<p>Woudn't it be very interesting if you could place your application, EC's, scores, etc... into one central database. Any of the colleges could go out and look at the database and make offers to students. Almost like an eBay for colleges. You may get an offer from a college that you never considered and once you look into it you might decide that's the school for you. Any thoughts? Perhaps something like this already exists and I just don't know anything about it.</p>
<p>yeah, its called collegeboard student search service</p>
<p>Really? I wasn't aware of that. I figured I couldn't be the first one with a good idea...lol</p>
<p>Has anyone here or does anyone on here know someone who has used this? How did it work?</p>
<p>A database with applications and EC lists would be too overwhelming to sift through. However, the College Board has its Student Search Service, which essentially is a database of student SAT scores. If you check off a box to receive college information when you take tests, colleges later send you information based on how well you did on the SAT</p>
<p>Also, the bad thing about this "database" is that it would create so much spam - I mean, my mailbox is stuffed with letters from so many colleges. I don't need them!</p>
<p>It's kind of hard to explain what I am talking about in detail. This would only be for student ready to apply to schools. This would be an exhaustive profile of a student who chose to participate (I haven't had time to look at the student search through collegeboard yet so humor me). It would have in essence a common application and would have all of the details one would provide to apply to any school. The schools who used it could go in and pick by different criteria and make admissions offers to students. If the students wanted to go further then the could submit the required FA paperwork and offers could be made. If schools wanted to base all of their criteria on just the SAT they could but they could also use the info on the app to drill down. It's a pie in the sky, utopia kind of thing. It would almost be like if any school that accepted the common ap could peruse any of the students who filled out the common app to cherry pick or round out their whatever needed rounding out.</p>
<p>^ what you are talking about is something akin to the system used to place medical residents.</p>
<p>Does it seem to work fairly well? Do the best of the best get the prime residencies and then it filters down from there? I'm not thinking that this would be some kind elitist only kind of thing. Again it is more a matter of schools being able to interject into the process with more than the useless literature they flood us with.</p>
<p>Do we get a range of schools that we would want to be picked by?</p>
<p>Or is it all just random. What if you only get picked by one school -- a school which you really don't want to go to? Suck it up? What about Financial Aid? About paying for it?</p>
<p>The problem I see with that is, what are the top, cream of the crop students going to do? Say someone got an offer from all the #1 schools. With such a selection, what would someone do? Not only is the world of college entirely opened up to them, but a lesser candidate who would be better suited to a specific school like Yale would be short shrifted. The whole application process (is supposed to) revolve around students applying to schools that they are interested and want to go to. To eliminate part of this selection process would completely alter college admissions with unknown results. Though I see your point, that through this system a student may find an unheard-of or overlooked college well suited for them, lesser students who are still aiming high are left at a disadvantage.</p>
<p>A huge problem is that there will be so many students to look at that the universities would resort to looking at/filtering by numbers (SAT scores, GPA, etc.) instead of getting to know the student through the subjective portion of the application.</p>
<p>there is mychances.net...only based on SAT scores and GPA out of 4.0 though so....</p>
<p>Yeah, I know there are holes in the idea. Nothing is perfect. I don't envision this being the only way of applying for schools. It's just an optional way to put your name out there. I liken it to posting your resume on monster. Prospective employers can contact you based on your resume. It doesn't preclude you from applying for other jobs on or off of monster. Again, it is kind of meant as a way for students to get admission offers from schools that maybe weren't on their radar. I'm sure some would get inundated...who knows. Just a thinking out loud kind of thing.</p>
<p>i think its a fantastic idea, and already being used by colleges except in a different area: athlete recruitment. Your'e way would expand the process to academic qualification. And i don't see why it hasn't been done already.</p>
<p>I'm not sure. I don't know that the colleges would even go for it...</p>
<p>a very interesting concept, although there are many holes in it -- not only would you a have to partner with at least 200 of the top schools to gain any traction, youd have plenty of problems with spam, people getting looked over, etc etc -- keep fleshing this out though, it could be very cool!</p>
<p>Yeah, there are plenty of holes. It's like swiss cheese...lol</p>
<p>I think the system we have now is better. Colleges you're really interested in are the only ones who should read your app, I think.</p>
<p>What I am talking about wouldn't change that. I'm talking about putting schools you might not consider in to play. We are searching for an engineering school for our son. I'm sure there are schools that his stats would fit into that we are overlooking just because there are so many schools out there. It isn't an either or kind of thing. I go back to the monster job application analogy.</p>
<p>It would be impossible for schools to sort through all that information and it would lose them money because of application fees. It would also hurt students with lower SAT scores and GPAs because the colleges would just put in an SAT and GPA range and then read those students applications. Not to mention colleges would have no idea whether applicants are interested or not meaning they will leave out some other deserving applicants only to be rejected by the applicant. Also the top students would get a lot of offers, while the lower students wouldn't get any because all the colleges are going after the top. The admissions system now is much better.</p>