How Strong - Music EC

Northstarmom
Wed, 08 Jul 2009 08:01:13 +0000

"I’ve always felt that the majority of kids should be able to limit their college lists to 10-12 by researching their choices carefully, but I’ve also felt that it was not the high school’s place to impose restrictions on the number of applications students can file.

Due to trophy-hunting, scattershot applications and the amount of time (and therefore money) that it takes on the schools’ part, I think high schools have the right to limit the # of applications students make.

On CC, I see students who’ve applied to, for instance, 4 safety schools, 6 matches and 10 reaches, all of which were unrealistic reaches. Why would anyone need 4 safety schools? I can see having 2 safety schools in case that’s all one gets accepted to. That way, one will have a choice. I can’t think of any reason, however, to need 4 safeties. By definition a safety should be a school you know you’ll be accepted to, would be happy to attend and also can afford. No reason at all to get 4 such acceptances.

I think it’s rare that students truly need to apply to more than 8 schools. Most will find an appropriate college by applying to fewer than 8 schools.

I also find it irritating to see stellar students on CC who get, for instance, 15 acceptances, and then moan about not knowing which of their 6 reach schools to accept. The same students will diss their many match and safety acceptances, which indicates that they never were interested in those students. I’m referring to the exceptionally strong students on CC – the ones who stand out even in this rarified air due to 99th percentile scores and national EC achievements – who never were interested in going to not-even-flagship state U or second tier private, but applied to several apparently to collect lots of acceptances.