<p>Studies are emerging on the early admission process surge which is discussed in the article. The looming question is: are we so concerned that S or D attend a "reach" or "name" or "established" school that they are "early admissioned" into a school which they learn not to love their freshman year and then transfer out of by their sophomore year.</p>
<p>D's school started taking count last decade, and percentages of transfers by early admits far outweighs those of regular decisions. Ultimately, transfer strategies may evolve from the early admission strategies utilized these past several years.</p>
<p>One must ask, will this deliver a Common Transfer Application?</p>
<p>All of those people who criticize kids who want to attend one of several highly selective schools for applying to "too many" ought to read this article and realize what the kids are up against. Not that its news to those involved, of course.</p>
<p>According to some people, it is impossible that a kid is actually interested in an intellectually-challenging and exciting environment. It MUST be the name, and the name only, that attracts them. ALL of those kids OUGHT to be applying instead to nice little LACs in nice little midwestern towns or to their state schools--without regard to the quality of the schools in the kid's state, naturally--and if they apply to a bunch of selective schools they are trophy hunters or have delusions of grandeur or--my personal favorite--have "a sense of entitlement." </p>
<p>I am heartily sick of reading that hooey.</p>
<p>^ "I am heartily sick of reading that hooey."</p>
<p>Here, here. The kids getting criticized for applying widely were just being realistic and intelligent about the odds.</p>
<p>Consolation: I agree with you that in the current climate, kids targeting highly selective schools must cast a wide net. However, some "nice little LACS in nice little midwestern towns" do indeed provide "an intellectually challenging and exciting environment." So, I am certain, do many programs at publics.</p>
<p>The suggestion that an intellectually-challenging and exciting environment exists only at "highly selective schools" (by which I assume you mean HYPSM and its ilk) is just not correct. It is painting with that broad a brush that raises hackles.</p>
<p>I'm with Consolation. What if kids felt they got enough general education that LACs provided in their high school education. They want to focuse more on specific fields that some highly selected colleges provide. What if they want to be with the like minded intelectual kids all the time, not going out of the way to find this type in a huge public state university in certain honor program only? Whats wrong with this?</p>
<p>HYPSM are not all alike, I definitely weren't put MIT in the same category as HYPS.</p>
<p>I think many LACs are wonderful and urged my senior hs student to apply to several but she just wanted a bigger setting after a very small hs for four years. I agree with Consolation in the general gist of her/his post, however. I'm very uncomfortable with the disapproval being directed at applicants who apply to a lot of places because they are worried about odds. If they get lucky a few places but want to keep their other applications (which they worked very hard on) active, it is just really lousy to call them trophy hunters. I object to that.</p>
<p>"If they get lucky a few places but want to keep their other applications (which they worked very hard on) active, it is just really lousy to call them trophy hunters."</p>
<p>Many students who "get lucky a few places" need to keep other applications alive in order to compare financial aid offers. Others will want to keep applications active at schools they're still genuinely interested in. But keeping all applications alive just for the sake of seeing where you get in? To me, that's trophy hunting.</p>
<p>Sounds like a perfect storm this year: 1) better finaid at elites, 2)some elimination of EA, 3)more HS students than ever going to college. Overall more intense competition resulting in students applying to more schools and more uncertainty. Ultimately, it is due to a shortage in top schools per the number of potential/qualified enrollees. We need about 30 more great schools in this country to meet the demand. Where are the entrepreneurs? There is plenty of room in the mid west and mountain west. If you build it they will come.</p>
<p>Wjb, the nice little LAC in the nice little midwestern town may indeed provide a wonderfully nurturing environment in all ways, including intellectually, but it is not likely to be an "exciting" environment in the same sense that a major research university or a LAC in or near a city that offers more scope may be--and that is the sense in which I meant exciting.</p>
<p>I said nothing about HYPMS, and I wasn't thinking only about a contrast with HYPMS. Your assumption is incorrect. </p>
<p>Can we for once admit that all schools are not going to be all things to all people? I love LACs, I believe in LACs, I am a graduate of a LAC, I am not dissing LACs in general or in particular, my S has applied to several LACs which I would be ecstatic to see him attend. I'm simply saying that it's a different environment. Especially when the school in question is located in a very small town several hours from the nearest "city." For heaven's, sake, that's why people CHOOSE them!</p>
