<p>If you ask me (which I'm pretty sure no one will), less prestigious, historically less competitive schools are benefiting quite a bit from the common app. For schools with historically small applicant pools, the boost in prestige from getting many more applicants than they can accept is well worth having to hire an additional admissions officer or two.
However, HYP and company hardly need to boost their prestige, and I don't really see what's so great about Yale having an acceptance rate of 5.8 percent for students who didn't apply SCEA. For those schools, the swelling applicant pool seems like a really bad thing.</p>
<p>I agree. I don't think it's a good thing either. When all these schools' yield rates drop and they have to take 300 people off the waitlist, they may change their minds.</p>
<p>I applied to Duke, Williams, and Cornell pretty much on a whim because they were on a common app, I wouldve gone to Berkeley over all three of them, and I was pretty sure I'd get in. I was accepted to all three, and I'm not considering any of them. It really was a mistake to apply, but the common app simply made it too easy.</p>
<p>I agree with musictoad. College's selections in recent years have been unpredictable, so kids are having a harder time assessing their chances at a particular school. In my son's case, watching how things worked out for last year's seniors convinced him he needed to apply to a lot of schools. He saw friends of Ivy caliber get rejected from schools for which they had appeared to be over-qualified (their safety schools), while seemingly lesser applicants were admitted to Ivies. It seemed to my son that in those latter surprising cases, the Ivy occasionally overlooked lower grades, lower difficulty of course load, and slightly below-Ivy-range SAT scores in order to take a student because he was the Class President, a top bassoon player, or the like. Thus, while students may have a pretty good idea if their stats line up with a certain college, they have absolutely no clue if anything else in their application will appeal to that school. And schools definitely are looking for a certain "profile." In UPenn's wait list letter they say "This year nearly 20,500 candidates applied for 2,400 places in the freshman class. Among them were a small number of individuals like yourself who presented an interesting personal profile and could make a contribution to the University community...." What was it they liked (but not quite enough)? Who knows? To choose from 20,500 applicants, many of whom have acceptable stats, they almost have to plug students into desired categories.</p>
<p>Problems with the application process stems from many sources.</p>
<p>First, technology in communication. This year's class received -- on an average -- no less than 100 unsolicited pieces of MAIL. This does not include the e-mails, the phone calls and other solicitations made by large univeristies, and even small universities.</p>
<p>Second, technology in information. With pages like that of CC and other sources, you relatively easily learn about the obscure, but good, schools. For instance, if you went to the list of LAC's that are "prestigious" you may have learned about schools like "Grinnell" or "Oberlin." I will put money that the vast majority of the seniors know what states those schools are in, but did not know those schools' states as recently as one year ago.</p>
<p>Third, technology in application. This is what is being discussed in this page in relation to the Common App and how it may be TOO EASY.</p>
<p>Fourth, the overly possessive baby boomer parents. Yes, that includes me. But, we are incredibly possessive and overbearing. And, we have bastardized the system by allowing this year's crop and many like it to deliver 10, 15, and even more applications.</p>
<p>Lastly, the kids must also be responsible. Why do you choose to listen to your parents when it comes time to bundle your college applications, but will not listen to your parents about more important issues -- like do not dress like B Spears tonight?</p>
<p>The result -- glut. The same number of kids, more or less, but delivering 50% more applications. Hence, the number of apps rise for almost all schools, at least the good ones. And, now the schools, flooded with well qualified candidates, have to read between the lines, interpret the essays to see if secretly coded messages say either "I am dying to go here" or "mom and dad are making me do this," hold hands and hum until a spirit comes to the seance to tell you what you need to know about Little Billy's intentions with that schools admissions office, or really take those tea leaf readings more seriously.</p>
<p>Unfortunately some applicants do not belong in the pool and their admission (because they have great numbers) eliminates the borderline kid. This is a shame. And, admissions knows this.</p>
<p>That is why some of the "better" kids are being rejected while the lesser kids are being "accepted." Be it tea leaves or seances or hunches, the crap shoot exists and the admissions people are trying to let in more than the top numbers. Sometimes, this is a shock as the top numbered kid may be misread and rejected from his or her first choice. </p>
<p>How do we make sure the school knows we want to go there? Only one solution I can see -- early admission. And, that will affect the money situation.</p>
<p>This is madness, and we are all to blame.</p>
<p>As far as applying early, I've wondered if the decision to do that may have damaged my son's chances at several schools. A couple of his interviewers knew that he had applied early action to Yale (I suppose there has to be a national registry of ED and EA they can check? He most certainly didn't tell them.) and outright asked how high their school ranked in his list of preferred colleges. Obviously, that put him on the spot and made it a little difficult to convince them how eager he was to go to their particular college. He got waitlisted at those schools.</p>
