<p>I was searching online for some applilcations to schools, just to get a feel for what DD will have to tackle next year, and I saw that question.</p>
<p>How have your students handle this question? I've read that some people don't like to answer this question for some reason, but I can't remember why.</p>
<p>Thanks</p>
<p>We answered that question with schools similar to the one that asked that question but did not list all of the schools to which they were applying. We did not list DS’s lottery school on any of those.</p>
<p>I believe mine listed them.</p>
<p>I believe the consensus is to list schools of similar or lesser selectivity.</p>
<p>If you include schools of greater selectivity, you might give the impression that the school whose application you are filling out is a “safety school.” Some colleges don’t like being used as safeties.</p>
<p>On the common app, schools can’t see which schools you applied to. Because of this, an applicant should put some less expensive state schools, and maybe two or three poorly regarded privates. It might demonstrate to the college in question that you’re looking for the most affordable option, and you’ve got state schools to fall back on in case the whole merit/financia thing doesn’t work out.</p>
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<p>If the school in question is being considered as a safety, an honest answer to this question that includes several more selective schools may increase the risk of rejection based on the school wanting to keep its yield rate up. Similarly, if the other schools are all much less desirable (statistically based on admitted student choices between schools), then the school may not have as much incentive to give a generous financial aid and scholarship package since it will not be competing for the student against “peer” schools.</p>
<p>The “level of applicant’s interest” game can be an opaque one for applicants, making it harder to assess one’s chances of admission and getting a sufficient financial aid and scholarship package. (Of course, it is the disincentive against answering honestly that may be why this question bothers so many people.)</p>
<p>Lying is always good. It builds character.</p>
<p>They don’t give you much room. You can’t list them all anyway, depending on how many apps you send in. Is it really any of their business? Just put down whatever you are comfortable with.</p>
<p>mini–lying how? It asks for other schools so we listed some of the other schools. It doesn’t ask for ALL schools and honestly, I agree that it really shouldn’t be asked at all. Our kids applied to a lot of schools, they would not have fit in the space provided.</p>
<p>If you don’t want to lie, you can:
<p>Slippery slope…</p>
<p>You specifically chose - strategically - to mislead the colleges by not listing any of your kid’s “lottery schools”. Or, to be specific, SHE - with your advice and encouragement - did not list the lottery schools.</p>
<p>You can call it what you like. You knew exactly what you daughter was doing.</p>
<p>Anyway, it was just a little lie. Then there were the ECs…And after all, it’s not different than “marketing” and everyone does it, and there wasn’t enough room, and I didn’t know the gun was loaded, and he didn’t inhale, and she doesn’t binge drink, oh, and it was only a little cheating, nothing to get excited about…</p>
<p>mini-actually it was our son and no, it’s not lying. He put down 3 schools to which he was applying, he applied to 11 and only one lottery school. There IS limited space on the app to apply…I’m sure you, however, listed every single second of every single EC and every single school your child considered on their apps though…</p>
<p>DS applied to 19 school, so he didn’t list them all. He mainly applied to small LACs and those are the ones that he chose to write. Of his lottery schools they didn’t fit with the other schools on his list and he wouldn’t have chosen them over his first choice school anyway.</p>
<p>Another way to answer without lying is to state that you’d prefer not to answer the question.</p>
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<p>Then why did he apply I have to ask…</p>
<p>And Hunt I agree with you…if the kids would have asked what to do and if they were disinclined to write the schools down, I would have told them to put N/A in the slot. If I don’t want to answer with the full truth I don’t answer at all.</p>
<p>momofthreeboys-he applied to his lottery school because it is a school close by and he liked some things about it, and his teachers convinced him to apply even though he hadn’t completed the highly recommended SAT IIs. But he didn’t apply until the last day before the deadline and didn’t spend much time with the application. I felt it was a waste of money, but he paid, even though he admitted the school was too large and that he didn’t like the quarter system. By the time his rejection letter came he was already quite happy making plans to attend his first-choice school.</p>
<p>It may not be technically lying to omit schools instead of giving the complete list, but it may not be completely honest either. But then the college asking a question where people know or suspect that honesty is penalized is not exactly encouraging honesty – perhaps it says more about the college and what kind of students it is trying to attract (i.e. those who are better at bending the rules to game the system).</p>
<p>Of course, even a completely honest person would want to know that selective omission without outright lying is common in the real world (political speeches and commercial advertising being common examples) and how to interpret such things.</p>
<p>I agree with Mini’s answers. It is a slippery slope of semi truths.</p>
<p>Both of my kids listed every school they had applied to or planned to apply to, and were accepted to every school except the highest reaches. I sincerely doubt the list of other schools they applied to had one iota of influence one way or the other.</p>
<p>An interesting thread about parsing the wording of application questions is concurrently running in the parents forum. That thread deals with past legal charges and citations that may or may not have been expunged, the wording of the question on the application, and whether or not the incident should be divulged.</p>
<p>It is best to be honest in your answers to any question on any application. Period. Lying (even by ommission) can bite you later in life. The applicant is signing his name at the end of the application stating that his answers are truthful. The answers should be truthful.</p>
<p>Seriously, if you have to lie about what other schools you are applying to what does that say about your character? </p>
<p>“Character is what you do when nobody else is watching.”</p>
<p>I put “public universities of California and other peer institutions”. On the schools I’ve applied to that ask this, none even required.</p>
<p>I think myuusmeow’s answer is entirely legit, as is, "A number of other schools, including [list a few].</p>