<p>Do you reckon it's because application numbers are down?</p>
<p>I thought it was because their application website crashed?</p>
<p>Yeah, it’s because the website crashed. Also, I read that application numbers are actually up this year?</p>
<p>Their website always crashes; that hasn’t convinced them to push back the deadline any other year.</p>
<p>The website didn’t crash when they said it did, but it was remarkably slow.</p>
<p>I don’t know if application #'s are low. My evil thinking is that they were pumping application #'s for the revenue.</p>
<p>^Lol, but its not even a significant amount.</p>
<p>Applications are up this year.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Source: [UC</a> extends application deadline after glitch](<a href=“http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/12/01/state/n205221S62.DTL]UC”>http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2009/12/01/state/n205221S62.DTL)</p>
<p>Nearly $8 million isn’t much compared to the entire UC budget, but it’s nothing to sneeze at. $8 million is $8 million. If it really isn’t significant, please send an insignificant $500 to my paypal account.</p>
<p>$8 million is a meaningless number, since you don’t know:
How many people applied after the original deadline, how many of those had fee waivers, and how many UCs the others applied to.
Or how much of the $60 per application goes to processing and reading.</p>
<p>I imagine you just multiplied the number of apps by 60.</p>
<p>I wonder how many people applied after all’s said and done?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s the easiest way. Probably close enough since those applying for multiple UC’s will be offset by those using fee waivers to some degree. It’s not accuracy matters all that much when none of us will probably never find out the real number.</p>
<p>Still though, seeing as how you have a username inspired by math, please lead us in great detail on your estimation of the amount.</p>
<p>The deadline was extended for 24 hours in 2007 as well because their server was overcrowded or something. But they didn’t really announce it on their website then; they just told me over the phone. I sent mine in Dec 1st.</p>
<p>My point is that there’s not much point in using a fake, and as you say, inaccurate number, to act smug about your (not a plural “your”, by the way) little conspiracy theory.</p>
<p>Also, if I come off as making a big deal about a joke for no reason: demoz laughed at your joke, but you saw fit to lecture him about it. So I shall lecture you, for my own kicks.</p>
<p>Now:
- Easiest does not mean best. Plus, you made a naive calculation, then tried to justify it after additional factors were given. I seriously doubt you realized those factors beforehand.
That’s rather unfair, considering that you criticized demoz about trivializing $8 million, yet he was rater trivializing his own estimate of the profit, which he hadn’t agreed to be $8 million.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I don’t need to make a better statistical calculation to criticize yours. Math is not a contest. And it’s not so much mathematical ability as just not making unwarranted claims.</p></li>
<li><p>I guess, if you want my crude estimate:</p></li>
</ol>
<p>We’ll say 30% of people have fee waivers (this could be higher, but I’m being generous). </p>
<p>Also, each person applies to say 4 schools each (you can only waive 3 at most, so people with waivers won’t apply to too many).</p>
<p>Given that 10% people getting shafted would be a “big deal”, and I haven’t heard any of my about 20 senior friends complain about not making it, I’ll assume around 2% people submitted after the deadline.</p>
<p>.7<em>4</em>60<em>.02</em>130000=$436,800
But wait!
There were 4<em>.02</em>130000=10,400 applications to process!</p>
<p>Let’s say the handling was about $10 dollars, since extra papers need to be generated, you have to send admission/rejection letters back, extra server load, etc.
If you think $10 is too much, look at collegeboard, and how much they charge just to send scores.
Let’s say the graders get through about 5 apps an hour, and got paid $15 an hour (should be reasonable given other benefits). Administration, waste, and break time should make that about double. so total $16 per app.
it’s not dampened by the fee waivers, which I am being generous on. 16*10400=$166400</p>
<p>So $270,400 profit. About 3% of your estimate. Anyways, if you want to criticize this statistic, go ahead. I don’t really think much of it either, even though I put more effort into it than just multiplying two numbers.</p>
<p>Here’s an interesting article you probably won’t read:
[MichaelCrichton.com</a> | Aliens Cause Global Warming](<a href=“http://www.michaelcrichton.com/speech-alienscauseglobalwarming.html]MichaelCrichton.com”>http://www.michaelcrichton.com/speech-alienscauseglobalwarming.html)
just to highlight the pointlessness of asking me to make an estimate.</p>
<p>This is a small factor, but I don’t see transfers applying to 4 schools for the hell of it. Those of us with TAG/IGETC and a good gpa don’t need to worry about applying to more than one school, so long as that school offers the guarantee. Still though, this is a small factor.</p>
<p>What’s not so small is that you made a HUGE order of magnitude error in your calculations. Can you see what you forgot to account for?</p>
<p>Ugh. Why do you have to act so pretentious? Just say what I did wrong. At least I listed the factors that I included, instead of pulling out a big number out of nowhere.</p>
<p>Not to mention you don’t even address the first two criticisms, which I clearly am putting more of my backing on. Or are you just going to pretend you didn’t hear it?</p>
<p>I’m only getting on your case because you made a dumb comment “out of nowhere” about what was obviously a rough estimate. Even your estimate is meaningless according to your own words.</p>
<p>Anyway, I’m feeling less salty than usual, so I’ll help you out. You only accounted for those that you think applied after the deadline, or 2% of the applicants. Account for everyone else and use the rest of your math, and the gross $$ is between $6M and $22M. There’s a lot of slop because we don’t know how many applications had fee waivers used on them.</p>
<p>Also, if you’re going to try to guess net profit, you should also count the cost of employee benefits and overhead. I’ve heard from many people that it costs roughly twice as much to employ someone as they’re paid, so I’d bump $15 to $30. I certainly agree with you about printing being expensive. I’ve actually worked before…a LOT…for nearly as long as you’ve been alive. My experiences tell me that if people have the option of doing everything on the computer or print, most people will print. Given the # of applications, I’d print all the applications before processing starts…and if I didn’t have access to print on those copiers that staple, I’d try to get that job outsourced to Kinko’s. Okay, I have to stop going down that path of trying to figure out how I’d do the job. That was my last job. It was fun figuring out how to cut time & costs on a project that’d run into 10’s of millions and pay us six figures by planning, automating, collaborating…</p>
<p>Funny, you sounded more like a politician, cause you’re totally spinning what I said. If you knew all of this from the start, why would you say 8 million? I was the one saying the number’s inaccurate; my statistic was better/more honest than yours, and I didn’t act high and mighty about it. If I’m wrong about the statistic, than I’ll change it, or allow people to change it for themselves, instead of just throw out random criticisms.</p>
<p>I don’t care if you’re “getting on my case”, but that’s no reason for you to act like a jerk.</p>
<p>And you still haven’t answered the implication you made about easiest being the best, or
that I have to make a statistic to be able to criticize your rhetoric.</p>
<p>The 2% stands. 98% is already in the bag. The remaining 2% is the amount that they could “pump” for money. And that’s not really “forgetting”, more like intentionally put in.</p>
<p>But don’t worry about it. You’re a grown-up, you don’t have to change your errant ways if the person correcting you is younger. That’s the norm.</p>