Idea to stop the vicious cycle of ever-increasing college admission competitiveness

tl;dr - reduce the cycle of over-applying by giving an incentive for students to release their unneeded admission spots earlier than May 1st.

THE PROBLEM:

In a nutshell, I think the primary culprit is students applying to more and more students.

The number of graduating students has not increased materially, nor have the number of college seats decreased materially. But admission rates have been falling each year at the most competitive schools. Why? I believe primarily because students are applying to more and more schools, ala http://www.nytimes.com/2014/11/16/nyregion/applications-by-the-dozen-as-anxious-students-hedge-college-bets.html?_r=0 .

Even if the average number of acceptances remains constant, it causes much more variance in the outcome, with some students getting shut out, and others getting into to many more places than necessary.

So to be clear, I am arguing that the expected value of the number of most competitive school acceptances for a top student, i.e.

 (the admission rate to "most competitive" schools (say, top 40) for a top student) times (the number of top 40 schools being  applied to by a typical top student)

has likely remained constant over the last 10 years for top students.

Consider a thought experiment where there are 10 similar schools with 10 spots each and 100 similar students. If the students each apply to 2 schools, the average acceptance rate will be 50%, because there are 200 applications written and 100 acceptances, if we assume for simplicity that the schools will get 100% yield (I realize this won’t be true even for this simple example).

Now imagine that each student starts to get nervous, after seeing a few students get shut out, and applies to 4 schools. Now there are 400 applications and 100 acceptances. Each of the schools now has a 25% acceptance rate, even though on average each student gets into a college.

But then the nervousness of students not being sure they will get into a top choice or any school at all (and not knowing where they stand until results come out - for example, are their recommendations good?) means they hedge their bets and rationally apply to more and more schools, which then lowers admissions rates further.

Unfortunately, I think this causes a vicious cycle. Today’s safety’s becoming tomorrow’s matches, and today’s matches becoming tomorrow’s reaches. In fairness, at the top end, the students are also doing more and more (see http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/03/the-math-revolution/426855/ for instance).

So how can we stop this “race to the bottom?” The students are behaving rationally at an individual level, but the aggregate affect is very unpleasant and chaotic.

PROPOSED SOLUTION:

Students who are accepted by a school that they no longer have any intention of going to could be given an incentive to “release” their spot before the admissions season is done.

So for instance, they would get half of their application fee back if they turned down their admission offer by a certain date. A sliding scale would probably be even better (you get more back if you release your spot earlier), but is probably too complicated.

Alongside this, we would need the most competitive schools to release their results earlier in the cycle. For instance, I would argue that having the Ivy League schools release their results SO late in the cycle is rather harmful. Similarly, schools would need to get their financial aid estimates down much earlier in the cycle so that students can know where they stand.

Admitted student days would have to be done more often as well, and on a less grand scale. And to be honest, I am not sure the gigantic dog and pony shows are that helpful to the students, compared to a more low-key visit that let students know what they are actually in for.

Essentially, this is moving more students to apply earlier, and bringing what happens in the wait list phase to an earlier part of the application cycle. And admissions would have more of a rolling aspect to them. Clearly the wait list experience is extremely unpleasant for the students and their parents.

The hope is that students who apply to 4 reaches, 10 matches, and 2 safeties could release their matches and safeties if they got into a reach and were happy with its financial aid. Those new openings would allow other students to get in, which means they in turn release their unneeded spots. Hopefully we could get the students sorted into their colleges more efficiently.

What do you think? It would take a massive amount of cooperation amongst the colleges… And there are probably lots of other stumbling blocks that I didn’t think of.

Early action and restrictive early action probably help with this problem and are a step in the same direction, but only to the extent students reduce the number of schools they get into after getting into their EA/REA choice…

Note that this article says:

I.e. it is only noticeable at the most selective schools, not in general.

Economics probably has a lot to do with it. The more selective schools are generally better at financial aid, so some students may be applying there because they cannot afford the moderately selective schools that they would otherwise attend (or would have attended in the past when prices were lower). Also, economic pessimism and increasing economic stratification increases the perception (not always accurate) that going to a school as elite as possible is more important than before.

While I agree there is a problem, and you have some good ideas, I can’t see these things happening. First, I can’t imagine the logistics of getting colleges to refund money to students who decline in timely fashion. It would probably cost them more moeny than they made from the application in the first place, plus they did actually spend the time on the application, even if a kid got rejected. They have earned the money, why refund it?