<p>As far as getting lucky and trophies, most of the highly selectives do not have rolling admissions, and the kids I know who did not get into a school EA or ED--either because they did not apply or were deferred--who are interested in the highly selectives are forced to wait it out until April. Period. Nothing in the bank, so to speak.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I'm very uncomfortable with the disapproval being directed at applicants who apply to a lot of places because they are worried about odds.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Hear. Hear. If the student is putting in the work to put the application together, and has first of all put in the work to have a competitive level of preparation for a college with a base acceptance rate less than 10 percent, let the student apply where the student will. </p>
<p>As also pointed out in this thread, some students have to make regular round applications even if a rolling acceptance or early round acceptance is in hand to best compare financial aid offers. Let the colleges decide whom to admit and how to ease the financial pain for admitted students, and let the students decide where to apply.</p>
<p>Of course all schools are not going to be all things to all people. It's all about fit. Trust me, Consolation, I know the drill well. I tried to get my kid interested in a few LACs. No luck. He wouldn't visit a single one. He applied almost exclusively to mid-sized research universities (with one public and one small research U thrown into the mix). He was fortunate to have been accepted at his SCEA school, and so has withdrawn all but a few applications. In the original mix, however, were some schools that are not viewed as highly selective on these boards. He believes ( and I believe) he would have found a challenging environment at any of them. </p>
<p>Your opening post here really does seem to sneer at "nice little LACs in nice little midwestern towns." I have a feeling students at Carleton, Macalester, and Grinnell would take issue with that characterization. ;)</p>
<p>I know what you mean, wjb, but those three schools were not the ones I was thinking of. In fact, my S has applied to one of them. </p>
<p>I am not going to name the schools in question, because it would engender the inevitable firestorm claiming that the 1200-person school with an average sectional SAT of 520 located in a town of under 10,000 and over an hour to the town of 50,000 is ABSOLTUELY the equivalent of Yale or MIT or Stanford or Georgetown, and I am a nasty elitist with an over-developed "sense of entitlement" to have dared to suggest otherwise.</p>
<p>Thanks for the clarification, Consolation. I agree with your point.</p>
<p>Rant deleted! <g></g></p>
<p>I don't know where to begin in responding to either the article in the OP's link or Consolation's rant. Just consider:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>more applications in and of itself does not mean more competitive admissions. What matters is the number of seats versus the number of students. This is to say that if, within a particular cohort of students and colleges, if the number of applications per student doubles, then, on paper, colleges will reject twice as many students as before. But an individual student's odds will not change. It is true that there is a small rise in the college eligible population this year (and the next few) but not enough to account for the rise in applications such as discussed in the link. One can also infer from the actions of some elites that the number of upper middle class applicants (and that is indeed what these folks making 60K and up are, despite what Harvard may call them. Median family income in the US is well below 60K) may have dropped in recent years due to cost.</p></li>
<li><p>do *some * students pursue "highly selective schools" for the name? Of course. To say otherwise is hooey. I am heartily sick of reading denials of the obvious. :) I realize this phenomenon does not apply to any posters on CC, but it should be obvious that the "name" and reputation is indeed what attracts kids to some schools. After all, few of these families or their kids have the time or expertise (or access the the necessary information!) to evaluate the "quality" of very many colleges. So we rely on names, rankings, exclusivity and such in making our decisions. I have no doubt that some folks (hopefully most) take such things as competitive admissions, a nationally known name and such as markers for that elusive trait of "quality", but I know all too many folks who think the sun rises and sets on the same small number of colleges an universities. So let's not kid ourselves.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>When I see application lists that include colleges so radically different in culture, size and location, but all having in common exclusivity, what can one conclude but that (1) either the applicant/family is clueless regarding critical factors for college happiness or (2) that the kid is one of those unusual ones that would be happy and can succeed in a wide variety of environments or (3) that exclusivity is the dominant factor for that kid/family. (maybe other CCers can add to the list? But please don't tell me that the kid can only thrive in a "ivy" like environment?)</p>
<ul>
<li> in partial agreement with Consolation, I would agree that there are huge differences among colleges. Certainly a college that spends $80,000 per student per year, like Williams, will be an entirely different experience from one that spends a fraction of that, as some midwestern colleges are forced to do. :) But do these differences matter? I suspect it depends on the student.</li>
</ul>
<p>But isn't it a vicious circle? Isn't it because everyone applies to fifteen schools that acceptance percentages are going down, kids panic, and then apply to more schools . . .