<p>The CFG is right -- even a crap shoot for EA as that absolutely tips your hand to the others about your priority school. </p>
<p>But, I think your son could have said Yale was the shot for the moon and then their school was number 1 as he was nearly positively sure that Yale would do what it did to 91.5% of its applicants this year -- dumped them.</p>
<p>That's a good answer that might work for the LAC's, but it probably wouldn't convince Princeton, for example, lol!</p>
<p>Applying to multiple schools with the common app is SO much easier than applications specialized for one particular school.</p>
<p>I think ED communicates to the schools that its your #1 choice. I'm not sure sure about EA, because it is non-binding.</p>
<p>Maybe I'm off base here, but it seems to me that no one has stated the obvious. Sure, it is an issue that students are fearful about whether or not they will be admitted into a school they really would like to attend. College admissions have definitely become more competitive. However, for many it is equally important to have some financial aid in order to pay for college. This is especially true given the surging costs involved. Qualified applicants are applying to more schools and eagerly awaiting their admission packets to see what kind of financial aid they will be offered. For many of these applicants it becomes all about getting the most financial aid from the most prestigious college they are accepted into. The more options they have the better, and no one is assured of getting in anymore. Thus they apply to 15 schools hoping to be accepted into at least half, and then wait and see who coughs up the most money.</p>
<p>Coming from the Uk where you are only allowed to apply to 5 universities and you apply through an online system similar to common app. but without having to submit supplements to apply to college in the states is a far more challenging task. </p>
<p>Whilst saying this I don't believe that there should be such a thing in the states as a common app. I think by completing the universities own application one is able to see the applicants comittment to college, their college</p>
<p>i didn't really see the advantage of the common app...i mean if there was a fee reduction for applying to like 5 or more colleges, it might have helped somewhat, but ok, you put in all the basic information, very easy stuff...not going to take all that long in any school's application. i didn't like the common app format too...the layout just looks really bad. and besides, the supplement just takes as long as it would have on a schools' application. about college apps being easy, in general, it's easy until it comes to the essays. the essays are pretty simple topics, most of the time, but it's just the pressure and weightage the essay has on the application.</p>
<p>Australian system: here, you apply for different degrees (bachelor of engineering, science, arts, visual arts, law, social sciences, languages, education etc) for example im doing a bachelor of medical science, which is structured differently to the bachelor of science and the bachelor of biomedical science at the same university. </p>
<p>yr 12 students have to do a big exam at the end of the year (called the higher school certificate, or the HSC) much like the german Abitur or the A-levels. Based on the marks, everyone is given a numerical ranking (very hard to explain, but basically a mark out of 100, called a University Admissions Index.) I got 83.2. Every course in the state has a UAI (the lower the UAI the more places available in the course), like mine was 77.0. As long as you get over that, you get in :) for law, its like 97 or 98, and for medicine its 99.5. </p>
<p>at the start of yr 12 everyone has to sign a form confirming details like address, name spelt correctly dob etc, and then thats filed electronically. All your marks go to a centre called University Admissions Centre (UAC), and in sep/oct you start your electronic application, where you again have to confirm your details, then add each course you want to apply to in order of preference, for a total of nine. You can change them around as many times as you like until the middle of January (the uni year starts in beginning of March), whereas your final school marks come in in mid-Dec. You get an email/text about a week afterwards, and confirm by sending another email. You only get offered one place, and they do it by comparing your UAI to the UAI of your first preference course, then continuing down the list in order of preference. The whole process takes about half an hour to fill out the form initially, (and all you really have to do is list your courses), and costs AU$15, which is about US$10, and you only pay that when you start the application. </p>
<p>Hope i haven't confused the crap out of everyone, but what I wanted to say is, admissions is based on end-of-yr-12 marks, you apply once electronically, and pay US$10. No recommendations, essays, personal statements etc. Although for visual arts and music you have to provide portfolios/samples :)</p>
<p>but if there's "No recommendations, essays, personal statements etc. ", isn't just the grades a little too dependent on school smarts, and not necessarily a person's true potential?</p>
<p>Does it help your chances any if you skip the common app and use the school's own application?!?!</p>
<p>no it doesnt. I think they offer their own app just as a transition. Soon they shd knock it off i think</p>
<p>i know a lot of schools have the common app. but don't a lof also require a supplemental app.? it's still a lot of work, not to mention a lot of money!</p>