<p>You can blame the common app for that. It made it easier to apply to multiple colleges (aside from the supplemental essays) by checking a box and giving them your credit card number. Perusing the collegedata.com profiles, I’ve seen more than a few 20 application candidates and one that had 28 applications!!! Both of our sons’ applied to 10 each and people they thought that was a lot…</p>
<p>I blame the common app too, along with fee waivers. Although I don’t think most of the “top” schools waive the application fee. I guess some people are willing to pay more than others for the privilege of applying to certain institutions.</p>
<p>You can also blame some of the elite schools as well. They send out the postcards, booklets and personalized letters to those kids scoring high on PSAT and SAT leading them to possible make unreasonable assumptions of their chances for admissions when they are in the single digits, especially for the unhooked.</p>
<p>It’s a cycle - because admission rates are so low at some of these schools, you have to apply to more of them! Mine applied to 13 - 1 was a rolling safety, and out of the remaining 12, 6 have acceptance rates <15%, 2 are 20-25%, and the other 4, 30-35%. I would have knocked a couple schools off the list, but it is really hard to predict what results she will get. No one in our house has unreasonable assumptions about the results! Three of them were free to apply online. And no, I didn’t mind paying for the apps and test scores.</p>
<p>My S applied to 7 schools and I assumed we would follow suit for my D. Her list kept growing however because I started to fear that she had no true safety on her list. I started to hear how hard it was to get into what I thought would be her safeties so we added a few more on the bottom of her list. Than we decided she should also reach higher thinking that if you don’t ask you don’t get. She now has a list of 12. She has been accepted into the two that I consider safeties, and they may wind up being her only two acceptances, but we won’t know for sure for a while. It has been over a month since she has received any news with one more decision expected this month…per my prediction list this could be her first rejection :(. Fortunately she only applied there because I said that I could “see” her at that school…she, however, has no desire to go to that part of the country.</p>
<p>Yes, the common app makes it easier but I also think the more people are applying to more schools for more financial options too. I know that DS has one school on his list that was on the common app and waived the fee for online applications/CA apps so it was easy to just check one more box. I happen to think he would love attending that school, he’s not so sure. We did a drive through tour but had we taken an official tour, maybe. We will see what their final package looks like and if it’s in the ballpark, we will probably visit.</p>
<p>Of my youngest sons’ 3 safeties (all were rolling), one was in-state, one OOS and one private. All came in with merit scholarships that netted out to be the same for each. We were disappointed that he didn’t get the Pitt full tuition so I called them and asked the requirements. They said that you needed a 1560/1600 SAT (CR/M) and top 3% of class. He was top 5% and 1550, just outside the parameters. Unfortunately at Pitt, it’s 5K or full, nothing in the middle. Had he gotten the full it would have made it much cheaper… Now we just wait for late March which should be interesting because he will be on an international school trip when results come out… At the last minute he changed his original list, deleting three and replacing it with 3 others, including one he hated on the tour ( a HYPSM). When I asked him why he applied there, he said he wanted to get in so he could turn them down…Yeah, right. I never thought he had an ego but he wants to see if he can get in…</p>
<p>I only sent the ACT scores to Pitt, surprised the scholarship level was so high; her SAT scores would not have qualified. My D will also be on an international trip when end of March results come out, we’re hoping a few notify earlier!</p>
<p>:eek: I didn’t think about the trip–DS will be on a band trip when the notifications start rolling out too :eek:</p>
<p>…off to look at historical notification dates for his lottery school…</p>
<p>Because of the (pick one or more) economy/ cost of higher education/value, the number of high stat candidates has increased at Pitt in recent years and as a result, so have the requirements for the full tuition. I’m guessing that the ACT conversion would require a 35 or 36 score.
