of odds (amount of applicants vs. students actually invited to a program) closely resembles an Ivy league one. </p>
<p>All her applications included auditions for respective faculties. Since the odds of being accepted were so slim and downright subjective (there are not just academic criteria, but also artistic talent & the “is a student a good match to the program for random reasons” to consider), she opted to apply to 12 schools. </p>
<p>Trophy hunting not once entered D’s mind, she simply wanted to get accepted. She tried to keep a real open mind about what her actual “top choice” was, and kept saying she had 12 #1 choices. She began her essays during the summer, did all her applications early,and got 7 of her auditions scheduled for the fall; some were rolling admissions (academically), one EA, one ED, the rest RD. </p>
<p>Good news came for her in December when she was admitted into her ED school, her “deep down inside buried” first choice (in reality this school, for multiple reasons had been an absolute reach). This needless to say made for a very merry Christmas. After the excitement wore off a bit during winterbreak, she took the other acceptances that she had been thrilled to get thusfar (yes, she was very, very lucky that way) and informed the respective schools, so that they could offer her spot to someone else. She also let all the other (RD) schools know that she was withdrawing her application in case they were considering her.</p>
<p>Trophy hunting, she was most definitely not; she just was trying to play it safe in a very competitive process; to hear that this would be frowned upon, just does not seem right to me.</p>
<p>Okay Adcom, let me get a clearer understanding of this- as we haven’t entered the application field yet. Let’s say, that accademically and scorewise and probably ec wise my kids fit into the top 25th percentile at 3 elite schools, a little better at another LAC, and again high in a top 20 national. Having visted all (tours and info sessions) but not spent the night or attended classes would you say that applying to 4-5 top tier schools is considered being a trophy hunter? I thought this is what they were supposed to do. Now because I have twins- I don’t see them applying to 10 places each which would rack up quite hefty pricetag. However, I have been told by others that it isn’t safe to apply to just the schools that are on the very top of your list- and that you should apply to 8 no matter how qualified you think you are. That seems to contradict what you are saying. Logically in this time, kids have to apply to more places than they can attend for the mere fact that all of these school claim they could fill their classes twice over with the number of qualified applicants they get. What is your thought on this?</p>
<p>My d applied to 10 schools - 3 reaches (one of which she is pining to get into. She already considers it HER school) A few schools she would be happy to go to and then several safety schools that she knows might offer her money. Then she received a couple “Select Candidate Applications” via e-mail and appled there as well. I don’t consider this to be Trophy Hunting but it was certainly providing her with several options.</p>
<p>In our state/town GC are VERY careful what they say to colleges. Only positive response for fear they will be sued if the student doesn’t get accepted into their first choice school and then be responsible for tuition reimbursement. Weird world we live in</p>
<p>I think if a kid applies Single Choice Early Action to a school that advertises it as an early program for students that are sure the school is their first choice (like Stanford and Yale) and they are admitted, they shouldn’t apply anywhere else. If they aren’t getting a decision from the EA school until after the deadline for other schools they are considering, then of course, they should apply to the other schools (I assumed most people understood this, but with so many darn early programs it gets confusing!). However, my professional opinion is if that kid, in good faith, applied to such a school SCEA and is admitted, they should withdraw their other applications. If they don’t, I consider that trophy hunting, unless they have a need (like financial need) to look elsewhere after being admitted to the EA school. </p>
<p>If a school doesn’t signal that their EA program is for students who have identified the school as first choice, well, it’s all fair game, although I think it is irresponsible of schools to offer such programs, given the lack of information most under-represented and low-income kids have about these programs. </p>
<p>Again, I do not think it is right for a student to apply EA to a school if it is not their first choice and that school clearly states that they offer their EA program for students who have identified that school as their first choice.</p>
<p>To the OP, my personal school (which is semi-exclusive, at best) does the practice you just described. The GC tries to micromanage, even to the point of changing major preferences on applications! Alas, colleges that used to accept many people (Princeton-5 or more a year) got sick of her politicking (which wasn’t even necessary) and it’s surprising if 1 or 2 ivies accept ANYONE.</p>
<p>But would’t that be ED? Isn’t SCEA- giving you a chance to apply early, come visit, spend the night, sit in on a class, meet with profs, - I would think it would be silly for a student or a school to invest that amount of time and money in one another if they weren’t both assured of one anothers interest. If you need to withdraw apps from all other schools then you might as well make it binding - I think you may be forgetting that it costs money to visit, and to apply and that is a commitment by the student with the knowledge that there is a 90% chance that the “school” won’t want them. I may be wrong but I think if a school is SCEA then they aren’t ED- to me the school that is SCEA has now made at least some commitment to the student and the 2 can now spend the time and money on one another to decide if it is indeed the best fit. If it is ED- it seems like the school is saying we won’t commit to you until you commit to us, and that’s fine but i don’t think you can say you are SCEA if you really mean you are ED.</p>