mrego -- An interesting idea! There is so much that is intangible about the appeal of the elites, however, and so much to do with their history. It's interesting to speculate whether a brand new school with -- for argument's sake -- an identical endowment, identical acceptance rate, and awesome facilities -- would ever become an elite. It would take more than just a few years, I think.</p>
<p>Sorry -- I didn't see newmassdad's comments on the second page of this thread before I posted. He addresses my first point.
And his last point --
"in partial agreement with Consolation, I would agree that there are huge differences among colleges. Certainly a college that spends $80,000 per student per year, like Williams, will be an entirely different experience from one that spends a fraction of that, as some midwestern colleges are forced to do. But do these differences matter? I suspect it depends on the student."
That's spot on, I think.</p>
<p>Well, newmassdad, I fully agree that there are indeed some students who apply to schools based largely on the prestige factor. Kids fall in love with schools for various reasons, and some storied institutions have an awful lot of glamor (and that does, as you point out, have a lot to do with $$). You may look at a kid's list and think that the schools on it have nothing in common but "prestige," and therefore assume that that was why they were chosen. The kid, on the other hand, probably sees different things s/he likes about all of them.</p>
<p>There is also the matter of "what is prestigious." For example, I consider Carleton to be "prestigious," although further upthread Wjb initially seemed to assume I did not. I mentioned certain types of schools, without naming names, and she filled in the blanks. We ALL do this, and we may well fill them in differently. The reality is probably that the college applications profile runs the gamut from the kid who applies only to his or her local community college because that's what "everyone" s/he knows does, to the kid who applies only to H because that's what "everyone" s/he knows does. Somewhere in the middle are kids who do a lot of research and try to find the "perfect" fit, kids who reject schools on grounds that seem capricious and bizarre to their parents, and so forth. And there are probably quite a few kids who add one or two schools to the mix largely based on "prestige" as in "I've heard it's a great school." That's why so many kids apply to Harvard: everyone has heard of it. </p>
<p>One thing I've noticed is that people tend to give kids who apply to elite technical schools--such as MIT or Cal Tech, just to cite two obvious examples (and PLEASE do not barrage me with lists of other good technical schools: those are just EXAMPLES)--more credit than kids who apply to elite "general" universities and LACs. They seem to believe that those kids are genuinely motivated by a wish to study at a high level. Why that same credit is not extended to kids who want to study the humanities, I do not know.</p>
<p>Consolation: Sorry, your last paragraph above? ^^
Citations? Sources? Own personal opinion?</p>
<p>One thing's for sure, "kids" or "adults" who "study the humanities" soon learn to cite their sources. To wit:
<a href="http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/cgos2006/basic.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.columbia.edu/cu/cup/cgos2006/basic.html</a>
<a href="http://www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/studyskills/assignments/reference%5B/url%5D">http://www.humanities.manchester.ac.uk/studyskills/assignments/reference</a></p>
<p>"Wish to study at a high level" limited to science education? Hmmm.</p>
<p>A.M.</p>