This dovetails with the other thread on whether schools should offer merit scholarships.</p>
<p>Five years ago my older D received a full tuition offer from Pitt with a 33 ACT. My younger D’s is higher, and she did get the same offer, but she also applied early in the fall, which is important with Pitt.</p>
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<p>I knew of a kid who applied to 19 colleges and got accepted at all 19 of them - including the HYPS superfecta. I thought “Wow, either that kid is incredibly insecure or else he is a trophy hunter.” With stats strong enough to sweep HYPS I can’t imagine why he thought he needed to apply to say colleges 8 through 19. To make matters worse he was a double legacy at Yale, which is where he ended up going.</p>
<p>Well, that’s the thing - you see all kinds of kids with nearly perfect stats getting rejected from those schools. My D doesn’t have any Ivies on her list, but 13% acceptance rates are discouraging. Almost no one from our HS goes to Ivy league schools, a few to Cornell, and there have been very few (or no) applications over the years to the LACs she applied to, so there is no track record to compare.</p>
<p>That’s crazy, coureur. I get that it is a crapshoot and that “perfect” kids get rejected every year, but as you say, he probably didn’t need colleges 8-19. Many on CC have recommended a balanced mix of schools–a couple of safeties, mostly matches, and a few reaches. That makes sense to me. It seems among a certain subset of the population here there is a much greater emphasis on reaches. You read “I won’t know if I can get into HYPS if I don’t apply” over and over.</p>
<p>True, however, my kid’s academic matches are those high reaches. My older D applied to 7 schools, my S applied to 3. This one is a different.</p>
<p>S didn’t apply to any schools just because the common app made it easy…all schools he would have applied to anyway. </p>
<p>I wished these schools announced a week earlier…our spring break is that week. We would use it for visits, but I don’t want him to get a rejection while we’re visiting!</p>
<p>^MommyDearest13. I think that the notifications should come out before Spring Break not so much in fear of getting a rejection email at the same time a college visit is scheduled (although that would be bad…maybe something to laugh over in years to come), but to allow our kids, who are not supposed to slack off senior year, to go on college visits during their school vacations so they won’t have to miss school. We have a week off in Feb. and another week off in late March. I hope that D will have schools to travel to during those times. I told my D that I wanted to wait to visit schools until after she is accepted. We never took one of those college road trips. We live off in a corner of the country and her list includes schools from the NE to the SW so it would have been a very long trip.</p>
<p>So much for making predictions about admission decisions. Today we received a decision from a school that I was certain would be my D’s first rejection, but instead she was deferred. Good news/bad news. The good news is she wasn’t outright rejected, the bad news is that the waiting continues, but I still predict that her chances for acceptance are slim. I never even considered a deferral from this school. The waiting game continues. I am glad my D seems somewhat removed from the whole admission cycle. She is enjoying her senior year while I am the one continuously checking her admission status.</p>
<p>Found out a young man in our community applied to 20+ schools this year, none of the HYP variety. That’s going to be a stressful April in their house.</p>
<p>With D1, I went 5 for 5 with my predictions (4 acceptances & a waitlist.) For D2, I’ve predicted 5 of her 7 decisions (and I’m 4 for 4 so far, all acceptances) but those last two have acceptance rates of 15% or less. So I waffle (in my head) day by day: midyear report couldn’t be better, looking good! Oh another female English major, she’ll never get in. We’re in flyover country, that’s a plus! Her math score is a little low for the school profile, automatic rejection pile. Sigh. Silly mommy.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t be surprised if she gets in, I wouldn’t be shocked if she gets rejected, but I really really really hope that there she isn’t waitlisted. For one school, she’d say thanks but no thanks, but for the other I think she’d hold on. </p>
<p>Off to go look at waitlist stats from last year cause the spreadsheet needs another column ;)</p>
<p>^RobD… The thing I most enjoy about CC is reading about the similar thoughts and actions that other parents go through with their kids. I have had many of the same waffling thoughts as you. My H and D think I am neurotic and obsessed with this whole college thing and I wouldn’t dare tell them that I post on CC…they think it is bad enough that I even log onto CC. My theory is that it keeps me sane knowing that I am not going through this alone 
Congrats to your D’s on her acceptances so far and good luck to those you are waiting on.</p>