<p>cpeltz...one of my kids announced in mid tenth grade that she wanted to graduate a year early. I had thought we'd be visiting her colleges during junior year like we did with her older sister. We were only able to see one school in tenth grade because we were still dealing with the older one's process as she was in her senior year. Junior year became her application year. Even so, my younger kid had a list of 8 HIGHLY competitive schools (all accept less than 9%....some as little as 2% into the programs she was trying for). </p>
<p>If someone builds an APPROPRIATE list for themselves, it should yield results and options. You don't need 20 schools to get options in the spring. If you apply to 20 and the list was approrpriate, it could likely yield 10 acceptances and that is a lot of narrowing of focus and visits, etc. to make in a short period of time. </p>
<p>I also know the intense amount of time spent on a LOT of essays and treating each application and school with a lot of attention. That would be difficult to do with 18 schools (unless one really just sends off a lot of apps that appear similarly and isn't making contacts and visits and so on with the schools). Each case is different but it was all my kids could do to fit in 8 apps and about 12 essays and do them well on top of very intense schedules that they kept with activities and such. In order to put the kind of care they put into each app into 18, they would have had to give up some ECs or something. </p>
<p>I'm glad they saw all their schools before acceptances came out. It would be a lot to fit in a LOT of visits in April. It allowed for return visits to the schools they were deciding between in April. </p>
<p>One of my kids also had to audition at all 8 of her schools. </p>
<p>S1 had nine schools on his list, plus one we requested for FA purposes. Wound up applying to seven. Over a year and a half, he considered/visited about 16 schools. As I've mentioned on other threads, he put the bulk of his energies into creating his list, and it made for some very good admissions results and final decisions. He was very, very focused on the specific program, sat in on upper-division classes, talked to profs, and got lots of input from various friends and colleagues involved in some of his activities.</p>
<p>S2 is currently a junior. Right now there are 13 schools on his list. He has eliminated several others based on visits. I expect that as we visit some of the 13, there will be a few that are removed for one reason or another and that we'll end up with about ten, mostly in the target/low reach range, along with three schools where he stands to be competitive for merit $$. I'm not sure that he will want to go for super-reaches at the end of the day, which is fine by me.</p>
<p>I appreciate your comments and your concern, but I also think that you are unintentionally polarizing the issue.</p>
<p>Just because students apply to several schools in the fall, does not mean that they will not continue their process of discernment until May. They may be accepted at 1, 5 or 20 schools by spring. However, by spring, they may also have finally begun to learn or discern their focus and only need to visit one or two schools (or none) to confirm their final decision. </p>
<p>I think the fallacy in your argument is that in spring you will need to visit all the possibilities applied for in the Fall! This simply is not true for most students I've counseled (or for my own kids). For each of my children, by spring they merely wished to visit what they felt was their top choice from their accepted applications.</p>
<p>So, in sum I think just as you overstated 110% effort (since only 100% is possible), your stated argument about visiting 5-15 schools in the spring is a bit of a hyperbole. By spring students are likely to be only interested in a very small subset of their successful applications! I don't mind students (and families) having a range of choices for a financial decision that is equivalent to buying a home!</p>
<p>I would have loved it if my son was focused on his list in his junior year, but it wasn't to be. He's a great kid, but not focused on college at 16, and I do think CC skews reality to think he's a slacker, rather than just a normal kid. </p>
<p>Do I read with envy those of you whose kids knew where they wanted to go and what they wanted to be at 14 or 15? Sure, particularly in the midst of this process.</p>
<p>Would I trade my S's essence or potential? Absolutely not. Surely it makes this fall more stressful, but he just was not focused on college throughout high school, no matter how hard or softly I pushed.</p>
<p>So, he has a long list of schools (13), and I doubt we'll have more than a few we'll need to visit in the spring.</p>
<p>With our kids, we did not start the college process until fall of junior year. Nothing was discussed about colleges prior to then. D1 had a long list, narrowed it, visited them in junior year, finalized list by fall of senior year, applied to 8. That was the plan with D2....start in junior year, visit, narrow list by fall of senior year, apply. D2 decided to graduate early (this came up mid year in tenth grade). Thus, THAT year was equivalent to her junior year. She had to do all of her testing in spring of tenth grade. Unfortunately, we only got to visit one school in tenth grade (which is the one she is attending in fact) as we were still doing return visits that spring for my senior who was deciding among her favorite acceptances. We saw three more in fall of junior year but that was D2's application year. She applied to 8 (four of which she saw before applying). We visited all 8 that winter for auditions as she was applying to specialized degree programs where she had to audition to be admitted. Further, someone applying to such degree programs MUST be focused because it involves a commitment from the outset in terms of their college major, etc. In spring of junior year (her admissions year), we only went back to one school for the open house but since it was a dream school, she already knew she was going to attend but we went for the joy of it, not to decide. In her particular situation, she had been in a hospital bed for three weeks, and this was her very first day out of one and she had a long recovery still to go and so she attended in a wheelchair and it was very joyous with lots of hope and she recovered in time to attend in the fall. </p>
<p>I do not think it is necessary to start the college process prior to junior year of high school. Again, the only reason D2 formed a college list in sophomore year was because she was graduating HS in three years.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I am also suspect of teachers who recommend limiting numbers of student applications. Is there an element of trying to reduce their work load?
