<p>Some of the advice the girls at my daughter's school have received - is apply to as many colleges as you can -- esp those willing to waive the fees. Most of these girls are very strong academic students 18 are national merit semi-finalist - many have very high ACT scores as well as high SAT and SATIIs. I am not sure I agree with applying to a school you are not really interested in to see what scholarships you may be awarded. What is your thoughts on this approach?</p>
<p>If you need the money to attend college, you do need to apply to a broader range of schools–you just can’t predict the merit packages that you might get from any particular school and you also don’t know how the award might affect your college choice. </p>
<p>Otherwise, I can’t see applying to a college just to see if you can get in or how big of a merit award you might receive. That’s trophy hunting and seems pretty pointless.</p>
<p>I think it depends how much financial aid is a factor for you, and also how specific your interests are. Some students are reallly wedded to a few schools, some are more willing to be flexible. If they’re common app schools, and the kid as the time and inclination, then there’s nothing wrong with applying to a lot of schools. You never know what may come of it. But I don’t think it’s neccessary to apply to a ton just because you are able to. </p>
<p>It’s possible that if the students are your daughter’s school have high averages and are fairly competitive, the school may be just encouraging them to cast a wide net. Harvard can only take so many students from one high school, and sometimes competitive students miss out on great opportunities because they don’t look beyond name brand schools.</p>
<p>For families that need strong need-based or merit-based aid, it’s a strategy that makes sense. They don’t necessarily know what offers will come in, so you want to spread a wide net. I agree with you that it makes no sense to apply to a school that the student would never want to attend. It’s different if it’s a school the student isn’t super-eager to attend, but wants to keep as a financial safety possibility. And for National Merit semi-finalists or high stats students, they can sometimes know up front if they’ll be getting big $$$. </p>
<p>The other case when applying to a lot of schools might make sense is for students applying to super selective schools, where admissions is a lottery. If the student has high enough stats to be a real contender at tippy-top schools, then there’s also an element of luck. </p>
<p>On the other hand, completing applications is exhausting. Submitting an application with perfunctory cookie-cutter essays isn’t a good strategy when other applicants to the school are putting their heart and soul into writing their essays.</p>
<p>Question for your daughter to ask herself:
If accepted, would I truly be happy attending this particular school, regardless of money offered? If the answer is “not really”, she should take it off her list.</p>
<p>It makes no sense to me to apply to a school that you wouldn’t be happy to attend. If you need merit aid, then it makes perfect sense to cast a wide net, but you still need to limit the applications to schools you’d be willing to attend. And even if the application is free, fees to send ACT/SAT scores (and at some schools, high school transcripts over a certain number) add up. Not to mention the extra time spent, which might detract from academics or applications to schools of real interest.</p>
<p>Thanks for the feed back-
I thought it was a bad idea - because if they really are not interested - they may be given scholarships that some one else could have used.</p>
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Took the words right out of my mouth.</p>
<p>I believe the phrase that is associated with applying to “as many schools as possible” is “trophy hunting.” </p>
<p>Mom2424, I wouldn’t worry so much about “taking” someone else’s scholarship. Colleges hand out scholarships/merit money to more kids than they expect to come to their school, they know some students will turn them down. I know of a college who offers a $12k/year scholarship, but knows that only about 25% of the kids offered it will accept it and attend that college - so they give out 3 times as many as they want to actually have.</p>
<p>Maybe the school would really like to put on their website all the schools their graduates have gained acceptance. It is in their interest, but not the students’. </p>
<p>Its this kind of mentality that creates the illusion that the acceptance rate just gets lower and lower. Sure some of that is due to population growth but most of it is due to this vicious cycle…students see increasing low acceptance rates, they freak out and apply to more schools. So schools get a lot more applicants and then appear more selective. And so it goes. </p>
<p>All a lot of nonsense this whole industry. I’m sure it will hit a critical tipping point where the system we know now will change. Just not sure how.</p>
