Limiting Ivy League Applications

It isn’t just Ivy applications that need to be limited. All apps need to be limited. Guidance counselors need to cap the number of schools students can apply to. Common App already limits the number of schools to 20, but no one really needs to apply to 20. There are many other colleges not on Common App. The current system is unsustainable because ever increasing numbers of applications are wreaking having on a huge number of colleges. It’s getting more and more difficult for colleges to anticipate yield. It’s causing many colleges to find artificial ways of manipulating acceptance rates (ala Colby calling kids off the waitlist in March) in their quest to appear ever more selective.

Someone else said “It’s their money, who cares how they spend it?” That’s a point, however, this is yet again another way in which more well-off students have an unfair advantage. Let’s be realistic: Jimmy has $1600 to spend on apps, and Sam has $300. Jimmy can apply willy nilly. He doesn’t need to carefully research and try to estimate which colleges he might get the best FA from, or which he has a better chance of getting into. Sam spends many hours carefully crafting a list and needs to compare FA offers. Jimmy and Sam might have similar apps in many ways. Let’s say Jimmy gets the spot though and Sam doesn’t. Jimmy may have 5 or 6 offers from his 20 apps, and Sam might be squeezed out and only get one or two of his 6 or 7 submissions, which don’t offer enough FA. Not everyone gets put on a WL, and as we all know, by the time kids get called off a WL, there is often no money left, if they are lucky enough to get off the WL at all. (I am aware that my argument is hardly mathematically sound, but I think my point is clear.)

Of course, no one is ever going to stop kids from getting expensive tutoring, test prep, private consultants, etc… Everyone wants to present their best application. I did that for my kid. But I also made my kid apply to a sensible number of colleges and research them and figure out which ones she was legitimately interested in. That was a year ago. It seems that this year 16+ is the new normal for numbers of apps. It’s so difficult to do a good job with the apps. My kid did 12. It’s a ton of work. How anyone can complete 20 apps or more is beyond me. Then they are shocked when they don’t get into any of the top 20 schools they applied to because surely their lottery number should have come up.

Just because we CAN be greedy and selfish, doesn’t mean we should be. If there was one small way to level the playing field just a bit, I would think that limiting apps would be a good start. Kids could prepare better apps, spend some time researching colleges they are legitimately interested in, and everyone will benefit.

Jon Boeckenstedt’s blog has an interesting post about this topic. We’re not supposed to post links to personal blogs here, but if you google it it’s easy to find. The post is called “Our Annual Entitlement Ritual.” He is director of admissions at DePaul, and his point is that students are allowed to do admissions however they want. When “those in the know” deride kids for applying to “too many Ivies” they are being elitist. I’m not quite in agreement, but it is an interesting perspective.

I think the best thing would be for students to limit their applications themselves. Just like we have a Net Price Calculator to filter things out by money matters, maybe colleges should be required to have a “chance me” calculator. Maybe set minimum test scores or GPA or class rank to apply. Harvard might miss a late bloomer or bad test taker here or there, but they could fill their class just fine. Big piles of applications to reject should be a point of shame, not pride. Schools that reject 90% of their applicants should be penalized in the college rankings for not being upfront about who is really accepted, rather than rewarded for being selective.

To @aynrandfan “The Match” is not exactly great for the residents. Since each accepted resident gets exactly one placement, programs do not really compete on things like working conditions or salary. Since the students only get one round of decisions, they have do a ton of visits and interviews their last year of school to make sure they get a match since not everyone does. (In a sane job market, students who got an offer they liked could stop interviewing.) Medical training might be more humane without it.

@Lindagaf, I agree with you almost 100% except I wonder who gets to decide what is a “sensible” number of schools. Your kid’s 12 is, to me, not sensible. You might think I’m unreasonable, but my belief is that if a student can’t narrow down the list to 10 or fewer then he/she hasn’t done enough work. If your number is actually less than your kid’s 12, obviously you came to that decision in retrospect. Would you have appreciated someone else imposing a limit on you beforehand? I’m asking that sincerely, not rudely. Do you feel it would have been helpful in your kid’s college search to know he/she could only apply to 10 schools? Or eight? Or five? At what point would you have resented the intrusion vs welcomed the guidance?

This is all a futile debate. As long as someone’s making a good profit off college applicants, nothing will change. Stanford, for example, which charges the most amount for college application fee at $90, made nearly $4M off this application cycle.

I agree with you, @traveler98 . In fact, ten was the original limit, but she had two free app waivers, so… If she (and I) had been aware of the extra work, i would have not let her do it. Especially as her counselor at school suggested ten was enough. My son will not be doing 12 apps. I suggested that guidance counselors should set a limit. I know some schoold actually do, but not many.