<p>All early admissions programs are “strategy games” for the colleges and for the students. </p>
<p>AddOfficer, you now represents a college, and you are trying to change the rules to give your side an advantage - that’s not a fair game!</p>
<p>At schools with ED, applying early usually gives a much bigger boost in admissions then SCEA or EA. The whole point of SCEA/EA is that the student does not have to make a commitment. I think that it is completely logical and legitimate to apply SCEA/EA to a school that is high on your list, even if you don’t have a clear first choice. An early acceptance reduces stress and most students do not keep applying to schools they are sure they won’t attend.</p>
<p>Since this thread got bumped again, let me offer an idea I had about it:</p>
<p>Maybe the right balance with the SCEA schools (of which, I guess, there are now only two) is that the students’ offers of admission should be disclosed to the other colleges to which they are applying. An RD college would be free to compete to get that student, but with the awareness that, unless that RD college was Harvard, there was probably an 80-90% likelihood that the student was going to go to the SCEA school.</p>
<p>I think that would limit trophy-hunting, while still leaving colleges and kids free to compete. As a practical matter, I suspect it would wind up helping the kids. They would likely withdraw (or not apply) at place where they really weren’t interested, and if they kept an RD application active that would signal real interest, but also that the college might have to come up with something special on the financial aid side to attract the student. (Plus, kids send letters to the admissions committee about being elected Vice President of the Anime Club. Having been accepted at Stanford is not less impressive.)</p>
<p>I thought you should know the difference between ED and SCEA. If Yale or Stanford looked for commitment they could go for ED. And there will be no reason to discuss what is written on their web sites versus what their admission reps say. In the case of ED they would get only those who are ready to attend without hesitation and financial issues, but ED also translates into not getting apps from some top candidates. There is price for everything.
Kids apply EA to those schools that offer this option. My daughter didn’t apply EA due to several reasons. But if she did … well her first choice school simply did not offer this option. What would you suggest? Committing to a school that is not your first choice? Doesn’t seem to be a good suggestion. Delaying all apps till RD round? Also a bad advice. Kids who worked hard deserve going to good school despite of population fluctuations and games played by admissions. Not having a really good option from EA action round only leads to applying to many more schools than originally planned. In my daughter’s case: two more reaches, three more matches and two super-safeties. And if one of her safeties didn’t accept her in January, she would have prepared at least two more apps. I guess this complicates the admission landscape more than one EA admission</p>
<p>I think AdOfficer makes a good point, arguing “the spirit of the law” rather than “the letter of the law.” Obviously, applicants are not bound by SCEA, but they should think hard about the implications of their subsequent applications. I see some possible trophy hunting going on at my S’s school (by kids accepted early at Stanford or Yale, who will not be looking for better financial aid offers). It absolutely hurts their classmates who are competing against them at other top schools in the RD round. Plus it’s really painful to those who were deferred early action from what was truly their 1st choice, only to learn that the successful applicant isn’t really sure he wants it after all. </p>
<p>JHS has a great idea; by disclosing the early acceptance, the RD schools would be able to make a more meaningful choice among the cohort of kids applying from a given high school. (Of course my premise is that colleges DO limit how many students they will accept from a single school, and I understand that is open to debate.)</p>
<p>Your scenario is similar what happened to my s. He applied to 10 colleges, but had no favorites. He was definitely not trophy hunting. It was a mix of reach, match and safeties, and some LAC vs. research type schools. He had not quite decided which he preferred. Nearly 7 of the 10 were his “top” choice at a given time. The final decision would also be influenced by financial aid. His preference changed on a weekly basis, as the acceptances and financial aid offers came in.</p>
<p>He was admitted to college A ( probably a " safety / match" school), who had a very generous scholarship policy, but he didn’t hear from their financial aid office. I called the college to verify. They told me that my s. would have been considered for their full ride, but that his HS counselor told them he was unlikely to attend, so they never proceeded with the offer. He was surprised that I called, and said it might be possible for them to reconsider, so obviously they were still interested. </p>
<p>I was quite upset w/ the HS counselor to say the least. Evidently the counselor asked my s. if college A was high on his list. At the time, it probably was not. He had decided that week to go to college B. Ultimately, however, he chose a totally different college at the very last minute. I agree that if he knew he would not attend college A, that the right thing to do would have been to pass the scholarship to someone else. On the other hand, had he been offered a full ride, college A may have very well made it to the top of his list. We’ll never know. However, I felt it was inappropriate for the HS counselor to have made the decision for him, prior to the May 1 deadline.</p>
