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Is admissions a profit-making enterprise? Think about the revenue from the application money from all of these people, and add some lost deposits for people who hold onto spots and vacate the same when that "other" school lets them in. And, your staff tends to be comprised of young alumni (i.e. cheap for salary purposes) which encounter expenses with mailing, travel and computer generated spam.</p>
<p>Some rough numbers: U Penn had 20,479 applicants @ $70 = $1,433,530.00 for 21 employees showing on their web page (I am sure there is support staff not shown)..
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<p>Interesting math. Perhaps it is profitable at Penn, but I suspect that admissions is a significant cost center at smaller LACs. They still have big fixed costs for developing a website and designing their viewbooks and other marketing materials. Pretty much all schools (including Penn) waive application fees for low income applicants, but many other schools also waive fees for students who apply on-line, students who make campus visits, students who receive "VIP" marketing mailings, students who sign up to be on their email marketing lists, etc.</p>
<p>Somewhere I remember reading that the cost of enrolling a student (marketing, admissions, etc.) averages $2,000 per enrolled student. (Presumably this figure includes a lot of schools with low yield rates that need to admit a number of students in order to enroll each one.) That's a lot of money that goes into the process!</p>
<p>And that doesn't even count all the costs incurred by the student (test fees, CSS Profile fees, travel to college visits, etc.)</p>
<p>A LOT of money is going into this process! </p>
<p>As far as boarding schools limiting the number of applications: I think that's a sensible idea. With all the on-line information available (much more than existed in my day), it seems to me that students ought to be able to make an informed choice and narrow down their applications ahead of time, and write more thoughtfully targetted applications. </p>
<p>Also, if admissions readers know that XYZ Boarding School only allows their students to apply to, say, six schools, that's going to encourage them to take those applications more seriously than if they think that possibly the application is coming from a kid who sent 20 out.</p>