@wisteria100 Those same selective schools rarely offer full tuition scholarships and are very expensive to begin with. UPenn for example, will cost me a grand total of $66,000 a year if I get in. If I don’t get a scholarship, I probably will not be attending since I don’t want my parents to have to take out a loan or something. I think this is how it is for some students that apply to top schools, thinking maybe the cost of applying will be worth it if I get into those schools with the best scholarship.
@Waiting2exhale Those waivers were through the college directly. They sent me an email saying that I was eligible to apply with a free application, which made me excited since I was planning on applying to one of those schools anyway. And the other was a great school that I’m now strongly considering even though I wouldn’t have given it a second thought if I wasn’t given a free application. For all the colleges I applied to, I visited their website, took a virtual tour, and talked to people that either went there or knew people who went there.
It would be interesting to know, and I am sure there is info out there, what increase there has been in the number of applications submitted by students just to top 20 colleges. Is the application lottery to top schools a relatively new phenomenon?
I personally think no one needs to submit more than 15 applications. When my son goes through this, I am going to encourage him to submit no more than 8 if possible. I have seen how much work goes into submitting applications, and I think it is very difficult for any kid to be truly enthusiastic about wanting to attend so many different colleges. If a student does their research, they should be able to create a manageable and balanced list of colleges they will be able to get into, along with some reaches if desired, get merit aid if that is the goal, and be happy to attend. Learning to be discriminating is a good life skill, and it’s important to know why you want something. As someone said above, it’s a personal choice though. We are all just expressing our opinions.
@marie122 Some of the very selective schools offer a full ride to those below a certain income. If you fit that criteria, makes sense to apply to a number of those despite the low acceptance rate
Personally, I started off wanting to apply to 12 colleges, and out of them, only two we’re top 20 colleges. Over time, however, I abandoned 5 of those applications, not because I didn’t genuinely like those schools, but because either I didn’t have a shot at getting in or I liked the other colleges better.
This is my personal opinion. At the beginning of the application process, I had a lot of doubts about which colleges would accept me. Some of the colleges that I easily got into (colleges I heard back from within a week of applying) were colleges that I felt might not accept me. One contributing factor to this sort of mentality was the environment at school, where “I don’t think I’m going to get in even though I’m valedictorian with a 2400 SAT score” students unintentionally brought down the confidence of the whole class. This probably led to some students that were initially only applying to a couple of the top 20 colleges to apply to all or most of them, just to boost their chances. My guess is that the lack of confidence is the factor in these students applying to so many top tier schools.
You know how there are some things in life that are said to push a couple near divorce, like renovating or selling a home, and filling out the FAF/CSS?
The college application process (with its attendant scholarship search and application completion) might surely be one which cements for a kid that they never want to see their parent again. The feeling may be reciprocal for the parent during those periods as well.
15 apps would have had my child filing for emancipation, with no one here fighting it.
@wisteria100 That income level is very low and I agree that those students need a full ride to be able to attend college. But again, that income level is very low. What about middle class families that can afford to send their kids maybe, just maybe full pay to state schools, but cannot afford to pay $66,000 for just one year or even $30,000 a year?
I propose another idea for fun: Each college is required to admit at least 30% of applicants. Colleges need to figure out the ways to limit the number of applicants themselves to meet this rule.
Reason to edit: increase 20% to 30%
@Waiting2exhale , you got that right! 
My kid did 12, and in retrospect it was about 2 too many. It seems clear now, though it didn’t then, that she applied to a couple of schools “just in case.” Her idea for a nice relaxing holiday break in December definitely didn’t happen because she spent most of the break finishing her apps, with me nagging her. I am sure if she had spent some more time researching her list, she may have decided against those extra apps, and I would have had more time to nag about something else instead, haha!
@coolweather That idea could work in theory, however, with the higher acceptance rates, I believe that might incentivize more students to apply, thinking that they could somehow shimmy their way into those 30% admitted.
An idea that might cut down some applications is pushing back application deadlines, maybe to early or mid December for RD and mid October for EA/ED. Since the deadlines are currently in the middle of winter break, at least for us, students might be getting incentivized to apply since a lot of them might not have anything to do over winter break.
“…and I would have had more time to nag about something else instead, haha!”
Motherhood has not changed much in a couple of centuries, yeah?
“An idea that might cut down some applications is pushing back application deadlines, maybe to early or mid December for RD and mid October for EA/ED.”
