I still want to know how she hasn’t made a matriculation decision…and it’s WAYYYY past May 1.
The school should also add up the total CoA from all 147 schools and show people how insufficient the total amount of scholarships is.
As a few of the posters above have mentioned, this is a charter school. Per Niche, the average ACT is 21. 70% of the students qualify for free or reduced lunches. This is a business that is looking to recruit from families who know little or nothing about college education. A $7M number, printed in the local papers, is proof that the school is doing the right thing.
The applications are marketing, not guidance.
Without a lot of investigation, who’s to say this apparently crazy practice doesn’t somehow change a life or two? I don’t agree with it, but am in no position to condemn the practice either.
Ridiculous. I especially detested the sentence “Shariah was the highest earner in the class…”
Ditto the ridiculous comment by more than one poster.
Terrible on the part of the school to have their “million dollar” awards achievement (students who get offers of that or more). Quality, not quantity of schools applied to matters so much more. And, it looked like she is going to her state school after all of this. So much wasted time. So much more impressive to get accepted to several elite schools than over 100 of the ones she applied to.
“So much more impressive to get accepted to several elite schools”
Or even one.
It seems like the school is taking advantage of this student. She did a lot of work that resulted in no benefit for her. If she had spent that time studying for the ACT or SAT she would have been much better off.
Very disappointing that the school guided a student to do this. It seems like it should be some sort of malpractice.
I am sure that she can get a good education at Tennessee State University, I hope she is a big success there.
I don’t blame the student. The school staff is unethical and incompetent. Because how many college adcoms have seen this story and now will recognize the name of the charter school, Power Center Academy? And next year, and the year after, will deny admission to any students from this school, both to protect yield and as a matter of principal. And there might be some future students brilliant enough from Power Center Academy to get tremendous finaid packets from elite colleges, that will be denied admission, because of the charter school’s reputation of abusing the entire application process.
I don’t think any of the schools this student applied to care about yield. The schools all seemed to be ones that accept all qualified students, not schools spending a lot of time worried about moving up the USNWR rankings a spot or two.
" I don’t agree with it, but am in no position to condemn the practice either."
As a full-time educational counselor, I am in that position, and I condemn it.
It’s my opinion that no one should be allowed to apply to more than 10 schools at a time. If those 10 reject you, apply to 10 more in the next cycle. Choose carefully. Put more time into it than licking a stamp. Use some of that GC time for actual counseling on a good fit rather than just sending out more and more applications.
It is really not fair that some students get endless free applications and to send scores to 100+ schools for free. Someone is ‘paying’ for those applications to be reviewed, for the ‘free’ scores to be sent, and it is those who pay full application fees and full tuition. They aren’t really ‘free’ to everyone.
Ten applications. That’s it.
Are people reading the article? “I gave her a list of colleges from A to Z that don’t have application fees”
This is not for “some” students, whatever that was meant to imply, but for all students. These are the types of schools that most CC users wouldn’t dream of applying to. And no “free” scores are being sent, unless you are referring to the GC including them on the transcripts for “free.”
Well, that’s a false characterization, but do you know what isn’t fair? That this young girl didn’t have the guidance at home and at school to plan a better strategy with a better outcome.
Well, one of the schools she applied to does have an application fee, Regis University, listed right there in the article. “Pay the $50.00 non-refundable application fee” is on their website. If Regis issues waivers, fine, but at least some students are paying that fee, and you have to assume that the school spends about that amount per application dealing with the review of the application, the paperwork, the acceptance or rejection. Someone is covering the ‘free’ applications and I’m willing to bet it is those paying the $50 or those later paying tuition.
I said the counselor’s time would be better spent trying to find ONE school that was a good fit rather than 150 that are free applications.
@Hanna - Help me to understand the damage inflicted by a school that overstates the opportunities available to a community in Memphis where 1 of 3 doesn’t graduate high school. The average ACT of the school in the article is 21.