Second, I think Common App needs to limit the amount of applications per student. But they make a LOT of money, so that willl never happen. I think the bigger problem is the dumb kids who play the application lottery. “If I apply to all the top 20 schools, I am bound to get into one of them.” School counselors should be advising kids on how many applications to submit. And where are the parents who are just handing over their credit cards with no limits as to applications? There is a thread here on CC somewhere with kids bragging about how many apps they submitted, and it made for eye-opening reading. There were plenty of kids who had each submitted 15, 20, or more apps, and were laughing about how their parents weren’t even aware of the cost. Not surprisingly, many of those kids WERE playing application lottery. It was quite disgusting. Those kids were just horrible, I hope none of them got into a single college they applied to.

Third, I can’t see how colleges would be able to release decisions much earlier, especially as they have more apps to read now. It is annoying that a student often has from April 1-May 1 to make a decision. Then again, this is the fault of students who apply to too many colleges. If they applied to the right amount, they wouldn’t have to try and revisit top choices in a panic, and end up culling good options.

Ultimately, I think most of the blame lies at the feet of Common App. I think a simpler soution would be for colleges to unite in requesting that Common App limit the number of applications a student can submit. Since the Common App, the colleges have had a huge rise in applicants, and they have to hire extra staff to read applications. The excessive applications dilute the pool, IMO.

Thank you guys for your responses. I don’t disagree with many of your points, and they are contributing factors as well.

A few thoughts:

  • Though it is a most selective school phenomenon initially, I think it bleeds down to more schools as everything is connected via students applying across the strata of selectivity.
  • Re: common app, note that the admission rates have continued to slide since it has been in place. No doubt ease of applying contributes to the issue, though.
  • I do think colleges with really arduous applications help with the issue of over-applying. For instance, Caltech's application is quite challenging to fill out. Given that they could be literally swamped with applications for not that many spots (given their tiny size), I think that is great.
  • Re; costs, colleges might need to raise their cost to apply a bit, OR spend less money on marketing. Especially the relentless marketing to students who are unlikely to be able to get in.
  • On HOW could colleges release decisions sooner, maybe the deadlines get moved up a little further. Or there are more EA tranches.
  • I think there are some kids that treat admissions like a game. And that contributes to the problem for sure. But I don't think it is the majority.
  • Regarding whether elite schools are "necessary" for success, I realize it is counter-intuitive, but I wonder if the more quixotic admissions becomes (because of the level of competition), the less of an effective signaling mechanism an elite degree becomes.
  • The financial aid point is an interesting one. As costs to attend have ballooned, this is all the more relevant. Some cost cutting or greater public funding support that could lead to lower tuition might be helpful for this issue.

I am curious though if people think that if the kinks and problems could be worked out if this setup would reverse the cycle.

How many waitlists are you on?

I believe that the UK application system is the solution to this. In the UK, all college applications are centralized through the UCAS system (similar to Common App in the US). UCAS limits the number of applications a student can make to 5, and blocks the student from applying to both Oxford and Cambridge. This manages to keep the acceptance rate at Oxford and Cambridge at a pretty high level (around 18%), as many students who know they have low chances of acceptance do not apply, fearing to waste a slot. Also, we avoid situations such as one student getting into both Oxford and Cambridge and the other getting rejected by both. (more important in the UK system, as the admissions are more academics-based, which means that there would probably be a lot of overlap between Oxford/Cambridge acceptances if a student was allowed to apply to both).

I believe that a similar system can be easily applied to the US. Limit the number of applications a student can make to 7 or so, and limit the applications a student can make to top 15 or so US Ranking schools. This probably double or triple the acceptance rate for top schools, ending the lottery-like admissions system now.

The reason why this system is not implemented involves profit off application fees, and the US ranking taking admissions selectivity into account in their rankings, but it is a step that needs to be taken.

@Lindagaf There were plenty of kids who had each submitted 15, 20, or more apps, and were laughing about how their parents weren’t even aware of the cost. Not surprisingly, many of those kids WERE playing application lottery. It was quite disgusting. Those kids were just horrible, I hope none of them got into a single college they applied to.

Wow! Is that really how you feel. Pretty harsh. Remember these are kids we are talking about.

