I did visit two of the schools I applied to - I spent the summer at Wesleyan University after my junior year of high school for a creative writing program, and I visited Sarah Lawrence. The third one was Hampshire College, and I admit that the reason I wanted to go there was because at the time, they allowed students who lived in the dorms to have pets. (At least that was my understanding). I got accepted to all of the schools, but there was a FAFSA and my parents wouldn’t fill it out, so I was SOL and I ended up going to the state directional until I ran out of money.
There were college sourcebooks you could buy. You also went into the guidance counselor who looked at your file and gave you brochures from colleges she thought would be appropriate. Then, you mailed off a nice letter to request application materials. I remember how exciting it was when a thick mailing arrived. It usually had a course catalog and I remember being in seventh heaven as I looked at all the interesting courses you could take. Each application required a long process culminating in an afternoon as you typed up the application and put it together with all your essays and supporting documents. The guidance office still mailed out transcripts separately along with their evaluations.
You mailed off your thick packet very carefully making sure the postage was correct and then, you waited for the answer to arrive. Thin envelopes usually contained bad news. There was a lot of mailbox checking.
My guidance counselor, when I said I wanted to major in pharmacy, had no idea what schools offered it. So I got no brochures from her. I visited the college I finally chose but only because it was on the way to my grandmother’s home and our family visited often enough that my dad and I made a special trip to see and stop at the college on the way.
The val in my class went to Harvard and several of the top 10 went to Ivies or LAC’s, but the duo 2nd honors both went to our state flagship. The 3rd honors student was married and pregnant by the time we graduated and didn’t go to college.
Great thread!! I applied in the 1980s.
I don’t have any memory of how we got the paper applications, but I remember having to practice writing drafts of my answers and then copying them over neatly. We also had two typewriters in the house - the “old” one that was the manual kind that hurts your fingers and the “new” one that my sisters and I needed to take turns on that actually plugged in and had an erase key.
My essay - my father was a computer science professor in the early days and he had a tiny terminal that could dial up to his UNIX mainframe (I think) - and he made my sisters and me all edit our essays in, I believe, t-rof or n-rof via emacs. Then we had to wait until he could bring back the print-out from work for us to edit and fix for another round. He thought it would look better if he printed out on a COMPUTER than if we typed that whole part as well.
I applied to four privates plus my state school. Because we were in IL, we all took the ACT and the SAT - yes, only once each of course. Also Achievements - and because those were the same price for one day’s worth, we took all three in one sitting (I took math, physics, and some kind of English). My parents spoiled me, which is to say they either bought [from a bookstore] or checked out [from a library] one or two practice tests for each kind of test so I would know what to expect.
I remember that MIT asked for ECs on some kind of sticky label but you didn’t stick it to anything, just sent it back. I guess they stuck it to your folder or something.
My parents took us all on one college visit, and they left a day before my junior prom so that was that: no prom, no discussion. (I don’t think they even know it was prom.)
I picked MIT because I liked the old-fashioned desks and classrooms and because my parents thought it would be a good place for me - and it was. 
Although my father thought I should pick the dorm with the in-dorm computer cluster, and I wanted the all-women’s dorm.
I hand-wrote all my applications. I applied to 4 schools - a state school, a school I could commute to, what would now be considered a “reach” school, and an Ivy. Got into all but the Ivy, and was darn lucky to get a huge scholarship from the school I could commute to, as I had NO way to pay for college.
To show how things have changed, my 126 on the PSAT was enough to qualify me for a National Merit Commendation (in a competitive state), but not quite enough to go on for Finalist. The 1430 I scored on the SATs earned me full tuition at any state school. By CC standards, those are pretty low scores today!
@InigoMontoya - I think there was an official score recentering, so our scores actually were better than they seem today.
@fretfulmother - unbelievable - stickies for your EC’s… And to MIT … Can you imagine anything like that today?
@prospect1 - it’s pretty crazy. And what’s more, I filled the EC label out with purple colored pencil just “because”. My parents were almost uninvolved except for all the emacs and printing.
I don’t recall if I did this or not, but it wouldn’t be beyond the pale that if you made a minor mistake, you’d just cross it out and continue.
I was a boarder senior year so my parents were out of the picture. I applied to three schools - Harvard (reach), Brown (match) and U Penn (safety). I filled out the applications by hand sitting on my bed. I got the college addresses from a big book like Fiske Guide to Colleges or the college catalogs in the library. I wrote my own checks for the application fees. I typed the essay (manual typewriter) except for Brown which insisted on it being handwritten. I didn’t apply to Yale because they didn’t ask a question that would enable me to recycle my essay. The responses came by snail mail on April 15. I never visited Brown or U Penn - I did an overnight at Harvard my senior year and had also visited with my mother junior year. (We also looked at Tufts and Barnard.) All I remember from the Harvard overnight was being introduced to daiquiris and shooting flames out of a spray can.
Took the SAT twice - once junior year and once senior year. Didn’t study and got practically the same scores both times. I also took three achievement (subject) tests.
I applied to college in 2003-2004, just as colleges were beginning to onboard online applications. I remember that two of my colleges waived the application fee for applicants that were willing to apply online because the online applications were so new and they were trying to get people to do it. The other three didn’t have online applications at all. I applied to 5 colleges - two online and the other three on paper.
