Ethics Question About How Many Applications

Parents Forum
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<p>That is a surprise (re: the private school add’l costs). </p>

<p>The only thing I can think (from what I’ve seen) – GCs at private schools do lots and lots of in-person, in-depth discussions w/each kid – helping them formulate lists, suggesting schools based on interest/ability, assisting w/packaging them, directing them to schools that they know take a lot of kids from that particular HS, etc. Our pub school GC did absolutely none of that – but to be fair, she had hundreds of seniors alone, not to mention a bunch of underclassman.</p>

<p>In light of all that personal work with each kid, maybe they think that the student should have a targeted list, plus don’t want to devote the time to busy-work of sending of docs when they have all these other, more intense things to do w/the kids. In our public HS, a cursory meeting w/the student for a total of 4 times thu the HS career is all the GC can logistically manage (unless the student is in trouble). Perhaps they don’t feel they have the insight into each kid to weigh in on the # of apps.</p>

<p>But, if it were me, I’d still be pretty mad I was paying $25k a year (or whatever) in tuition and getting a significant cap put on my son’s college chances!!</p>

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<p>Jolynne Smyth: “maybe they think that the student should have a targeted list, plus don’t want to devote the time to busy-work of sending of docs when they have all these other, more intense things to do w/the kids.”</p>

<p>My sense is that it’s mostly counterforce to this “college is the most important thing you will ever do” pressure in the culture. </p>

<p>After all,if you do your college research right, accurately assess your chances and select 2 reaches, 2 fits and 2 safeties, there are only 3 additional reasons for applying to more schools, two of which are thint:
1- I need to get into an Ivy and since acceptance rates are so low, I will apply to more than the 2 (or 4?) that I’ve already selected
2- I can’t decide whihc schools I like
3- I didn’t get enough support from GCs to be able to accurately assess and select 6 schools (this is why I’d go for more schools.)</p>

<p>I do not perceive the pressure we’re getting at private school to limit applications as limiting my child at all; rather, it’s pressure to do a high quality and objective selection process that concentrates on fit . . .and to not get caught up in the mania :-)</p>

<p>Kei</p>

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<p>Six still seems low. My older son had a very targeted list and it still had 8.</p>

<p>It had the four top rated comp sci programs in the country.
It had one Ivy where he was a legacy and I figured he had a much better than average chance of being accepted.
It had one more tech school which I thought was a match. (He was waitlisted there.)
It had two tech schools for safeties - so he’d have a choice in April if worse came to worst. </p>

<p>As for your list Kei - you left out an important one
4. The parents need to compare financial packages. (Not everyone in private school is rolling in money.)</p>

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<p>mathmom -</p>

<p>your list looks perfectly reasonable </p>

<p>you are dead on with reason #4!!! . . . my bad for missing it</p>

<p>we’re at 7 right now including 4 financial safety schools</p>

<p>Kei</p>

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<p>My S is applying to 13 schools, and we are not looking for financial aid. The reason he is applying to so many is because he is a seriously borderline student - 2.9 gpa and mediocre test scores (and we are spending a ridiculous amount of money to a tutor to try and raise his scores by 100-200 points). Our reasoning for this is that he is in that dangerous “25% - 75%” - on the low end - of the average admitted stats for most of the schools he is applying to. It is our way of stacking the deck in his favor - we hope! By applying to that many schools (and all are large state schools - though only 1 is in-state which is California) we are hoping to see acceptances at 25% of the schools.</p>

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<p>I don’t know of any private schools around our area, or in NYC, where they charge extra for applications. For most of those parents, after paying $30,000+ a year for 13 years, this is the finale. Aside from not charging extra, my kid’s school has an “all else should fail college” for those kids to go to. Other than ED/EA accepted kids, there are not that many students I know of applying less than 10 schools.</p>

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<p>that a two-way street? Can your employees count on hearing from you, when their personal lives make demands on their time, “come in late or leave early–it won’t kill me”</p>

<p>absolutely. Without a doubt.</p>

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<p>“Stories like this make me realize how lucky we are to go to public school. No extra charges.”</p>

<p>While there may be some private schools that do that, i do not believe it to be the case of the majority of schools. I work for a top notch private school and we nor no one else in our area has such a charge.</p>

<p>In commenting on the other aspect of your post “how lucky we are to go to public school” I do not want to disparage public schools as there are some that are excellent at what they do. However, I can assure you the college admissions process and ultimately success in getting students admitted to their top choice schools is much better accomplished in the private school world. By way of example, we have 2 GCs for aa senior class of roughly 75 students - so there is a tremendous amount if individual attention. As a result, we have had tremendous success with getting our students accepted at top schools where you would say their stats would be a big reach or not even possible. So even if a private school was charging for every application over a certain number, if their success rate was similiar to ours, it may be worth paying for</p>

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<p>^^^ Took a break to eat dinner and went to edit the above post and its past the time limit - so to add to the above</p>

