How much did you spend on applying to colleges?

<p>Close to a grand…</p>

<p>My D is a Freshman BFA Musical Theatre major/Dance minor at one of the intense conservatory style programs. She did many auditions for musical theatre, acting, and classical voice programs last year. We spent approximately $4,000 on application fees, pre-screening DVDs and CDs, SAT/ACT mailings, and travel to auditions. Just her application fees were about $1,500. Performing Arts majors have to apply to the university and do a separate application to the music school. This amount does not include any prep work leading up to auditions-voice, dance, and acting lessons, headshots, dance shoes and clothes, music and play books, etc. Most kids in the performing arts do auditions at many schools and often for different types of degree programs. The competition to get into these programs is crazy. It is common for 500-700 kids to audition for 15-20 slots in a Freshman class. On the flip side, my S who is a soph. business major applied to one school using the Common Ap!</p>

<p>First kid had “no need” and no chance of merit: $250 for 6 schools. Only 3 accepted him, so you see how desperate we were. Second kid probably still “no need” but a good merit scholarship candidate so things are more complex --he needs a wider net. He will apply to twice as many schools because he needs merit money to go. It could be $1,500 with the travel. A [painful] investment.</p>

<p>Did not even really add it up until I saw this post, but D applied to 11 colleges, plus ACTs and SAT’s, and an SAT prep course (big waste of money) it has got to be $1800. SAT/ACT scores on are on the transcripts so no fee there. Yikes!</p>

<p>Well, I only applied to UW Madison. Add in the cost of taking and sending the ACT and I guess that is about $100.</p>

<p>:)</p>

<p>maybe $200? AND I’ve already gotten into Princeton. Psh, no sat prep classes, never even bought an sat book. Anyone ever heard of the library?</p>

<p>

Are you sure about that? None of the schools I applied to would accept my scores from transcripts.</p>

<p>^ Lol, natim1. I get all my review books from teh library too! ^_^</p>

<p>Ok, a question for those of you who qualify for free lunch. How many application fee waivers can you get? How do you use them?</p>

<p>App Fees: $400.00
SATs: $47.50
ACTs: $54.00
Transcripts: $2.00
TOTAL: $503.50</p>

<p>I qualified for reduced lunch. You can get 4 fee waivers from CollegeBoard and unlimited fee waivers from NACAC, but they are less widely accepted. You can also write letters explaining your situation. I got fee waivers from QuestBridge and from college visits (mostly Diversity Weekends). I did buy all of my SAT test prep books, but they were only $12 on Amazon and shipping was free. I didn’t have to pay for the SAT or anything, so $36 for test prep books wasn’t bad (only a few hours of work). I’m with natim1. In at Stanford and it cost me $71. $107 if you include the prep books I bought (and I could have even saved money by using the library). Personally I think formalized test prep is useless.</p>

<p>For nine schools, most of which I had automatically sent my SAT scores too, so no cost there really, was close to $600. But then again, Stanford alone is basically $100. >.<</p>

<p>Let’s see…</p>

<p>App Fees - $40 (combination of fee wavers and free online apps)
SAT/ACT - ~$100
CSS Profile - $52
ACT Score Report - $40</p>

<p>So… ~$232 not including gas and whatnot for visits, postage for sending portfolios, etc.</p>

<p>I’m so glad my school is paying for APs this year. =)</p>

<p>“Are you sure about that? None of the schools I applied to would accept my scores from transcripts.”</p>

<p>D wanted to only submit ACT scores, since she did so much better in those than her SAT, but the guidance counselor said no cigar as all scores were automatically submitted with the transcripts. Guess we’ll hear if there are papers missing.</p>

<p>SAT score reports + Application fees = 200 dollars I suppose.</p>

<p>One girl I know drove for a day and half to see two colleges she was mildly interested in. Fail.</p>

<p>15 apps + SAT & ACT tutoring + SATs + ACTs = around $3000</p>

<p>yikes</p>

<p>More than I wanted to.</p>

<p>$40, I applied to 1 college, and my ACT scores were sent for free.</p>

<p>i probably spent about $70-$90 for UC’s and CSU’s</p>

<p>Yeah, but then there’s the cost of actually taking the SAT/ACT/subject tests… as well as the cost of taking any AP courses. </p>

<p>Out of curiosity, how many of your schools pay for kids to take the AP exams?</p>