Friend’s daughter applied to a big name East coast school (not Ivy) just to see if she could get in. Absolutely no way they could afford it, though if she got in maybe she would get some merit or need. (However, they have no need, just not much saved…so not sure how they thought this would play out.)
Well, guess what. She got rejected. Whole family stunned! Really? She wanted to be able to tell people she turned them down. Took her a full week to move past, and there is still some bitterness that they didn’t “want” her. If they, or their paid college counselor, had looked at the common data set, they would have seen she wasn’t that competitive and all this could have been avoided.