At least at one point in the college application process we as parents and our kids were held hostage by these schools. Whether it was waiting to hear if your child got in the school or if the merit money was going to be enough. We all sat at a computer screen refreshing it over and over. Or we waited on old school snail mail. Some schools had official days for notification some didn’t. Either way at some point we all just wanted to get the answer.
Well, I hope yesterday was like that for the schools themselves. I don’t know if it happens like this but hopefully it does. The folks in admissions walk into the office the morning of May 1 and get the up to date numbers for confirmed enrollees. They know how many kids they want for next year. They look at the numbers and realize they need 200 more kids to confirm. They spend the day refreshing the data hoping Johnny in South Dakota puts down the deposit. They may stay in the office late watching the numbers ordering pizza. Knowing their job could be on the line if something goes wrong.
Maybe the school doesn’t have to worry about enough kids rather they have to worry about the makeup of the new class. They run the numbers and see if their average ACT mid 50% or whatever goes down. Because we all know what that means; lower rankings. Did they not give enough merit to the high stats kids? Did they accept too many Aunt Becky kids?
I know not all schools had stress yesterday but I sure hope some of them did. Because overall this whole system they call the college application process is a freaking mess and a pain in the butt to deal with. I have a feeling a few did because one school we didn’t turn down officially sent an email extending the 5/1 date to 5/3. Plus another school who D19 didn’t apply to sent an email saying D19 could apply until 5/15 and they had merit.
Nah. They’ve been tracking the numbers for weeks, They already had a good idea before yesterday on whether they’ll need to go to their waitlist. The ones you’d kinda like to stick it to are probably having no yield problems anyway. Those moves they made were probably planned out a while ago. This is a business for them.
Or they are looking at an overyield of students interested in their “full” majors (like computer science) while looking at an underyield of students interested in their majors with ample excess capacity (like history), even though the overall yield may be close to what was predicted.
Well, some schools maybe are. D just got an email from a state university (not a highly sought after one) saying both places and merit money are still available…
I had a close friend who was dean of admissions for a graduate college in a large university. Law school. Lived and died by rankings. After 15 years, she just had to quit. Was afraid it was going to kill her.
It is a problem for the Admissions Director when they get huge numbers in applications and then didn’t fill the seats. With kids applying to so many schools, and each can only go to one, there are a lot of phantom applicants out there.
S got an email yesterday from a school he didn’t choose saying it’s not too late to commit and his scholarship is still there waiting for him. I think they are hurting.
I for one have no sympathy for the colleges. Obviously, I would never want someone to be out of work (except maybe got that one nasty FA person) but I do think the process is ridiculous.
I’m not sure where all this animus comes from. It’s unfortunate that colleges can’t take all the students who want to attend them but no one is setting out to stress out your kid intentionally. If anything, in my experience anyway, it’s the parents and other relatives stressing their kids out.
“Did you do your SAT studying today? You’ll never get into your reach schools unless you get it up 10 points.”
“You’ll need to earn a merit scholarship to attend [your dream school].”
“Where do you want to go?” “Have you gotten any results yet?”
“I heard [classmate] got into [low acceptance rate school]. Great school!”
“Did [your best friend} get into her ED school?”
The fact that you were anxious is not the school’s fault.
Of course it is the college’s fault-they set up a system that lacks both transparency and articulated benchmarks, deliberately game the rankings by over-encouraging applicants through misleading marketing materials, and participate in the college-admissions industrial complex of test prep advisors, private consultants, etc. If that isn’t a recipe for anxiety, I don’t know what is. At least many colleges will close in the upcoming years due to demographic changes,so perhaps the anxiety will be spread around a bit more.
The big dogs don’t sweat it. If yield is a little low in any given year, they pull some highly qualified kids off the WL who are probably full pay. However, at small schools with negligible endowments that are struggling financially, bad yield figures might just be the final nail in the coffin. There is a whole thread on CC about schools that are closing up shop.
I want to feel satisfaction from S19 turning down schools that he spent tons of time courting but, in the end, I do not. We both feel bad about at least four of the schools he had to turn down. We visited and he knew the AOs or the coaches well…but he can only go to one school. The AOs he knew personally were all gracious and excited for him when he let them know where he’ll be going in the fall. I just hope they don’t hold it against our family because D21 likes some of those schools!
I would never want any one individual to lose their job, except for maybe a university president.
But overall I can never feel bad for any organization that has raised its prices at least double the rate of inflation over the last 25-30 years. I have two solid data points on two schools that back that claim up. Plus the super selective schools have not increased enrollment to keep up with the increase in population. Thus making them even more selective.
Overall I am not fond of the process at all and it has many faults. So if some of the schools had to sweat a few days ago then it brings me some joy.
These admissions dictators have too much control and their personal biases and institutional interests make whole process an unfair circus, I’ve no sympathies for them.
I totally agree with @Sue22. The anxiety around college admission is not on the schools, its on us as parents. How many times do we see posts about prestige hunting? Kids with 20 reach schools and one safety they don’t even like?
Kids have to hear the message at home that the goal shouldn’t be a competition into the T20. This is a process of finding a bunch of schools that individuals can grow and get a good education. There should be no one dream school. It’s a total fallacy that it’s Harvard or bust.
If we all focused on affordable safety schools first and foremost, gave the message that a reach is just that and to PLAN on being rejected, it would be a much less stressful process.
This is about managing expectations. Parents can have a huge impact on making this process much easier and less stressful.
Please. It is not that American parents, compared to Canadian or British parents, are so much more focused on prestige. Parents in those countries value a McGill or Oxbridge diploma just as much as we do. The difference is their kids have a very clear understanding of what it takes to get into those schools and a far more rational admissions process, so those unqualified do not even apply. It is dramatically less stressful there as a result.