Number of applications

Northstarmom
Wed, 08 Jul 2009 16:59:12 +0000

“Personally, I would rather see a student do a GREAT job with less applications than a so so job with a ton of them…but that is my opinion.”

It’s also far easier to do a great job with a few applications.

From what I see, in most cases when students apply to lots of schools, they haven’t been able to take the time to thoroughly research the schools and tailor their applications to each schools. When it comes to interviews, the students become very stressed with having to have lots of interviews that ask the same kind of questions. As a result, students can seem bored, arrogant, disinterested or otherwise can hurt themselves in interviews. By the time spring comes, I see students complaining on CC about being contacted for interviews at top schools. As a person who has been an alum interviewer, I can tell you that one easily can tell when students are tired of being interviewed. Even the most outstanding, personable student can come across as boring, etc. when one is their 10th interviewer. For instance, one of the students whom I inteviewed who didn’t get in had an outstanding background but (I later heard) had applied to many schools. She answered my questions in a rote way and stood up and ended the interview herself, about halfway through the interview. Apparently after I had asked the questions she was used to, she assumed the interview was over because she then thanked me, stood up, shook my hand and left.

She came across as either a control freak or a very arrogant person. I later heard through a friend of hers (who didn’t know my impression of the interview) that the student was actually very personable, but had had a very stressful senior year because of applying to so many colleges.