<p>Now you can add "risk" to your list of college admissions qualifiers. What next? Danger?</p>
<p>Yale</a> Daily News - Admissions game getting riskier</p>
<p>This admissions process is just becoming ridiculous.</p>
<p>i think there will be alot of waitlist movement this year. All these colleges are crowing about the increase in applications, but IMO it’s just that students are applying to more colleges, not that College X is more popular in and of itself.</p>
<p>so many people got waitlisted at so many colleges this year, it’s incredible. in about ten years, maybe the acceptance rate for Harvard will be 4.0% or something…</p>
<p>My first thought: I wish it’s in the 1950s, higher acceptance rates, you know.</p>
<p>But then, no cable tv and internet. Bleh.</p>
<p>agreed, the whole thing is just ridiculous</p>
<p>the thing that’s growing the most ridiculous is costs… give it by 2013 to see the $60,000 price tag</p>
<p>more proof that kids should be limited in their number of applications…We’d see all these number return to normal levels</p>
<p>Definitely. UK restricts the number of applications to 5 and that seems more than adequate.
Also, IDK, but I find it slightly unethical (right word?) when people who’ve already gotten into their top choice EA put in more applications to other selective places where they have no intention of going. Just seems pretty unjustified.</p>
<p>Definitely crazy, but no crazier than getting a job. I wish we adults could have our job applications limited to 5. That’s a nice dream.</p>
<p>One of the root causes of students submitting so many applications is because merit aid is difficult to get and the cost of colleges is so high.</p>
<p>It’s a downwards spiral.</p>
<p>People apply to more colleges to increase their chances of getting into at least one reach.
Colleges then must select fewer applicants, increasing selectivity.
Students see increasing selectivity and apply to more colleges.
The cycle continues…</p>
<p>Since the number of students applying to college probably won’t go down, more students need to limit their number of applications. Also, universities need to stop the ridiculously low acceptance rates so we can all breath a sigh of relief.</p>
<p>So glad I’m finished with the college admissions process. Even though my results weren’t favorable (a mix of waitlists and rejections), I’m just relieved it’s over.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What are they supposed to do? Over-enroll? I don’t like how some schools like to warp there acceptance rates through various means, but universities can’t stop students from applying to them.</p>
<p>Agreed ^. If you have 30,000 applications and you know you only have room for 1,500 and know you have a yield rate of 75%, there’s NOTHING you can do besides accept an extremely low percentage. It’s not colleges’ fault that they’re becoming so selective. In fact, Harvard doesn’t seem to be trying to make it’s acceptance rate any lower – it does not send out mass amounts of propaganda encouraging students to apply like some colleges do.</p>
<p>My sister just visited Princeton on a school-sponsored college trip and she said that the speaker at the info session gave her the impression that they are trying to keep so many people from applying–which would make sense to me!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Not necessarily, College X might very well be more popular since College X’s yield is hovering around the same place while the applications are increasing. If it was merely an increase in applications and not in interest, then the yield would drop and acceptance rate would increase. Unless, of course, the additional applications are “junk” applications, which is defiantly possible (which I think might be the reason as to why colleges don’t release statistics about their applicant pools). However, to guess either way is merely speculation.</p>
<p>I think part of the reason acceptance rates are going down is that the “lesser” applicant is applying to more “reach” schools. When you would only apply to 4 or 5 colleges, why waste your time and money applying to Harvard with a 1900 SAT score? Oh, now I’ve applied to 20; what difference does a 21st make? I think the common-app is to blame for a LOT of our troubles, since it makes applying to so many schools so easy.</p>
<p>I’m going to try to apply to less than 10 schools next year. Make it a little easier on the adcoms ;)</p>
<p>
may be sooner than that - total costs at a some schools are already topping 58k</p>