Ethics Question About How Many Applications

Parents Forum
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<p>Jym, that’s a really interesting story. I think one thing that’s distinctive about your son’s search is that he was looking for (and fortunately found!) “the one”. If the criteria are complex then that’s what you have to work with, but I think it might be more common for students to try on different colleges on for size (in their imaginations) and realize that there are ways to make many of them work. I told my own daughter, and I tell other students I work with, that this sense of fit doesn’t come for free; it takes creative effort as well as practical research.</p>

<p>I’m not suggesting your son didn’t go through this process - I bet he did. But I do think many students might have a tendency to wait for inspiration to strike rather than treating the idea of fit as a design problem - that is, how could I design my experience at this school to make it work for me.</p>

<p>By the way, the one student I knew who had such strong criteria that she could find only a few schools to match was looking for a college that was majority Asian-American :-). After realizing that her list was very small, she expanded her criteria to include colleges that seek diversity in their student population.</p>

<p>Edited to add - if you fill out the FAFSA, other colleges can see who else is getting your FAFSA data sent to them.</p>

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<p>hmm …</p>

<p>For my oldest this was pretty much true … she decided she wanted to go to a school with a high concentration of top notch students, in the NE (not south of Philly), and to go to an urban school … the complete set of possible schools is pretty short … so the hypothesis works for my daughter.</p>

<p>Her friend want to go to a LAC, in a college town or a small town, major in English go somewhere in the Midwest, Northeast, or MidAtlantic, and go to with pretty good students or better … her starting set of schools was 100+ schools … she easily could have found 15-20 schools that easily fit her criteria.</p>

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Plenty of acceptances to choose from using what criteria of success? Will the student get into a school at which they will have a very good college experience … probably yes. However how many of these kids got into the reaches? and how many wold have got into reaches if they had applied to more reaches? </p>

<p>One simple example … limited to 6 applications 2 reaches, 2 matches, and 2 safeties. One student could easily see Amherst, Williams, Dartmouth, Princeton, and Swathmore as pretty equivalent reaches (yes there are differences but there are also a lot of similarities) and those schools are reaches for everyone and, in my opinion, applying to only two of them is totally self defeating if you like to attend one of them … the odds of getting in are just too low for ANY applicant … apply to two reaches and start planning on likely attending match school.</p>

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<p>Correction on my math-- older 's college apps were 6 years ago! My how time flies.</p>

<p>Calreader-
Older s could have make a home for himself at several schools and would have been fine, but he was clearly more selective in his wants, his preferences, his criteria, etc than younger s. Older s made a very detailed excel spread sheet with the pro’s/cons of each school he was considering, using multiple criteria that impressed the college counselors so much they asked for a copy of it. He forgot to tell them that his mentioning of the ready availability of pot at Brown on his spread sheet was a NEGATIVE for him, LOL-- it just said “pot readily available” on his sheet or something!! :eek: Hope they had a good laugh! </p>

<p>He really <em>wanted</em> to like all the schools. The 13 schools we visited were selected based on a pretty thorough research of schools. He loved the LACs he visited and I really thought we were done after his visits to Williams and Amherst (he loved them) but when he decided he wanted a school with engineering (good thing-- its what he ultimately majored in) off the list they came. If you’re in the field, calreader, you can probably figure out what schools made his list just from the criteria described so far. </p>

<p>But as may of you have said, maybe thats the exception, not the rule. Many kids can be happy almost anywhere. Younger s wanted “warm weather” and “not a huge state U” (well, not our big state U) but was pretty open to almost anything else. Only other criteria, was that although he isnt religious, he didnt want to go to a school where he’d feel weird or out of place based on his religion. And his major can be found anywhere. It was easier to find schools he could see himself attending. He (and I) couldn’t see him completing a large number of applications. Wasn’t gonna happen. Once he got an early acceptance with $$ (selected as part of his admissions strategy, and where he ultimtely chose to attend), his effort into the application process changed. One application that was in process he never completed. </p>

