<p>I was speaking to a friend today. Just wondering if anyone feels that there is a limit to how many schools students apply to before it is considered “unethical”. Is an unlimited amount you can fill the apps out okay? Are 8 okay, how about 12, 15, or 18 apps? It seems easier and easier to fill them out if you are not visiting all of the campus that you are applying to, you have a major in mind that is offered everywhere, you are fine with going anywhere, food and housing are not an issue, etc. My son has already received a bunch of “priority applications” which waive the application fee (many schools do that if one visits, applies online, etc. anyway), some waive essays and teacher recommendations as well. Are priority applications ethical to fill out, if others need to complete the entire application which might include 2-4 essays?</p>
<p>Looking at it from a school’s point of view, many want as many apps as possible to help themselves in the rankings and to state how many applications were received. They can decide who they will accept or reject, so is one taking a spot away if one applies to 20 schools? A school can decide who gets a priority application (and I have seen that some are available to all students who read the website). A school decides who is getting a good FA package or a merit award. One does not necessarily know in advance of the spring what one must pay. Is that ethical?</p>
<p>Students without financial need might be able to afford applying to 4-8 schools. Should a student requiring either financial or merit aid be restricted to a finite number of applications? Should a student not requiring financial assistance be restricted to the number of schools that they may apply to?</p>
<p>What should be the limit of EA applications submitted? Should it be 2,3,7, 10, or unlimited? How is an EA application different, or not really different than a priority application? Should there be a limit to the number of priority apps submitted?</p>
<p>Should there be a restriction to the number of private vs. public schools that one can apply to? </p>
<p>I’m confused about why it might be unethical. They want you to apply. It seems to me it is a lot like a job search. If there are a lot of companies that you might want to work for, you send out a lot of resumes. If your criteria limit you to a more narrow pool, then you apply to fewer.</p>
<p>The most applications I’ve ever heard of was 27. The young man ended up at Wesleyan and loved it. </p>
<p>Mine applied to four reaches and a safety (and then added in a school where he was nominated for a full-ride, and another school on a whim). He ended up at one of his reaches.</p>
<p>We know plenty of kids that applied to one, EA, got in and were done.</p>
<p>You do what works for you. None of it is wrong, immoral or unethical.</p>
<p>I think the ethical issue crops up at the point where you are applying frivolously, meaning, you have no real interest in this school and it’s highly unlikely you would attend even if accepted. Then, you’re wasting the adcoms’ time (never mind your own) and potentially squeezing out somebody who really does want to go there. But why would you do that? As long as it is a school that genuinely appeals to you on some level, and there’s a real possibility you might go there, I don’t see an issue.</p>
<p>I’m not understanding the ethical question, either. Even if the student is accepted at many schools, he/she is not “taking away a spot from another student” as each student can only attend one school. The schools know this, and accept more students than they have spots. So the same number of spots are filled, regardless.</p>
<p>My own kids had no intention of filling out a lot of applications; one did five, then three more for tranfer. One did two. But this was a product of their own dispositions. It does of course give more options to the student who can afford the time or money to fill out extra apps, but this is true in a million other ways, too. I don’t see this particular instance as an ethics question.</p>
But not with the same people. If I have no interest in attending College Y, but my stats are better than those of somebody else who does want to attend, then my admission may result in that other person’s rejection, where if I had not applied, they might have been admitted. Not so? I mean, the more people apply, the lower the admit rate, right? Somebody has to be the loser in that scenario.</p>
<p>Garland, well are they taking away an acceptance? Lets say that one student applies to 25 schools, and another applies to 8. The one who decided to apply to 25 schools paid for 5 apps (others were free, some required essays and others did not, etc), and this student was accepted to 18 out of 25 schools. The person who applied to 8 schools, of which 2 overlap with the other student has no acceptances in March, but has stats in the midrange for his 4 match schools, had 2 reaches, and 2 safeties that did not turn out to be so safe. Any ethical problems? How about when multiplied by 500 seniors in a graduating class? How about if there were just 30 seniors at a different high school?</p>
<p>I think that schools accept 500 kids to fill 100 spots (for example) for just this reason. They know that kids apply to multiple schools and only 1 in five (or fewer) will actually attend if accepted. This is why it is not unethical for a kid to apply to multiple schools. Schools also know when there might be a shortage of students attending which is why some schools have waitlists.</p>
<p>California students routinely apply to many colleges because there is one UC application for multiple campuses (just check the boxes and pay for each one).