I foresee my kid applying to 10-12 schools, and that’s reduced to what I first thought might be needed. We are looking for merit, so that number is not unusual. I first thought it would be at LEAST 15 schools. I think 7 is a little too limiting. I do like the method they are using in the UK. Interesting…never knew that.

The UK does have a much smaller population and number of universities.

Also, there is much less variance in cost in the UK, since tuition is limited to £9,000 per year, and need-based financial aid grants may be up to a third of that. Some students in the US apply more widely chasing merit scholarships and/or hoping for better need-based financial aid; this may be less common in the UK due to the lesser variation in possible net prices, and the highest possible cost is comparable to that of many in-state public universities in the US (£1 is about $1.45 now).

@Chrislee1111 that is an interesting perspective, thank you. One counter-argument would be that we have so many different potential costs, regions, and so forth in the US compared to the UK for college, right? (As a side note, do all the decisions come out at the same time?)

Heck, just try to get people here to agree on the ranking here would be a challenge! (Watch what happens when you bring up certain schools on this forum! It is like yelling fire in a crowded theater.) We would have to merge the liberal arts and national universities for that. Or maybe you’d say no more than 7 total etc out of the top 15 of both.

One problem with my proposed solution at the top is that while it is arguably better for the schools because they get more of the applications along and along instead of a whole slew of applications on Jan 1st, they are having to select more of their kids early without seeing the full pool of candidates. So it involves having to give up a little bit of the application by each school to make things better overall.

I think we see shades of this solution with MIT and Caltech (unrestricted EA). My hat is off to them. Once a kid is in one of those schools, it is less likely they keep applying to lots of other schools. Their policy helps move things early for everyone, which ultimately frees up some spots.

REA of course is more similar to the British system I guess.

Wisteria100, my kids would never dream of gloating about how they racked up $1000 plus on our credit card without even telling us. Furthermore, I would never just hand over my credit card anyway. Being a kid is not an excuse for behaving like that.

How about if you limit the number of schools one can apply to on the common app. and if they want to apply to others they need to apply directly.

@Lindagaf and for that they deserve to get rejected everywhere?

@lvvcsf I like the direction of your idea, but one tricky thing is that if you REALLY want to apply to a lot of schools, you can use the CommonApp, the Universal APP, the individual state Apps, and so on. You would need some way to limit the aggregate of applications through these multi-application portals.

The colleges would probably push back on your idea, since I presume the commonApp is good for them as well, versus having to maintain their own system.

I do personally prefer a soft limit like what you are proposing (making it progressively more difficult to apply to more and more schools), versus a hard limit on number of apps, as for some families, shopping around for good financial/merit aid may be critical.

Please pm me wisteria, let’s not derail the thread.

The key is if they really want to. I would prefer to leave the option open for people to apply to as many schools as they wish if they want to. However, I think the common application (heck computers) makes it too easy to apply to a multitude of schools. There are advantages in numbers for students who want to get into “prestigious” schools and those seeking the best scholarships. But I think they should have to work harder and think more about it rather than just plug 15 schools into one application. I know each school has it’s individual supplement but I still believe having to go into each school site would cause a student to think more about what they are doing.

The common application does have some pluses. I think it has removed at least some mental barriers as it pertains to state borders, it has made it easier for people to seek scholarship opportunities nationwide rather than just locally. However, I also think it hurts the student who really does have a specific group of schools they would like to attend. They might stand out in a smaller but more committed group of applicants but get lost among the superstars who are applying to all the “top” schools. I sometimes wonder if have so many smart and like minded people confined to a handful of “elite” schools may not mean that some of those students won’t stand out. If they were more dispersed then they might find that their achievements would be noticed more.

Remember, though, that even Common Application schools typically have school-specific supplemental essays and other things, plus additional application fees. So it is not cost-free (in time or money) for an applicant to add more Common Application schools.

@lvvcsf exactly! That was my motivation for creating the thread.

I truly believe many spots are taken up by students for “insurance” reasons.

Except a lot of apps can be free. My D applied to four colleges with fee waivers or free to apply. Saved us a few hundred dollars. In retrospect, she might not have applied to a couple of them if it hadn’t been free.

But then she had to write four extra school specific essays, send four more sets of test scores, etc. even if the four application fees were waived, right?