<p>“In a new quantitative study conducted by the College Board’s Task Force on Admissions in the 21st Century, nearly 1,000 parent and student respondents reported that contrary to popularly held beliefs the college application process is not overly complex. In its recently released report, Complexity in College Admission: Fact or Urban Myth, the College Board focuses its attention on how confusing or complicated the college application process is for students applying to college, and parent and student perceptions of the college choice and application process…”</p>
<p>If all they are looking at is how hard it is to fill out the Common App, then yeah, it isn’t too hard.</p>
<p>But that is not the entire “college admission process.” Selecting the correct college prep courses, prepping for, taking and sending the PSAT, SAT and ACT and determining which colleges allow score choice, requesting teacher recs, researching and visiting colleges, figuring out EA, SCEA, ED, rolling admissions, keeping track of deadlines, dates and submission of supplementary materials, paying fees, scheduling interviews… That is the complex part. (And I’m sure I’ve missed a few things).</p>
<p>Please consider your source Dave. This is the College Board talking here. </p>
<p>Quick statistical complaint: The sample size is 1,000. At best this is a preliminary study to see if the questions are good enough to form part of a larger scale survey.</p>
<p>Agree with Bay. The Common App makes things easier for sure but everything else is still pretty complex. We used a spreadsheet to gather information on prospective schools junior year with emphasis on major(s) availability and geographic region. That gave us about 25-30 schools to start with. We finally pared the visit list down to about 7-8 mostly urban schools, visited them, and I made him rank the schools like March Madness seeds to determine who was in and who was out. We finally applied to the four left after that process. Then the complexity of various deadlines (rolling, ED, RD) and FA were added. Now waiting and we’re tired!</p>
<p>But if all you want to do is get into your own state U, you probably don’t need PSAT, extensive ECs, EA/ED, interviews, supplementary materials, etc. Or, if your SATs and GPA are above the median for your state U, you could probably apply EA in early fall - perhaps without any required essays - and be accepted and done with the process in late fall.</p>
<p>Folks, the whole process can be as complexifying as you make it. </p>
<p>The land of CC commonly has all this extra stuff attached to it it, from extensive spreadsheets to custom test prep to supplementary materials to private college counselors and interview counseling.</p>
<p>And I know how comforting it can be to view one’s own experience as somehow normal (myself included.)</p>
<p>But . . . for every one kid who applies to 12 schools (for what I’m sure are excellent reasons) there are 4 kids that apply to 2 schools each (the national average is 4.)</p>
<p>My only point: while it might be comforting to downplay data that tellls us how out of step we are with the rest of the college admissions world, CC just ain’t the norm.</p>
<p>The top-25 schools usually want you fill out a supplement with extra essays and scratch-your-head questions like “What’s your favorite word?” Filling out a half dozen of these supplements is far more work than just completing the Common App. Of course, any global study will not take these special issues into account.</p>