Scott Jaschik wrote an article (4/23/2015) stating that “The Common Application is planning to let colleges add a question for applicants that some admissions leaders believe is unethical and will encourage more gaming of the admissions process.
The question: Where else are you applying?
The National Association for College Admission Counseling has long opposed such questions, arguing that they add to pressure on students and that colleges should be making their decisions on applicants based on their merits, not the odds of applicants enrolling.”
He adds, “Rinehart stressed that his analysis represented only his views.
His analysis noted that concerns about how colleges would use the information are not hypothetical. Some colleges have used a similar question on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid to reject some applicants and to offer others smaller aid packages. The strategy (similar to that admissions officers could use with the Common Application question) is to determine how likely an applicant is to accept an offer and to punish those who may not enroll. Many applicants don’t understand how this information can be used.” (see https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/04/23/admissions-leaders-question-ethics-common-applications-new-question)
Were you asked the question by any colleges? If so how did you answer it? Did any ask how their college was ranked compared to others you applied to?
Talk about your experience here. What advice would you give others?
Don’t name any rivals; name schools that are similar or lower in rank.
If the school is very far from where you currently live, (for example you live in California and you applied to Yale or you live in Boston and applied to Stanford), name some schools nearby (be honest of course), to show that you are prepared and willing to make the move across the country.
My question was asked during an interview, which is different from a written answer. My answer was based on the principals above. Not sure if it worked, we’ll have to wait and see. I let them know that it was my top choice which transitioned into my answer for the “Why School” question.
Assuming this question is asked by a selective school you want to name some of their peers, some match schools, and an obvious safety. If you don’t name any of their peers you can be screwing yourself on financial aid. They will think you would be so pleased with an acceptance that you would pay anything that is possible.in fact you can even strategically name a school that is higher ranked so that they think unless they give you a great package you would go there if you got in.
Of course, it is not like the NACAC’s stand is really holding back many colleges from using “level of applicant’s interest” in admissions, presumably for yield management purposes.
If an applicant wants to “game” the question, s/he should avoid making the college being applied to appear to be a “safety” among a list of more selective colleges. As noted above, having some peer colleges may give the applied-to college more incentive to offer scholarships or preferentially packaged financial aid.
Of course, the applicant’s own values and ethics can come into play. Some applicants may consider it unethical to write anything other than the whole truth (as opposed to “gaming” the question with a tactically-chosen subset of the application list that would not technically be false). But such applicants may want to consider whether they really want to apply to such as school whose questions may be seen as unethical and/or lead to applicants answering unethically.
Our school college counselor advises to leave it blank as it is not a required question. It is asked by schools such as Davidson and Rice. It hasn’t hurt as far as my school knows as we still get students accepted at those colleges.
It did come up during a Georgetown alum interview with me and I felt I had to name a few colleges. The interviewer pressed me to answer if Georgetown was my #1 choice (he asked at three different times in the interview). I think it is a bit of an awkward question. I don’t have a first choice - I applied to only schools that I would like to go to. I said that the first time he asked but then he asked two more times (in a different way) so I said yes those times but it felt insincere. I think he may have been wondering about the other colleges where I applied. I don’t know but I wish he hadn’t asked about my college list in the first place.
I was in Starbucks yesterday and happened to sit next to a man who was doing interviewing for Dartmouth. He did ask the student where else he was applying and the student happened to mention that he’d gotten into Notre Dame. The interviewer perked up and congratulated him. The kid comes from an elite Catholic private high school and the interviewer was an alum of the same school. While completely lost on a lot of CC, ND has equal prestige to Dartmouth in the community of upscale private Catholic academies.
I’m pretty sure Bentley asked this. I presumed the question is to determine if it is a safety, but its not and I answered honestly. It is also 5 hours from home, wherein the majority of my schools are within 90 min of home.
I wonder what justification the schools have who ask that question. I also wonder about other aspects of those schools that ask that question. What happens in admission does not stay in admission! It reflects the schools general values, ethics and level of transparency. Unethical conduct in admissions seems like it may foretell other aspects of the school that deserve evaluating. Has anyone heard from a college why it would ask such a question?
Years ago when I was an Alumnus interviewer for my alma mater, Georgetown, I always asked this question. At Georgetown you apply to a specific school within the University. I used this question to help determine whether the applicant had a general interest in the subject matter of the school or whether the student may just be applying to schools of a certain caliber.
For instance, I went to the undergraduate business school. If a applicant was applying to the business school, I wanted to see if they were also applying to Penn, NYU, Virginia, North Carolina, Boston College, Notre Dame, Michigan or some of the other schools that had good business programs.I could use their answer as an additional data point to determine their interest in business. If the applicant was applying to the foreign service school I wanted to see if their other prospective schools had strong international relations or international economics programs.