<p>The whole admissions landscape for selective schools has become insanely competitive, as we all know. These kids who are viable at the top schools generally work extremely hard, not just on their transcripts and ECs, but on their applications. It is preposterous to pull this moral high ground criticism of kids who are accepted SCEA or EA some place selective and then elect to wait for all the responses from their various applications before committing. The best annalogy is job hunting. Of course, the individual should do what is in their best interest. And the notion that an applicant at a given school who has been accepted to a reach school is “stealing” a spot at another school from his classmates is absurd. Last year our school with a graduating class of 103 sent 3 students to Princeton. If there are quotas, they are at the regional, not the school level. This sort of criticism is fueled by self interest. In the case of the ad comm on here - sure it annoys him - makes his job tougher. I suggest he transfer to a school that operates under ED. For parents and students who lodge these “ethical” criticisms, you need to elevate to a broader view. College admissions is not waged at the school level, it’s national, even global. That’s the competition. In fact, I think that attitude of viewing it all through the high school lens ends up hampering a lot of applicants. The school awards and teacher’s pets and coaches and coach’s favorites and even GCs really don’t count for much in this process, from what I’ve observed. The applicant needs to play on a much wider stage than their school.</p>
<p>Any one student can only attend one school at the end. So all the “extra” acceptances go to other students (sometimes through acceptance off the waitlist). No one can “take someone else’s spot” at a school they are not attending. Does it add some extra work for adcoms? Sure. But they get paid for it.</p>
<p>And colleges always say that they don’t have any caps for the number of students accepted from one HS. You may choose not to believe them. I know for a fact that Stanford accepted 15 kids from one SoCal public HS this year. I think this shows that they are telling the truth…</p>
<p>Re the alleged “duty” of SCEA or EA applicants to withdraw pending applications: I think there is a middle ground to be achieved here. If a kid gets into say, Stanford SCEA, but still thinks he MIGHT prefer Harvard or Brown, then keep those few apps alive. But to keep all other applications alive just because he worked hard preparing them and is curious to see how he’ll fare at Wash U, Cornell, Penn, etc. That is trophy hunting, pure and simple. It may indeed impede the chances of classmates – we can’t know with certainty what goes on in admissions offices with respect to taking multiple kids from a single school – and it most certainly wastes the time of the already overburdened admissions staff. I think we all want staff to be as clear-eyed as possible when reading our own kids’ apps. That they are being paid doesn’t eliminate the exhaustion factor. Remember The Gatekeepers? </p>
<p>If financial aid is a significant consideration, this scenario doesn’t apply. Those who need to compare financial aid offers before committing must keep their options open.</p>
<p>My friend sent out 14 applications, 10 of which were sent after getting into 4 different schools EA (actually, 3: deferred by MIT). I find it difficult to believe she’s not trophy-hunting. There’s no way she feels she would be equally at ease at MIT and at, say, Brown.</p>
<p>I’ll be lucky to get into my top choice, even though my SAT scores are in the top quartile and I’m in the top 10% of my class.</p>
<p>Edit: At least she chose not to apply to my top choice school. She said she couldn’t write one more essay, let alone 4.</p>
<p>wjb,
kids that get into Stanford or Yale SCEA, can be in the running for significant merit aid at schools like WUSTL, UChicago, etc. Even if they don’t need fin aid to attend, getting a full ride at WUSTL may be a better option than paying >$200K for Stanford.</p>
<p>Some kids apply SCEA because their true first choice schools don’t offer a non-binding option, and they (or their parents) are not ready to commit 100% in November. This was the case with our daughter. When she had an acceptance from Stanford in hand and still chose to go elsewhere, we figured it was indeed her true first choice.</p>
<p>nngmm: I have no quarrel with either of your examples. In the first, money is a genuine issue. In the second, the student is genuinely interested in another school. I made both of those points clear in my earlier post. </p>
<p>The problem I have is with kids who get into Yale or MIT or Stanford or U of C or Georgetown (or some other school – you fill in the blank) EA, then keep alive applications at multiple schools they have NO intention of attending for no other reason than to see if they can get in. That is scalp collecting.</p>
<p>I understand perfectly well what the adcom is saying because I saw a perfect example of this trophy hunting. D’s friend had applied EA to Georgetown and was 100% sure that’s where she wanted to go because of their excellent Foreign Affairs program. She was accepted. But she wanted to send her application to UVA anyway because “well I’ve spent time on it, why not send it?”. Well this is a perfect example of trophy hunting. Not hard to see why. D told her it wasn’t fair and that she was denying other people a chance to go to UVA. I think the friend relented and didn’t send her app to UVA after all.</p>
<p>I think that AdOfficer is saying something different, something I don’t agree with. He’s saying that every student who receives an SCEA acceptance should automatically withdraw all pending applications. I believe there may be valid reasons for a student who gets an EA acceptance to keep several applications in play, and maybe even all of them. A valid reason, however, is not, as guillaume mentions, because she spent time on the app and wants to see if it flies, even though she’s no longer interested in the school.</p>
<p>Edited: I re-read AdOfficer’s post, and he does make an exception for withdrawing all applications after an EA acceptance if financial aid is a concern.</p>
<p>I don’t see what’s wrong with submitting an application “just to see”! Colleges take into account yield, which is affected by these applicants, when they determine how many people to admit. So if the practice stopped, yield would increase, less kids would be accepted, and it wouldn’t make a difference in the end right? After all, there is a set amount of slots at each college and these kids can only take a slot at one college no matter how many they’re accepted to.</p>