<p>Older s’s approach was different. He sat in on classes, met with faculty and got a tour of the research labs at each of the 13 schools we visited. Each was an all day process (ugh). He even ate lunch with the faculty at Williams. Younger s took a different approach, but still, we visited 10 or so schools in advance of his applying, and for each (especially older s) that made a HUGE difference. Understand that many cannot visit schools before applying and some people recommend not visiting unless accepted, but for my s’s , visiting made all the difference. I think older s’s application list would definitely have been bigger had he not visited. Perhaps he’d have applied to all 13 that were on the “visit” list. That wouldnt have surprised me. Visiting ruled out more than it ruled in, though it found “the one”.</p>

<p>Which brings me to Anagrampanda’s question (sorry to be so long-winded), about paring down her list. Have you had a chance to visit any/all of the schools on your list? Have you gone to individual college info sessions in your area, gone to a college fair, met with the adcomms that travel around, talked to alums, or read (my alltime favorite book) the Yale Daily New’s “Insiders guide to colleges”? Thats a <em>great</em> book that really gives a good “feel” for the school, geared specifically to students, – kinda like a Fiske Guide-lite. These are very helpful ways to give you more of a “feel” for the schools. Does weather make a difference at all?? We purposefully visited the northern schools in the dead of winter and the sountern and CA schools in the summer to get a real taste of what it would be like to attend. Visiting in the spring or early fall is lovely, but not a real taste of what it’s like to live at these schools in the brutal months. Hope these ideas help if you do want to pare down the list, anagram. thry the spread sheet idea too. Helped DS a lot (but not as much as the “Insiders Guide”. Great book, published annually.) Good luck!</p>

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<p>3togo-
Your list of reaches is a good one, and makes total sense ( in fact several that you mentioned were on my s’s radar). If a student wanted to apply to 5 reaches, the school counselor would make sure they had a safety and a match on their list (or 2 safeties and 5 reaches), and then they’d be only one over the “6” rule (which may have been expanded to 8 by now-- I don’t know. I may email the college counselor and ask as I am out of the loop right now). Trust me, this school would love to have a list of top school acceptances on their list, and of course wants their studnents to succeed. But they will still make each student do their HW, come up with a well-reasoned list that makes sense, and identify a targeted list of schools to apply to. They won’t let the students trophy hunt.</p>

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<p>You don’t have to list all the codes on the same FAFSA. If you apply to more than 10 schools you have to file multiple FAFSA anyway. The maximum a school could see would be ten school codes. I seriously doubt the FA offices sit there and decipher what the other codes are. </p>

<p>If you want you can list 3 codes and file the FAFSA, then edit the school codes and file another FAFSA. The first group will not be notified of the second group codes and so on.</p>

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<p>^^ Cellardweller-
Colleges really don’t have data mining methods of determining where else students are applying? That would be surprising</p>

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<p>Unless you tell them I don’t see how they will find out. </p>

<p>A number of colleges, especially second tier schools with low yields, use data mining techniques to assess the likelihood that a particular candidate will enroll if admitted. This is especially important for schools that offer merit aid and need to allocate their resources as efficiently as possible. They will use data such as the zip code of the applicant, the history of applicants from the same high school, whether there is a record of visits to the school or other demonstrated interest by the applicant and where the applicant’s stats fits within the applicant pool. Most elite colleges don’t care and base their decision strictly on perceived fit. They just want to attract the most qualified students and know they have to compete aggressively for them. They will get some and lose some. That is just part of the game. Even less selective colleges need to attract some high stat students, if only to raise their rankings, and will use merit aid to snag them.</p>

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Yup. Worked for us.</p>

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<p>^
Worked here, too.</p>

<p>On topic, I applied to a relatively small number of colleges (7) for undergrad, but I’m applying to far more programs for grad school, simply because it’s so very competitive I don’t think applying to large number of schools is unethical. After all, you can only matriculate at one!</p>