[/quote]
I am also suspect of people who stand to have their workload decreased if there are fewer college applications for any given student.</p>
<p>My son is applying to 15 places. One reason is that he needs finaid. He has a list of admission safeties, financial safeties, matches, match-reaches, and pure reaches. </p>
<p>Some of these people who are naysaying large numbers of applications had children who applied to college in the past. The admissions picture has changed drastically in just the last few years. And this year's admissions numbers are larger than ever -- the HS Class of 2009 will be the largest, and numbers will start going down next year.</p>
<p>I feel lucky that my 2 approached it like they did. D1 only applied to her forst choice..the oher apps were dependant upon her acceptance there which did happen. A little regret on my part but she is very happy where she is ( the finaid is the worst )
D2 applied to 6...one reach , three matches and two safeties..
At the last minute she abandoned a school that was a reach ,she felt. Her GC thought otherwise. She was just too overwhelmed by the extra essay.
I can't even imagine her applying to colleges in the double digits !</p>
<p>I do not think a high school should limit the number of apps a student files. I think it is a personal decision made by the family. As a college counselor, I also do not limit the number of apps a family puts in. Most of my clients, however, have less than 13 schools on their list. On occasion, I have had a family have 14. The decisions about all aspects of their college process are theirs to make.</p>
<p>Dega, while my kids are not applicants in this year's cycle, the admit rates at the schools they were seeking were very low and either have not gone lower or have gone just a little bit lower. For D2, the admit rate into the programs she pursued ranges from 2-9% and still does. At the elite/Ivies schools D1 applied to, I think the admit rate has only gone down about 2% or so since she applied. Still, I think it is very possible to build a balanced list of 8-10 schools that will yield results. I work with many students applying to colleges, including in this year's cycle but I still maintain that in the majority of situations, 8-12 should work if the list is appropriate and balanced. There may be exceptions due to certain circumstances, however. I'm just talking about the majority or typical applicant.</p>
<p>soozievt, I've developed this rule of thumb for selective schools:</p>
<p>In broad general terms, a "match" school is where a student has a statistical 50/50 chance of admittance, based on test scores and grades, where the accept/reject decision is based more on other factors, like essays and recommendations. Because of the way yields work, this 50/50 chance is generally at schools where the applicant falls roughly at the 67th percentile of test scores and grades of the last matriculating class (as given in, e.g., the Common Data Set).</p>
<p>Thus, applying to 10 match schools would generally yield five acceptances, and a 99.9% chance of admittance to at least one of the schools.</p>
<p>This method does not work well for the most-selective HYPS-like schools.</p>
<p>Does this seem somewhat reasonable to you? Thanks!</p>
<p>Another factor that I don't think has been mentioned is the lure of free applications. Some schools were extremely persistent in urging my S to send in the free application which was already half filled out. Many of these are well regarded schools so you think "why not?" I checked with the secretary at the guidance dept of my son's school and she said they did not care how many schools the kids applied to. We looked at six schools during the summer. My son liked them all but I don't think it seemed real to him at the time. I think knowing you were accepted and can afford to go makes you see things in a different light.</p>
<p>You are correct in what a true match school is.....realistically a 50-50 chance and in the ballpark in terms of stats. That doesn't work with schools with very low acceptance rates (such as under 20% admitted). </p>
<p>So, if a student builds their list with about 40% reach schools, 40% match schools, and 20% safety schools, this should yield results. If the list is appropriate to the student, in a real postive outcome, it may mean the student gets into his safety schools, about half the matches and possibly some of the reaches. There should be options when all is said and done. </p>
<p>The most highly selective schools are reaches for anyone (in terms of the odds of admission), even if you fall in the ballpark of accepted students' stats. </p>
<p>Given what I just mentioned and given that my own kids applied to 8 schools, they each ended up with many acceptances and choices, including some reaches and favorites.</p>
<p>Due to the failing economy, there are many consequences for the more affordable state school admission rates that may affect calculations of which applications students should concentrate on.</p>
<p>For example, in California, the Cal State system is reducing and limiting total student admission into the Cal State system. It is uncertain whether the University of California (UC's) will be forced to do so as well.</p>
<p>I would just like to add that while applying to "too many" schools can be problematic for all the reasons discussed above, for some students I think there is a danger in applying to too few schools. This is the case, I think, for students who have a reasonable, but not overwhelming, shot at admission at highly selective or "reach" schools. I think some students apply to only one or two of these, when it would make sense to apply to several more.</p>
<p>Applicants surely need to hedge their bets in a competitive process. Applying to 12 schools with a well balanced list should yield some acceptances, if the list is appropriate. One doesn't need 36 schools to hedge their bets. That also demonstrates a lack of focus in selecting schools that are good fits and treats the process like a lottery game.</p>
<p>soozievt, the 36 school applicant may be playing a different game than your students and kids. I suspect that admission to medical school, any medical school, is his goal. Let's put aside for a moment if that is a good goal, but just assume that it is. Then applying to all possible accelerated med school programs increases the probability that he'll get into one. He's not concerned about fit, just a union card for the medical profession. We might say that he should take a broader schedule because he might discover that he doesn't want to be a doctor, but, if he's 100% convinced and just wants to maximize the chances of becoming a doctor in short order, his strategy may be appropriate to his goals.</p>