Admission Decisions and Return on Effort

Applying to College
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As my S23 navigates his acceptances/waitlists/denials, I have been trying to think of a framework that helps process the reality. One that I find useful is a “Return on Effort” framework. It is a simple mental model that goes something like this:

Categorize your effort during HS - Low, Medium, High. (Low = 1, Medium = 3, High = 5 points)

Bucket the excitement of acceptance decisions for various colleges as Low, Medium, High. (Low = 3, Medium = 5, High = 7 points)

Bucket the stress of waitlist decisions for various colleges as Low, Medium, High. (Low = -1, Medium = -2, High = -3 points)

Bucket the stress of denials for various colleges as Low, Medium, High. (Low = -3, Medium = -5, High = -7 points)

So, my categorization could look something like this:

Effort: Medium = 3 points

Results

College 1 (Medium excitement): Waitlist = -2

College 2 (Low excitement): Accepted = 1

College 3 (High excitement): Waitlist = -5

College 4 (High excitement): Accepted = 7

College 5 (Low excitement): Accepted = 3

College 6 (Medium excitement): Waitlist = -2

Total for results = -2 +1 -5 +7 +3 -2 = 2 points

Return on Effort = Results/Effort = 2/3 = 0.66. (Did not see results proportionate to the efforts put in)

Similarly, other ROEs could be:

2 (Results far greater to the efforts put in)

1 (Results proportionate to the efforts put in)

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This reminds me of the news stories every year that highlight someone who either was accepted to a ridiculous number of schools or got some huge amount of (unusable) scholarships. It favors applying to many schools that are relatively easy admits.

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The goal would not be to max the ROE by applying to easy schools. You start with the mix of schools that you want as safety/target/reach and then calculate the ROE for your scenario. Also, ROEs can only be compared if the # of schools is the same in both