<p>Finally, on the topic of this thread - this past year we had thirteen students apply to a single college and be accepted. On the other extreme, we had one student apply to 19 schools and about 8 or so others apply to an average of 10 schools. Interestingly, of the single school applicants, eight were accepted in what Barron’s classifies as most competitive colleges - and half of these 8 students were in the lower 50% of our class</p>

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<p>Exact same experience here with a private school. The college counseling is the pinnacle of years of paying high tuition and being in a highly competitive school. The one thing our school will not allow is a student who doesn’t get in somewhere. The school’s reputation is at stake!</p>

<p>Personally, I think the # of schools a student applies to is a highly individualized decision. For some students, 1-2 schools makes sense and for others, a dozen in not enough. There is not reason, IMHO, that a student shouldn’t apply to as many schools as he or she wants/needs to. It’s a free country!</p>

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<p>What if you are using the common application? The GC and the teacher recs are all done online, on time, and then "sent’ to each of the schools. So if its limited to six, if they are all common application, does that count as one?</p>

<p>As well, here in Californian the State schools generally have one application, and you click boxes for the places you want app sent to. </p>

<p>I saw last year how many students here on CC were trophie hunters. 18 applications, and applying just to see if they could get in. parents pushing for a lot of applications because of $. </p>

<p>My D applied to 4 schools early. Got into all of them, 3 in NYC area, and one in Boston. She wanted to apply to a couple of other boston schools. i discouraged it, as I knew she really wanted to be in NYC and that the Boston applications weren’t really that serious. She liked the schools just fine, and would have gone to them happily, if the NYC schools hadn’t come through. I said she could apply, but I didn’t understnad why.</p>

<p>She didn’t. Later she told me I was right. She was irked, more that I kind of told her not to apply, and this was her process, But she did admit it was more she was curious and had told people she was applying, and wanted to see what they would offer. </p>

<p>I said that just applying to apply at that point was-a waste of time, a waste of the admission departments time, waste of her GC and teachers time, etc. And if she knew she wasn’t going to go there, most likely, why take away the opportunity for another student to have a few more minutes to have the application looked at, etc.</p>

<p>She got it and it was nice to hear that she understood. She was only irked for a couple of days, but brought it up for about 3 weeks, typical 17 year old stuff. She did apologize for being a bit bratty about it.</p>

<p>I think if more kids were more reasonable in their applications, other kids wouldn’t be restricted to six. When you have kids applying to ten or more, its not about the schools, its about bragging rights. </p>

<p>And if parents were honest, you don’t need ten twelve or more applications to get the money offers. Not if you apply smart.</p>

<p>I see it that the more kids apply to a large number of schools, the more warped and twisted the process becomes. Each application is then given less time, the process gets weighted down, the gc get overwhelmed, and it becomes a game,not a serious endeavor. Sure its a free country, but one also needs to be fair, responsible, and thoughtful of others time, etc. If a student wants to apply just to “see if they get in” that is no reason to apply. They should be ready to go to each school they apply to,to apply otherwise is childish.</p>

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<p>A tip top student from my daughter’s school applied to 8-10. She did not get in anywhere excepted a few waitlisted, and one of them was Harvard. Her counselor was able to get her a delayed guarantee admission for the following year at Harvard. Her list was pretty balanced. Unfortunately her matches thought she was using them as backups. </p>

<p>The fear of not getting in anywhere is making students apply to more and more schools, and we hear those horror stories all the time.</p>

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<p>I wonder if she applied to some schools that also track interest, and if she showed interest at those schools?</p>

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<p>Read Andison posts. He got in no where,and from what I remember, they thought his list was balanced too, but it wasn’t. Some kids think they are a shoe-in and don’t pick good matches. Did she even have one safety she would have gladly attended? Sounds like no.</p>

<p>Most kids get into the right school. Most kids don’t need to apply to more than five. Its interesting that those that apply to the “top” (hate that word) don’t get in and are suprised they didn’t and didn’t get in anywhere else. That speaks to a couple of things:</p>

<p>Unbalanced list
Unrealisistic list, with too many schools that take les sthan 20%
No real matches or safeties that they would be glad to go to
Poor application, essays, recommendation</p>

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<p>I have heard a couple of stories about kids getting in nowhere and they were applying to the “top schools”. Only hear about that on CC. I know kids who got rejected, say from Stanford, UCLA, Cal, TUfts, Etc, but they all got into great schools. So it is odd for a stellar student who seems to be harvard materidal to get in nowhere. Bad list to be sure. And an attidute I be tthat on’y name schools would do.</p>

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<p>I have to disagree. Fort students at tip top they are applying to schools that have acceptance rate of less than 15%, probably lower if taking out hooked students. Whether they show interest or not, lower tier schools are going to know they are the backup schools. Something similar almost happened to my daughter. The two schools she was waitlisted at actully told her counselor that they would consider to take her off the waitlist if she was serious about going there. We were very thankful that the counselor had enough relationship with those schools to call on our daughter’s behalf, or she would have been going to one of her safeties, with a full scholarship.</p>