<p>Some of these High Schools also list all the scholarhips offered as a “total amount”, which is misleading, as many of these scholarships ultimately get turned down. </p>
<p>My D applied to our state flagship which had rolling admission and thus a pretty early acceptance in hand. She also applied to a private which had non binding early action, and also had an acceptance from that school. From that point on, all other potential add ons to her list could be placed next to those two schools…“would go to school xyz over state flagship or EA school?” If the answer was no there was no reason to even consider adding to the list!</p>
<p>I knew one quite bright girl whose parents had her apply to more than 35 schools, all the Ivys, all the UCs, several CSUs…as well as at least a dozen highly selective privates, like Stanford knowing full well she would get into most (except Stanford and the Ivys). They kept joking, “She’s not going to get in anywhere.” It was a truly ridiculous example of trophy hunting. What a pain for the counselors and administrative office, to send all those recommendations and transcripts.</p>
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<p>That was my first thought - the schools use this as a recruitment tool, especially the private schools. I know because my son when to one that did this (published the total $ amount in scholarship offers) , although they never encouraged the kids to apply to a lot of schools just for the sake of scholarship money - let’s face it, it’s a lot of work for the school to send out that many transcripts and letters of recs.</p>
<p>In my humble opinion…students should only apply to schools that they would attend if accepted. </p>
<p>Also, I think it’s a much better idea to do less applications and do them very well, then to do more applications and just slap them together. Even with the Common Ap, many schools require supplemental information. Students should apply to schools that they would attend AND do a good job with those applications. Sometimes “more is not better”.</p>
<p>MY d is going to apply to at least ten. Why? She really is undecided about where to go and hasn’t yet been able to visit very many schools. It won’t be anything like 30 but it may turn out to be 15. I am not really sure. I did dissuade her from applying to an urban college known primarily for engineering with very limited housing. I convinced her that it really wasn’t any kind of match for her and that just because some of the schools are offering free applications with no essay or recommendation needed, doesn’t mean she needs to necessarily apply. She did apply to one, got their highest scholarship and just got a letter that she was accepted into their honors program. She is planning to go visit the college very soon. </p>
<p>Another thing I am dealing with is that she has unrealistic expectations. She keeps wanting to put things onto deal breakers and they really are silly things that should not be deal breakers. Whether she can happily exist in a very cold environment is a potential deal breaker. Trays at cafeteria seems too minor an issue to me.</p>
<p>it’s not unusual for nmsf’s to apply to 10 to 14 schools.</p>
<p>10-14 seems reasonable for nmsfs, in this environment. But, if you can cut it back to 6-8 you should.</p>
<p>Could someone explain why NMSFs would apply to a larger number of schools than non-NMSFs?</p>
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<p>I’m guessing because some colleges give near full-rides for a NMSF, especially if they make it to finalist. My son was a NMSF and he had quite a few letters from colleges telling him, if he applied, he would automatically get scholarship money.</p>
<p>How is number of schools related to each applicant goal? Every kid has a different goal. Some want free education, they are looking to apply to schools known for Merit $$, others like prestige, they are applying to Ivy’s and other elite schools, third group wants to get into very specialized and extremely selective programs at any school that have such a program, still another group wants a pretty campus, …nice athletic program…highly ranked in their major… The number of schools and their combo will depend on specific goal of each applicant, their stats and individual matching process, thier priority list. It is impossible to judge in general.</p>
<p>I think that students eligible for scholarships for National Merit, high SAT scores, etc (often these are posted on the web) should still consider seriously whether they would attend there. Some students know they do not want to be in a city – or a rural college town. Having said that, it may be difficult to decide without visiting the campus with a scholarship award in hand. Some oos students have not had a chance to visit. For students eligible for these awards it may come down to – do I go to big state school with a scholarship covering tuition OR pay $25K (or whatever it comes out to after FA and/or merit aid) for a selective private?</p>