I certainly don’t think vast majority of these applicants are qualified, but that’s not my point. The solicitation of these unqualified applicants to boost college rankings is the issue.
I just don’t think the “top” 30 or 50 are there because so many kids apply. I hope the good applicants are savvy to look past that. And “yield” is how many *accepted * kids matriculate. You have to be accepted, to yield.
Acceptance rate is part of the equation for college ranking. Boosting the number of applicants will lower the acceptance rate and thus affect the college’s ranking. Yield is another part of the equation. The same colleges also aggressively use binding admissions (ED1, ED2) to increase their yields.
Elite colleges are doing everything they can to game the USNWR rankings. College applicants are doing everything they can to game the holistic admissions process, often with parental collusion. Result is an ever increasing number of applications and admissions being total crapshoot. I have seen many genuinely well qualified applicants who were denied admission to elite colleges and who ended up in state flagships while others who were less than honest in their essays and in their leadership / extracurricular achievements get past application readers and adcoms to gain admission.
Elite colleges need to clearly spell out what they want and are looking for in applicants in objective terms, so unqualified applicants see no reason to apply in first place. This will go a long way in reducing the number of applications and in restoring sanity to the college application process.
I might be a little bit of an amateur here, but I honestly think that this is an unavoidable problem, and not because of college policies and rankings, but because of the logic that accompanies an increasing number of applicants.
I’m an international student from an extremely quantitative education system, and by quantitative I mean ECs-are-a-waste-of-time-study-26-hours-a-day quantitative. In our most competitive exam, around one hundred thousand students appear for barely four thousand seats- so a single mark pushes down your rank by 500-1000 places. That is not healthy. I’m preparing for an exam like that and it is PURE academics (kind of if you multiply SAT/ACT prep by a thousand times). Nothing else matters. That one mark can get you into the best college in my country- or the fifth best.
I’m seeing a shift towards the same philosophy in US admissions now. While US admissions definitely ask for a more holistic overview, logic dictates that an increasing number of applicants reduces the roundedness of a typical US college app reading. If I’m applying for a college that is consistently reporting a 10-20% increase in applicants each year, harried AOs will definitely look to test scores/GPA (hooks not counted) first, and that impression will stay in their minds. 8 minutes sounds short to evaluate the future of a candidate, but do keep in mind that there are thousands of others exactly like that one candidate.
Applicants certainly can’t be counted on to make a decision regarding their applying to a college- they evaluate themselves in terms of the admission data of the past year, not the applicant pool of the current year. And so they send more to help them stand out in the increasing pool- that doesn’t work because of what I said above.
Now, I have nothing to say in terms of solutions. However closely I observe admissions, I can’t understand legalities and technicalities in the US, as well as others, do. All I wanted to say is that this is a direct consequence of increasing applicants, and in the context of the current scenario, the most feasible option for colleges.
this is why we need laws on the number of colleges students can apply to. seriously, people should not be applying to 20+ colleges because it comes at the expense of the college and everyone else. though i blame the colleges too for deflating admissions rates
I really, really don’t think we need laws on this @jsviracc - some people need to apply to that many for financial reasons, but more than that…getting the law involved? What are they going to do, put kids in jail who apply to 21?
We don’t need the law involved. However, the CommonApp has made it too easy to apply to many colleges with a simple click of the button. The UK has a system where students are limited to apply to 5 colleges, and only Oxford or Cambridge, not both. Not saying we need to go that route completely, but some compromise of limiting the number of apps seems like it may help reduce the frenzy that has evolved with the Common App. And maybe make college admissions feel a little less like a lottery?
College admissions may feel like a lottery to applicants, but I doubt it feels that way to the colleges. I think adcoms work very hard to build classes with the students they want. Just because outsiders don’t understand it doesn’t make it random.
Things are very different since I applied 25 years ago. The kids now are more pressured to apply to more colleges because the outcomes are not as predictable as in the past. The colleges have stated themselves that they could fill multiple classes with the qualified applicants they did not accept. Reducing the number of apps a student can apply to forces students to really look at colleges and not pick one based on just ranking/prestige. It also forces the adcoms to spend more time with each app. Colleges are definitely playing the ranking game. It’s naive to think they aren’t. And the common app has fueled that game.
It takes a lot less time to read (or skim) a post on this thread than it did for the writer to write it.
Perhaps this is a good time to tell children that they don’t need to go to top 20~40 colleges to be successful in life. They can go to state universities or even trade schools and still find jobs they love and earn enouhg money.
i agree with the limiting of college app numbers done in the UK. it means that people get to actually demonstrate who they are and what their capabilities are for a college. colleges are trying to make applications so minimalistic and easy to do (to deflate admissions statistics and be more “prestigous”) that it’s reduced to a lottery based on grades rather than a holistic evaluation.
What has limiting the number of applications to colleges in the UK done for applicants except leave them in significant debt? Limiting applications would be very un-American.
Limiting choices would be a non-starter here in the US, even if it’s a good idea.
Applicants increasingly feel the need to apply to more and more colleges to secure a desirable spot. S/he is doing so with only vague knowledge of the admission criteria. Therefore, the only way we can reduce the number of applications is to reduce the amount of uncertainty in the admission process, by make it more transparent. Colleges need to spell out their minimum requirements, how they score their applicants, etc. I know that’s not going to happen anytime soon, so the admission process becomes more and more stressful for applicants (and probably the AOs) each and every cycle.
Another reason the UCAS limited can’t work with the us is that almost all universities are public and charging the same, with no tuition increase. D you’re English, your degree will cost you $35,000+ r/b. If you’re Scottish, tuition and fees will be zero. If you’re Welsh, $10,000 and you get a stipend to help defray r/b + a means-tested grant to help reduce the tuition cost. There’s no need to chase merit. Furthermore, criteria are numerical. You know exactly where you have a shot. You apply to 5 because you know you’ll get into 2-3, unless you aimed badly.
my school was one of those)))
Transparency is the key. Also Colleges need to look at the capabilities not the GPA and SAT scores since they are meaningless. Instead of Standardize tests Colleges should look for the subject tests.
My experience is that US schools do limit students to a certain number. I have known kids at both private and public schools. Their college counseling resources are not infinite, and the schools allowed between 8 and 12 apps which seems a lot of work for the kids already. They just don’t have enough resources to support a much larger number than that if they are to do their job properly. (Unless we can pay more taxes or more tuition.)
From a chasing-merit-aid family, I’m going to have to side against any limits on the number of applications students can send out.
But then, if schools were willing to be a bit more transparent about not just admissions standards but also merit aid policies (and even amounts!), then I might think about coming over to the other side…