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<p>I think the local CC is the all else fail college for our public school students. Back when I was in high school it was well known that if all else failed a phone call would get a girl into Vassar. (The founding headmistress had gone there.) That “I’m glad we’re in public school” was a bit tongue in cheek, I’m well aware of the advantages of public schools, but have been surprised at what happens at private schools. My nephew went to one of the top private schools in the country and his Mom often felt that her son - very bright, but not quite the go-getter achiever type really got short changed in the college counseling department. He ended up at Rice which turned out to be a perfect match and he has blossomed, but the school never suggested applying there. The suggestion came from a friend of his mother.</p>

<p>As for many applied to single colleges - well that happens at our school too - every kid who applies ED basically.</p>

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<p>I’ve told son to restrict his list to 6-8 but the counselor has suggested a lot of that has to do with the level of school one is applying to. Have a lot of reaches - need a lot of matches/safeties to balance out. Have a particular school one really wants to get into and it’s a good safety - no need to apply to a bunch of schools.</p>

<p>For some reason, it bothers me that people are suggesting that there is something ‘wrong’ with a student who wants/needs to apply to more than a certain # of schools. There are a lot of reasons a student might choose to do this. My son is still at the point where he is exploring a lot of different options and trying to determine what will ‘fit’ him the best:</p>

<p>1) stay in state
2) leave the state and explore new horizons
3) Big school vs. small liberal arts school
4) Schools that would be likely to give him significant merit aid
5) Schools that he would like to attend but are reaches for him
6) Schools that are geographically dispersed and too hard for us to visit now but he is interested in. We would visit if he got accepted</p>

<p>Honestly, at this point, he is not sure what he wants. Personally, I would like to see him keep his options open. I’m not advocating that he apply to 18 schools (in fact, I would strongly discourage it) - but if that is what he needs to do, then I see no reason he needs to restrict himself to a certain ‘ethical’ number. If he is qualified to get in - then he’s qualified to get in. The colleges use very sophisticated algorithms to determine how many students to admit and how many actually accept. They understand that the 4.0 student they admit has many choices and are statistically likely to select another college.</p>

<p>To give you an example, a HYPSM bound classmate is going to apply to one of my son’s reaches. He will definitely get in and probably get a full scholarship. I don’t know whether he will attend or not, since his ‘reach’ is Yale but I don’t begrudge this young man for applying to my son’s reach and probably knocking my son out of the competition. This young man has worked extremely for 4 years, much harder than my son and it is his right to apply to any school he wants. My son choose to work ‘less hard’ and not getting in will be a consequence of his decision. So, I don’t ‘get’ the ethical part of this discussion. Sure, there are students who are trophy-hunting but my guess is that is exception, not the rule. Most teens are too preoccupied with their daily lives to spend an extraordinary amount of time trying to prove something like that. Just my opinion.</p>

<p>In addition, I have had many parents report that their child ended up going to a school that they didn’t even visit until after accepted. Often times, it was a school that was added to the list at the last minute or at the request of the parent. At this age, kids change and mature at lot over the six month period from the time they start the application process until the time they have to make a final decision. It’s important to realize that one size does not fit all. Some kids know what they want at the onset of the process and some don’t. That’s what makes us all unique.</p>

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<p>My son’s private Catholic school didn’t limit applications and took 2 add-ons from my son with a smile…they knew nerves can play a part in that.
At my daughter’s public school, I have not heard of any cut-off, they want the students to get in somewhere and afford it. I wish 5 would be enough, but my girls are applying EA to some and later, regular admission to others, so it is broken up a bit. The need financial safties and that can mean state schools or a nice scholarship from GPA, geography or other things. I think we have to make a larger net than I did with my son and don’t want to second guess later. They feel going EA and regular decision will help.</p>

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<p>“I would like to see him keep his options open”</p>

<p>^^ That’s exactly it, MomLive. Giving kids options.</p>

<p>My son’s gpa was such that I wasn’t sure he was going to get in to any of the schools to which he applied! Let’s just say there was a lot of hoping that schools would appreciate his ACT & essays!!</p>

<p>He applied to 19 (I think) got into 11. We flew out to visit two of the schools 900+ miles away after acceptance (we wouldn’t have paid the hundreds of dollars to do that w/out the acceptances). </p>

<p>So he should have restricted his apps to the 6-7 schools that almost everyone in his HS applied to? (generally, in the northeastern, tri-state area?). He could have. But then he wouldn’t have ended up w/a near full-scholarship at a beautiful school in a unique part of the country. </p>

<p>And–if multiple applications are based ‘on a money thing’ (as stated previously) – um, not sure what is wrong with that? The ‘money thing’ on the other side of the contemplated business transaction is an institution asking us to pay (in our case, for son’s second choice school) about $160k over 4 years. You could buy a house with that money. So—we should not put ourselves in a position compare other, reasonable offers because…? I’m not quite getting that, no offense.</p>