@Studious99 , each application my D,is filling out costs at least $50-75. Maybe more selective schools charge more? But these kids submitting 20 apps boggle my mind. Who pays for that? Are the parents even aware? My D is applying to 12 colleges. Three have no app fee, two had a fee waiver if completed by a certain date, so we are paying for 7. We actually insisted she get the apps ready for the fee waiver colleges, whihc has saved us $120.
Sadly, I suppose that the applications will continue to rise at the top schools. On the other hand, I think they have probably reached the point of diminishing returns in terms of actually garnering any more qualified domestic candidates from the flood of applications, so it wouldn’t surprise me if they took some action to stem the tide. Whether that will work is a different story, of course.
If there is a sudden outbreak of rationality among kids and parents, applications to the “second tier” schools (20th-50th) should start going up - that’s where there is actually room for these applicants. The whole problem here is that most of the top 5% of students feel they deserve a seat at the top 1% of schools and can’t grasp the simple arithmetic.
Shameless self promotion here:
I took a look at an article about the Harvard applicant pool from last year, and tried to draw some inferences about the quality of the pool in this thread (which got buried in the pre-holiday rush.) I think the big question here is where or not the bigger applicants pools reflect a real increase in the numbers of quality applicants or are they “padded” with large quantities of no-hopers trying to play the lottery.
With the globalization of college applications to US schools via the Common App, I expect the number of applications to elites to increase.
^^^^ Agree, but for various reasons, I think international acceptances will continue to be capped at roughly current levels.
However, that will put downward pressure in overall admit rates, even without changing the circumstances for domestic applicants at all - just one of the many reasons that overall admit rates are somewhat of a useless statistic.
The bubble (and it is a bubble) will burst when and only when people realize that the ‘elite’ schools are not substantially better than the next 100 or so schools on the various lists. (or when the ‘elite’ schools grow to the size of their competition). The schools have a self-interest in continuing to get applications that they will never accept…better ratings. I have never really understood why people see a low acceptance rate as a valuable measure of the quality of the school. All it really measures is popularity.
I don’t think I share your optimism about “the bubble bursting” - people are essentially playing the admissions game like the lottery…and I think they will continue to do so, because they both underestimate the odds and overestimate the benefits of that elusive “winning ticket.”
It’s hard to see that changing, because neither side of it is really rational.
It is spilling over to the elite LACs now. Applications are rising at a healthy clip at these schools.
@NickFlynn Thank you for your response, I enjoyed reading your thread it was quite eye-opening.