This is what I would expect also. The admissions staff at various universities have done this before.
One concern that I have is that highly ranked universities are not all the same. Universities are looking for students who are a good fit for the school. If the student can explain “why is this school at good fit for you?” that is likely to help their chances for admissions. Regardless of whether they ask exactly this question, the essays will get the point across.
I cannot imagine that 42 schools, or 30 highly ranked schools, are all going to be a good fit.
Your student needs to reduce the number of colleges they are applying to. Applying to more does NOT make acceptance to any one of those colleges easier.
Your student should be writing their own essays. If the list is too long, shorten the list so they can do a good job on what they need to do.
Many many strong kids write their own essays without a coach. Seriously…most people do NOT hire a coach to help with college essays. They just don’t.
Here’s the problem “we wanted.” Does your daughter want to apply to all 42 of those schools or are you telling her she wants to apply to all 42 of those schools? Nowhere in this thread is a mention of anything your daughter has labeled as her wants for a college. Once your daughter knows what she wants in a campus, that list will shrink.
Not really. But even if they’re similar, they still need to be personalized. For example, you can’t apply to all the schools in DC by saying how much you like the city, you have to explain why you like their campus and their school in specifics.
if you’re looking for FA/cost-efficient, what is the plan to pay all those application fees, even if it is 30 schools rather than 42? stanford is $90; many of the ivies are $80-85. it adds up very quickly
This! Each why us prompt requires at least an hour or so of research. Better yet if you can visit campus. That seems to yield to most compelling material for these kinds of essays.
Get it to 20. And choose a couple of sure things for admission and affordability that your daughter likes…FIRST. Don’t start with the top 20 colleges and end there.
She needs sure things for admission that she likes that you can afford. Start your college list finding those schools then build up from there.
Maybe University of Alabama should be considered first. Applications open very early, and IIRC, there are no essays required at all.
Agree 20 is best, then you can do everything on common app. You add a whole new layer of complication when you start needing to use scoir and insitutionals.
Reiterating this!! The college board has a great filtering system so students can filter for colleges that match what they want. Have your daughter look at the colleges first, ranking should come last. Nobody really cares after freshman year of college what your school was ranked. For employers, they care about your work ethic and your skills. For grad school, they care about your transcript. And most of all your daughter should enjoy college!! There are hundreds of miserable students at T20 colleges that would’ve benefited from going to a “less prestigious” institution. One ranking shouldn’t outweigh four years of your daughter’s life.
We will try to focus more on fit as I keep seeing that all over the internet. But we will still keep many top reaches with amazing reputation because that is important in today’s world.
If you are doing 20, I would recommend this breakdown:
12 reaches
5 targets
2 safety
1 ultra-safety (This is my term for a college that accepts all people above a certain threshold. It can’t be assumed what the treshold is, they need to publish it; also could be a school with 100% acceptance rate, or community college)
That way, you get lots of reaches in and are assured many options in the end, even if reaches don’t work out.
I’d argue (as a recent college grad) that rankings and reputation are at an all-time low of importance. What employers and grad schools want to see is your daughter’s work ethic, your daughter’s grades and your daughter’s personality. All an institution’s reputation tells someone is that they had the money to spend for a fancy name.
Please read this thread I am linking. This was a very tippy top student. No one thought he would get denied acceptance everywhere he applied, but that is what happened. The story has a happy ending after a gap year.
You don’t want your daughter to have a ton of rejections, and possibly no acceptances. Never mind the toll a lot of rejections takes.