The Internet was a thing by then, but not really a big way to find out information for college for whatever reason. So I also found out about colleges by visiting the library and flipping through the big college catalogs. You COULD use the Internet to request applications and catalogs from colleges, and you could also ask colleges to send you catalogs when you took the SAT. I remember I started a stash under my bed of beautiful glossy catalogs from colleges across the country. Some of the applications were pre-filled, lol! I remember the heavy good quality paper and ample space. I actually typed my paper ones on a typewriter because I was told that was more professional than hand-writing them. We paid application fees with a check sent to the college. I remember my mom let me fill out the checks as an exercise in learning how to write checks.
One of my recommenders actually hand-wrote his letter directly on the form I provided him. And I definitely remember waiting for the big envelope/small envelope to come in snail mail!
Thank God the online FAFSA was a thing, though. I remember picking up a paper copy of the FAFSA at the local public library and being utterly baffled as to what I was supposed to do with the thing.
Applying for graduate school just 4 years later was completely different.
Whiteout. Because they only sent you one form to type on.
I sent postcards off to request applications and catalogs. Our guidance office had nothing but the UC and CSU applications and info on the local junior college.
I remember that the Radcliffe application came beautifully printed on very thick paper. I was so disappointed in how expensive that college was; it sounded perfect. My parents were convinced that they weren’t eligible for financial aid even with a whole passel of kids, and there was no way they could afford tuition and fees like that when the UC system was almost free.
Friends and I were all annoyed because we had to show up to school early on a Saturday morning to take some test. Ended up being the ACT, “this thing” we needed for college. Wow, we were oblivious. Applied to 3 schools, picked the one that my older brother had gone to 6 years earlier. Zero parent involvement in any part of the process, absolutely no guidance on major or classes going in. First semester I enrolled in Hindu (Hindi) as a foreign language rather than Spanish because Spanish was only offered when General Hospital was on, I think it was the Luke/Laura era, a time when teens were really into it. Brother called and yelled at me, I dropped Hindu and got into Spanish. That was the extent of my family’s help in college. Went on to a very successful career and family, so it turned out just fine.
I applies to three state schools (the brochures were found in the counselor’s office). My counselor told me that I wouldn’t get in anywhere because of my SAT scores. They were low, but I was also in the top ten percent in my class.
I got into all three (two schools required me to attend their pre-college summer program due to my test scores).
I picked the school with the prettiest brochure (beautiful green foliage). I had a part time job and paid for my apps myself.
I lived in Northern British Columbia during high school, I applied to Berkeley using a tri-fold brochure that was in a rack at the high school. I received a conditional acceptance - condition was that I had to take the SAT (didn’t even know what it was). SAT was not given in Canada, my Dad drove me to Vancouver and we stayed overnight in an inexpensive hotel, then left at 3:30am to drive to Seattle in time to arrive for the 8am test start (not exactly the type of test prep that is common today). When I received my scores I had no idea if I had done well or not, but the condition was lifted from my acceptance so I must have done OK.
1980’s. filled out exactly 3 apps (no idea where I got them) to schools I had heard of-got into 2, waitlisted at one due to housing. I never wrote a single essay. I did take an SAT prep course for some odd reason and took the SAT once-east coaster so there was no ACT…couldn’t tell you what my score was. had never set foot on a single college campus, let alone the 3 I applied to. had zero parental involvement and zero guidance counselor involvement, even though I came from a fairly college oriented district. sort of recall my parents refusing to do any financial aid paperwork-if they did, I never saw it, and never applied for a single scholarship.
had zero EC’s-mine was a 40 hour a week J-O-B in HS. really had no concept of what the costs were, where the money was coming from or any of that jazz.
ended up not going to any U…'rents decided they weren’t giving me a single dime toward college and there was little hope of saving enough between june-sept so I moved out and ended up at the local CC, all while continuing to work and live on my own.
and I survived just fine.
and as I read here, I constantly have to google U’s…as a grown woman I have never heard of a lot of schools listed here. I have absolutely zero idea how a kid today would either without parental involvement–while times have changed, kids haven’t, and unless a school is associated with the ivy’s, a sport team on TV or something local, I honestly cant fathom how they know about some of the smaller, more obscure schools. I often see advice here to “do your homework” and think even with technology and better support, that is easier said than done without some direction.
mine will probably have a much tougher road but will find her tribe somewhere.
txmom14,
Did you have to pay OOS tuition rate at Berkeley?
80’s. I applied to 4.
Hard to believe I could compose essays w/o word processor software.
In 1982 I applied to 6 schools. The common app was available then but you had to photocopy it for each school. I chose my schools based on the (Barrons"?) guidebook that ranked them “Most Selective,” “Highly Selective” and so forth. My guidance counselor’s son went to my eventual choice and he thought I would be a good fit there. Another good friend whom I respected was going to my eventual first choice and that is basically how I chose. I didn’t get in to the Most Selective (Ivy) school I applied to.
Did not visit any of my schools. I think I would have been happy at any of them, except for possibly the large state school that was my safety. I think I needed a smaller environment.