From what I’ve read here at CC, there is no way many public guidance counselors would be able to successfully work on behalf of their students inside of such a timeframe. So that would once again advantage the advantaged, though the idea seems a sound one at first glance.
@Waiting2exhale This process has worked very well for the UT and A&M schools in Texas. They have their deadlines in December and the priority deadline is mid October. I go to a very large public school in Texas, from which at least half the students apply to either UT, A&M, or both. The counselors have been doing an extraordinary job of keeping submitting transcripts and recommendation letters by the necessary deadlines.
Glad to hear it, @marie122. Like I said, after reading things here at CC, I know such is not the case for many others.
Making the decision before 5/1 won’t make a difference. Schools are largely good with understanding their yield. Most can adjust if their yield is off a bit. I don’t see the issue.
I think colleges should change the application-decision cycle to Feb - May period to make life easier for parents and students.
a. Students/counselors don’t have to submit mid-year reports. Why do they need to submit 11th and 12th grade reports in less than 2 months and live in fear that the reports are missing or not arriving in time?
b. 12th grade teachers have more time to know students and write recommendations for them.
c. Students can submit awards that come in late. Students frequently ask this question on CC: Does it matter if I submit my award now?
d. Parents don’t have to struggle with income tax returns. How many parents and students say on CC?: I cannot get my tax returns done by Feb 15.
e. Students can have time to attend the admit day to make decision when the school is almost over.
Both FAFSA and CSS Profile will, for the upcoming application season, allow use of prior-prior-year tax returns, according to http://www.nacacnet.org/issues-action/LegislativeNews/Pages/PPY.aspx . I.e. a student applying for financial aid in early 2017 for the 2017-2018 academic year can use the 2015 tax return.
That provides some relief but previous tax year return does not accurately reflect income of the current year. Some parents will still struggle to come up with money for tuition if there is a large drop in income in the current year and the FA awards are based on the previous year.
Thanks everyone for making this an interesting discussion! I have seen a lot of interesting perspectives here.
I would just emphasize that it is not irrational for students individually to want to apply to more and more schools as acceptance rates go down. But the sum total of their actions just makes the overall problem even worse.
Just to recap some of the ideas mentioned:
- An incentive for students to release accepted spots early, hopefully combined with more of a rolling system by more colleges and earlier financial aid. (my idea - many practical hurdles).
- A hard limit on the number of applications ( @Lindagaf ). Problematic because of financial aid considerations. Difficult to do also because of the multiple application systems.
- A soft limit on number of applications . I.e. increase the difficulty slope of applications beyond a reasonable point (10 applications?) @lvvcsf . Easier to implement than some ideas, but would require a decent amount of college cooperation that might not be there.
- Colleges must accept 30% of applicants ( @coolweather ). It is a very interesting idea. Uber-selective colleges would essentially need to have semifinal status before collecting money.
- Refund the application if the student is not accepted ( @HPHstudent220 ). Problem is, that might cause even more students to send in some lottery tickets, though at least it might encourage schools to do some pre-screening.
- Move the whole application cycle to later. ( @coolweather ). Interesting thought. Back in the day deadlines were later as I recollect. I think there is a bit of an arms race to get certain decisions out there sooner to get kids used to the idea of attending their school? Or get scholarship interviews going etc?
- Students voluntarily give up their spots before 5/1 ( @Waiting2exhale ) . The idea is nice, but the problem is, admission decisions have already been made for most schools, so at best, that helps the wait-list students. And again, the late nature involved leaves them in a lurch. Now if more schools used rolling admission, it would help a lot.
I would throw out a simpler thing that could help (I think I mentioned it before):
*The top-end (lottery) schools need to put out there results by 2/28
*Financial aid estimates need to get done faster (and use prior year’s taxes if possible to speed it along)
*Other schools use more of a rolling admission system, so that students who get into their “lottery” school can free up spots for others.
The theory is that top-end school classes getting squared away first helps free up spots for the accepted students’ matches and safeties… Although big scholarships from other schools kind of muddy the water too - Kids may very well try for these even after getting in to their top choice I presume.
@inn0v8r : you know that recap should be re-posted, just to start a CC war, right?
Yes, for the many students and families who must consider costs, having all possible choices known before choosing any would be the optimal method to follow. It is not like the UK, where the possible net costs tend to fall into a narrow range, the top end of which is probably comparable to that of many in-state public universities in the US, so there is less incentive to look everywhere or wait for everything to come in to see if there is a large difference in net cost.