I think the biggest challenge is the burden on the high school in complying with the paperwork needed for each application.</p>
<p>It’s not unethical, though I understand it feels that way, when Harvard only accepts 2 from your school and you know that one of the kids who applies really prefers another school. I don’t believe that colleges have such hard and fast quotas that it makes a difference. That said I think in most circumstances (and there may be exceptions - due to financial issues are extremely selective programs like musical theater) that it is dumb to apply to more than 20 schools, and probably dumb to apply to more than 15. If the applications require a lot of paperwork from the school I do think it may be unfair to other students, which is why some high schools limit the number of applications a student may send out.</p>
<p>Depends whether you’re talking about in general, or from a particular high school.</p>
<p>For example, if (in general) I apply to College A where I really have no intent of going, and I’m accepted over another applicant who is then put on a wait list, when I turn down College A that spot opens up and she gets to go, anyway, since I can’t attend two schools at once.</p>
<p>OTOH, if you’re talking from a particular high school – when I was in hs, my best friend and I were both interested in a particular, unique school that didn’t take many from our region of the country. I had better stats; she was more interested in this school. The odds that this school would have admitted 2 people from this one high school (when they probably were only admitting 2 from our state in general!) was low, and so I chose not to apply, because I wouldn’t have wanted to take the chance of a spot away from her. I wouldn’t say it would have been unethical for me to apply, but it wouldn’t have been very nice.</p>
<p>So I think the question has two different components if it’s in a general context versus a same-school context.</p>
<p>Do a lot of people coming off the WL get off only if they can pay full freight, or are they the ones that are usually stuck with the worst financial package? Do they end up in the worst dorm, and closed out of freshmen class options because others have already registered?</p>
<p>I met a girl (and her father) a few years ago who had applied to 26 colleges. She had gotten into 22 of them, and was a little bit sheepish about it. She had never visited most of them (and would never visit about half). She was from Southern California, wanted to go to school in the East (but wasn’t sure about that), and had read about how insanely difficult it was to get into top colleges. She hadn’t been able to do a trip East to look at anyplace. So she just applied to almost every famous college, and figured she would check them out when she knew who had accepted her.</p>
<p>That doesn’t seem immoral per se to me, although I think she was right to be embarrassed about it. </p>
<p>On the other hand, a friend of one of my children applied to 7-8 colleges after getting his SCEA acceptance to Harvard. Ostensibly, the idea was to get leverage for a better financial aid package from Harvard (the only college he ever thought about attending). It didn’t work, of course, and Harvard was more than happy to suggest that if he thought Penn’s deal was so good he should go there. He was pretty clearly doing it for bragging rights. That seemed immoral.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s a question of ethics - you can apply where you want - but I don’t think that applying to an obscene number of schools is a smart decision. Applying to colleges costs money and takes time. Even “free” applications cost $9.50 for SAT scores, money for postage, and money for transcripts depending on the school. Other applications, for the schools that get a lot of buzz on CC, have exuberant application fees. </p>
<p>Not only that, but applying to colleges takes a lot of time. Now with the issue of priority applications it’s not as big a deal, but the prestige hunters out there are writing dozens of essays (and a lot of them are difficult to reuse!), filling out lots of paperwork, and possibly bothering counselors and teachers for repeated mailings of the recommendation and school forms.</p>
<p>If a student really knows what kind of school he or she wants to attend and has decided on fit, there really need not be more than a dozen applications (although I think eight or less is ideal). If financial aid is an issue - merit or need - I still don’t think the situation warrants more than eight applications (again, giving leeway for the ten application die hards). So while I think that applying to more than ten colleges unreasonable and wasteful - and while I see few reasons to apply to more than eight - it’s not an ethical question and, ultimately, it’s not my decision to make.</p>
<p>I don’t see as it an ethical question either. Schools keep track of their yield and have wait-list that can be big as a backup. In the end, they take fixed number of best qualified people using historic yield number and wait-list management. If you are not accepted, your stats are not within the range for the school to yield the desired amount of student. Yields move over the years and I guess if you are on the edge for certain school, you can be shut out but that is very independent of how many each students apply within certain small margin of errors. The system is self corrected, so the more you apply the yield number will go down and the school will adjust accordingly.</p>
<p>I honestly and staunchly believe EVERY high school senior should be limited to 8 apps. We would see admit rates level off, and would level the playing field.
Yes, i know that at 'reaches" this is ridic. But, it would force kids to really assess what they like/dislike. and as long as they have a true safety, it wouldn’t be an issue. I think it’s absolutely absurd that kids apply to 4Ivies+MIT+3 Top LACs…
seriously…you can’t possibly like all those schools</p>
<p>The problem with that, r6L, is some families like mine must see the FA package before making a final decision. Our family’s experience was that packages really varied. The best came from the schools with the lowest admissions rates. BTW, my son’s list looked incredibly disparate to the outside observer. But there were very good reasons for each school to be there. I do think some people get caught up in the name or ranking which is a mistake.</p>
<p>2blue-i’m in a situation where i HAVE to see FA packages, yet I’m still only applying to 4 or 5 schools.
Even with only 8 apps(which is alot) A kid can have one financial safety, 2 matches, and 5 reaches…</p>
<p>First of all, you could choose better which schools to apply to if you knew beforehand what it costs. But you don’t. At 200K+ for four years this decision is a BIG deal, made with little upfront information. Would you only look at 8 houses before buying one?</p>
<p>Secondly, I could see applying to 4Ivies+MIT+3 Top LACs if your main criteria was that you really liked being around as many bright people as possible, and this preference for being around a very selective group was stronger than your preferences for physical surroundings.</p>
<p>geomom-you can look at as many schools as you want, but “bidding” on more than 8 seems very silly to me.</p>
<p>I just think anyone with 10 or more apps is really cheating the system. Too many kids can’t afford it or don’t have the support to do it, so why peanlize them…?
We need to level the playing field somehow</p>