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I’ve done some of these. I’ve visited Green Mountain, Brandeis, Grinnell, and Carleton, and will visit Kalamazoo. I’ve gone to an individual info session for Kenyon, and a CTCL presentation containing Kalamazoo, Whitman, Hendrix, and Agnes Scott. Read the Insider’s Guide for a couple of them, don’t remember which. Have read Fiske’s entries for all that have them. Weather doesn’t make much of a difference to me. Used to have a spreadsheet, but I kind of abandoned that. Thanks for the ideas- I’ll have to take a second look at that book when I can.</p>

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<p>Well-stated responses, above, on the benefits of applying to numerous schools.</p>

<p>I’ll just say that my son’s criteria were 1) strong program in his planned major (by far, the most important) 2) nice weather (not too cold) 3) big school (no small LACs) 4) school spirit & vibrant sports program 5) in a city, not out in the country 6) decent male/female ration.</p>

<p>Our criteria were: 1) school at which son would get a good education 2) where he’d be happy 3) that might give us $ to avoid astronomical debt.</p>

<p>Of the 19 schools he applied: I’d envision it as each school having a bar graph underneath with various levels for each of the factors on his & our lists. All schools had at least solid (up to world-class) programs in his major. Not all schools had the highest ratings across the board in all the factors – some had stellar programs & good sports but were in a colder clime. Some were in beautiful weather but out in the country. So, on average, there were high ratings in some categories for each school – no school had everything, 100 % across the board. That would have been USC on a full, $52k merit scholarship and that didn’t happen!!</p>

<p>So, son likely could have seen himself – at least in the early stages – at the schools to which he applied. He ultimately chose a school that had positives in several categories, but wasn’t in a city - something he’d originally wanted, but eventually didn’t mind giving up. Until he visited in Mar of his junior year, several schools were neck & neck. </p>

<p>I’ll repeat – I didn’t see any point in paring down his list, when it gave him more options, more chances at merit money. </p>

<p>The school where he ultimately went (on a near full-tuition scholarship) was the LAST school we added – just read about it on CC, threw it out to son & he said, “sure, why not?” </p>

<p>We are talking huge differences in $$ expended to college here – a full-tuition scholarship could save a student years and years of debt as he/she struggles to get established. I can’t see scrimping on a $50 app fee in light of that (or adhering to some out-dated notion of a ‘reasonable list’ that each student should cap at 8 or 10 schools).</p>

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<p>Hadn’t heard anyone consider the notion of applying to 8-10 schools “outdated”. After all, isnt the average # of schools students apply to something like 3? Ilovetoquilt22 made a great point above when she said

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<p>And agree with Kei-o-lei’s comment

Just because a person can apply to 15+ schools doesn’t mean they should. Do all these applications get the equal attention they used to by the readers, especially at the smaller LACs before the floodgates opened? Are more schools using arbitrary SAT/ACT/GPA formularies to consider/reject candidates now? With the ease of the common/universal app, its super easy to engage in volume applying. Its a different world. Personally, I think the colleges shouldn’t waive application fees except perhaps in case of documented financial hardship. It costs money to process applications, and if a student has to pay to apply, they’ll have more reason to be thoughtful. </p>

<p>*** Just saw the poll our illustrious leader posted here not long ago, asking students how many schools they planned to apply to this year. Highest percent was 10 colleges (17% selected this). Guess thats not too “outdated” :wink: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/poll-38-a.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/poll-38-a.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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This wasn’t directed at me, but I’ll answer it, too. My son applied to 12, as I mentioned earlier. I think if we had to do it over, we might have dropped one of the safeties–we were probably too paranoid about the possibility that he would be rejected at reaches and matches. I would not have dropped any of the reaches, though. In fact, one thing we might have done differently would have been to start sooner with visits, and with understanding which schools were a fit in terms of program (we visited a few schools that would not have been a fit, and he didn’t apply there). We never got around to visiting any LACs. So, honestly, if we did it over the way I think is right, he might have had MORE reaches. But my son was able to see himself at all the places we visited–even if they were very different from each other.</p>

