<p>I'm going to get a lot of heat for this, but I belive that they should get rid of the common application. I know that there are many people who applied to something like 14 schools, just because most of them took the common application. This has caused college admissions this year to be absolutely ridiculous. I was reading posts in this facebook groups about people who got in NO WHERE but were waitlisted at like 6 places. </p>
<p>Now, don't get me wrong. The common application is a fantastic idea, but I believe that college applicants have exploited it.</p>
<p>At the same time there are legitimate applicants who apply to multiple schools. If a person applied to 14 schools and got into everyone one of them, he/she can't go everywhere, so the applicant's refusal to accept a place in the school would open up slots for the legitimate candidates who were waitlisted.</p>
<p>I don't think they should get rid of the common application, because it makes the process that little bit easier (and so perhaps that little bit less stressful) for all involved. Perhaps there should be some kind of restriction on it, though? For example, in Britain all universities belong to our version of the common app, and students are only allowed to apply to six schools, and only one of Oxford or Cambridge. I've yet to see anyone who got rejected from all six choices, and it means that the top universities still have reasonable admit rates, because people aren't applying everywhere.</p>
<p>Of course, the only way that something like this could be enforced would be if every college in America was part of the common app, or else some universities would avoid the restrictions. The problem with people applying to 14 universities is usually that they want to apply to more reaches out of fear that they won't get into a 'good' university. If people can only apply to a few, they'll all become statistically less selective and people will be forced to come up with a good balance of safeties, matches and reaches.</p>
<p>Then again, some people could only apply to six reaches, not get in anywhere and be completely screwed. And of course America is just a tiny bit bigger than Britain, so it could just end up that the same number of applications flood to Harvard but other colleges don't get a look in. But I don't think abolishing the common app is the answer, because applications are stressful enough with it, let alone without it. Imagine having to beg a teacher to fill in six different recommendation forms!</p>