Using the college application process for advertising is wrong…but how many private and affluent public schools do exactly that? “We had XXXX students attend Ivy League schools this year”. It’s a very similar game, just being played by those with less capable students and little financial support.
AP classes that are basically 8-month study halls, SAT / ACT prep classes, full-time educational counselors. You apply your situation and condemn the practice, but is it possible the counselor who is abusing the system is having a greater positive impact on the lives of kids than you? How many families have a glimpse of the possible and a little more confidence because of the questionable activities of the guidance counselor?
Since you’re a full-time educational counselor, educate me as to the impacts on the students who applied to the schools that accepted this girl, and the impact on the children of Memphis who might get a better education because someone thought Power Center Academy could get their child a free ride to college?
Edit: Here’s a link to the USNews summary of the school. These kids are not applying to the schools discussed on these boards.
There is nothing in the article that says the student will be getting a free ride, or even that she can afford any of the 149 schools that accepted her and gave a small scholarship. We don’t even know if the total includes the $5500 stafford loan, over and over from each school that accepted her, or the Tennessee HOPE over and over. I’m pretty sure that the total includes many scholarships that were over 4 years. “I got $90k in scholarships from ABC college!” Fine, except ABC costs $50k per year, so you still have to come up with $110k or you can’t go there.
That’s the danger, that the parents and students of Memphis think that this student got $1M to go to college and she may not have enough to pay for even one of the schools.
And the Miss America pageant awards millions of dollars in scholarship. Sure it’s misleading, but who is really harmed?
If the big danger is that parents will find out that their child can go to college but they may have to borrow money…that’s probably a risk worth taking.
To your point about the money…if schools weren’t offering free rides and ultimately the parents will have to fund some of this, then there is an argument to be made for applying to as many colleges as possible that have no application fee to see where you get the best offers.
@EyeVeee “Sure it’s misleading, but who is really harmed?”
It seems to me that the harm is to the students who worked diligently on a daily basis to apply to all of those schools. What good did it do them? They were used as a prop in a publicity stunt.
Instead, why not spend more time preparing for SAT/ACT English and math? It seems to me that the student would be better off, even if they only improved their score a little.
Students who are stronger at the fundamentals have a better chance of succeeding in college.
Somebody should be putting pressure on this school to place their focus on getting one free ride for each of their students.
@PetulaClark – you say you don’t blame the kid, you blame his guidance counselors?
So the poor kid wasn’t smart enough to know what he was doing–yet got accepted to 149 schools?
Sorry, I don’t think he can have it both ways. Either he was an idiot-- and the story would seem to imply otherwise-- or he wasn’t.
I blame the student.
@Much2learn … i hear you, and as I said earlier I’m not “for” the practice, but I can’t confidently suggest that what they’re doing is wrong. It’s a means to an end.
If there is obvious blame in this story, it’s the media not pointing out realities of not being able to use the money on the oversized check, or the questions raised here by those condemning the number of applications. All press is good press these days, and here we are months later talking about a 100% minority charter school in Memphis.
Sure, it’s 100% self-serving for the school, but if even a few kids have better options because of the schools’ fascination with applications, is that really bad? There are schools everywhere that game the rankings for this type of press. A college discussed at length on these boards has a 200% increase in applications over 5 years by dropping essay requirements and making the applications free, yet the banter here is how selective they’ve become. Condemning this practice without fully knowing the impact it has on an underserved and economically challenged community is to me, superficial and hypocritical.
@twoinanddone “Apply today with no application fee and no essay and you’ll receive automatic scholarship consideration.”
https://regisadmissions.org/freshman/
From the Regis University website, so I am not sure where you are getting your information.
But I have to ask, if one of your children had been offered an application fee waiver in the mail or email, would you have sent in the application fee anyway? Out of concern for those that had to pay the fee? Out of concern for the college that would be investing time in your child’s application? Out of concern for those that would eventually pay full tuition at those colleges that would be absorbing your expense?