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<p>By out-dated, I guess I mean that when I went to school (& I applied to - I think - four schools?) you never, ever heard of someone applying to more than about 6-8. And even now, when people heard son was applying to more than 8 (and then, more than 15) there were gasps of shock. </p>

<p>But, in an age when schools have jacked up their tuition to incredible rates, the Common App makes multiple applications more logistically feasible, the world seems (perhaps) smaller to this generation due to constant cell phone/text/internet contact and fairly cheap plane flights – I don’t think that a greater number of apps (including apps to geographically diverse schools) needs to be perceived of as so odd and . . . ‘improper’ (?). I’ve heard ethical arguments, arguments to give the college admins and/or hs admins a break, arguments to save the student’s family $ in the short term, etc.</p>

<p>In my view, none of this outweighs the benefit to the student to get more options on the table. </p>

<p>And the whole idea of ‘not needed multiple apps to get merit $ if you apply smart’ – I’m not quite seeing that. A school which I thought would give my son a bunch of $ (he’d attended summer programs & lectures there, visited multiple times, was off their charts for standardized test scores, etc.) – gave him enough so that we’d still end up paying $30k a year out of pocket. You might believe you are being smart in your app process (& you certainly may be – utilizing all available information) – but there’s a certain element of unpredictability in the process (will a school give you some money – or a lot of $? Will you be admitted – or admitted to the honors prgm w/$?).</p>

<p>The schools have the power in this process – they admissions committees are making the acceptance decisions and the financial aid depts are deciding who gets what $. And, as discussed earlier, they blitz a wide range of students w/enticing school brochures – the more applicants, the more prestigious their admit percentage ratings. </p>

<p>I see nothing wrong with giving a little power (in terms of options) to the students. They are the ones paying, after all.</p>

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Wow. Just wow.</p>

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<p>CC is a competitive environment, no parent or student is ever going to admit that they took a less than strategic approach and applied to more schools than were necessary to get “the best results.” In fact for some we’ve seen that “More” is a strategy in and of itself LOL. I wonder if polls were done in previous years, I’ll have to go look at see what the “number” was for the past couple years. Ten seems alot but I can easily see how “ten” can happen as both my kids probably started with 15 on a list, but pretty easily culled that down, but in that process dropped a couple I liked so I could see a heavily involved parent keeping their favs on the list along with the kid’s favorite resulting in 10.</p>

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<p>Yup, 'mudge, that was her post #151. </p>

<p>Here are some interesting articles to read ont his topic:</p>

<p>[News:</a> De-Hyping College Admissions (or Trying to, Anyway) - Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/01/13/admissions]News:”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/01/13/admissions)</p>

<p>[Why</a> 20 Is Too Many: Understanding the Application Frenzy](<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>How to Finalize Your College List – BigFuture | College Board)</p>

<p>[College</a> Admission Gets Tougher | Newsweek Education | Newsweek.com](<a href=“http://www.newsweek.com/id/83159/page/1]College”>http://www.newsweek.com/id/83159/page/1)</p>

<p>[Students</a> apply, but not to a dozen colleges - USATODAY.com](<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-04-09-student-applications_N.htm]Students”>http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2007-04-09-student-applications_N.htm)</p>

<p>Sounds like what xig said above was spot on. While colleges may differ in what they offer in grant/aid/loans/work-study, the days of negotiating with the schools based on what competing schools offer may be limited (I think that was discussed inthe collegeboard or newsweek article-- I’ll have to check). Be reasonable, be focused, do homework and apply to schools that make sense.</p>

<p>*** just checked-- yes-- the reference is in the second article-- which is from CollegeBoard (I happened to walk by the CB offices when I was in NY this past weekend. Had an urge to spit, but restrained myself :slight_smile: )</p>

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<p>That’s exactly what we did. 17. Worked out O.K., too. She had choices. ;)</p>

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<p>You/your dau worked long and hard to get your list together. Did you get to visit the schools before applying, 'mudge?? I think this makes a huge difference.</p>

<p>BTW, Ilovetoquilt said this too

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