@Lindagaf, I think that’s where the problem comes though. You and I agree on 10. What if the rule came down that five was the limit? Would that have felt too constricting to you? And so it comes back to the question of who gets to decide.

My son’s school officially imposes a limit of six, which I think means only six free transcripts and possibly just six applications managed through Naviance. Easy to get around and there are still lots of kids applying to 15-20 schools. Even if the school limited to six counselor recommendations, plenty of colleges don’t require that. And I can just imagine the lawsuits if the school refused to send transcripts.

Perhaps limiting college applications is where parents need to step in and put their foot down. Not every wise idea should be legally mandated or imposed by a third party (ex. the high school).

FWIW I think my S applied to 7-8 colleges (EA and RD) and my D to only 3 (2 EA and 1ED that she was accepted to).

Exactly @happy1. Although I wish there was a fair way to limit applications (for the mental health of all involved), I can’t see one. Other people do things I consider unwise (applying to too many schools, spending too little time finding an appropriate safety, applying to too many reach schools, getting into too much debt, etc) and I am fine with things that others consider unwise (allowing my kid to take a ton of APs, for instance). I don’t think there’s a fair legislative answer to the applications issue, particularly since many people don’t even agree that it is a problem. I think it has to be a personal family decision, and although I have a firm belief in what is sensible I don’t think I should impose that on others. Just as I would not welcome someone else imposing a limit on me that I consider restrictive, I don’t think I should get to choose for others.

The overall competitiveness of top schools is driving the spike in the number of applications but so is the cost of college. Not only is admissions unpredictable but so is financial aid. It might be perfectly reasonable for a student/family to apply to more schools so that they might end up with a range of options not only by school but also by cost. Say a student applies to 10 schools and is accepted to 4. They will have to do a cost benefit analysis on this 4. But maybe a “better deal” would have been in the next four to which they would have applied. If cost were not a significant factor, it would be just a matter of picking a few reach, a few match, and a few safety. That’s not the case. And that’s why I think it impossible to just restrict the number.

^^ THIS.

Well, @TTG, that depends on your definition of safety. Safety, to me, means a school you can get into AND afford AND would like to attend. If a college doesn’t meet all three requirements then it’s not truly a safety. If every student researched until they found a true safety they wouldn’t need to apply to 20 or 25 just for FA purposes.

Observations:

  1. One benefit in students applying to more schools, is that it mathematically ensures some range of schools. For example if the student applied to 20 schools, then I know they did not only apply to top 10 schools. lol
  2. While I find the student applying to 30 schools a bit annoying, what worries me more is the student who applies to too few schools, especially true when they do not have strong guidance. That may end badly.
    1. It seems to me that schools don't really have the right to limit the number of applications a student submits. If it is limited to 8 and a student does not get into any of them, will they sue you and win? Maybe an attorney can comment on the potential legality. To me that would be similar to decreeing that each college can only accept x number of applications. I am not sure who would have the right to enforce that either.

We applied to 16. At the time, we thought it was a bit too many. In retrospect, we’re very glad that we did. Out of 7 desirable colleges my son was accepted to, only 2 offered a viable FA package. In today’s lottery-like admissions environment, people are only going to try to increase the odds even more by applying to a greater number of colleges. That’s unfortunate and certainly not ideal, but that’s the reality we’re all faced with.

@traveler98 I agree that’s a good definition of a safety. And I think it is a difficult environment, and it would be much better for families (and schools too) if students could apply to fewer schools. Happily none of mine applied to more than five, and everything worked out fine.

But just looking at it in terms of the freedom to choose: Say a student had a “safety” that they liked and could be 100% sure of acceptance. Now say that student was accepted and the total cost (with room, board, etc.) was $18,000 a year, which let’s say their family can afford (but could not afford much more). But what if they could get a full ride at Alabama? Or Miami of Ohio? Or Denison? Or Kalamazoo? Or an Ivy that covers all demonstrated need? Or Williams or some other wealthy school that does the same? Or some other school that gives large amounts of aid. One of those schools might be a better choice for them. Unfortunately, they often don’t know the answer to a) will I be accepted? and b) how much will it cost? until after they have applied and been accepted.

@TiggerDad Help me out here. Your S applied to 16 colleges but only 7 of them were “desirable”? Then why the other 9 applications?

@LuckyCharms913 - Safeties and matches. I didn’t say those other 9 were “undesirable.” At the time of applying, we really had no idea, given such unpredictable and seemingly random nature of the admissions chance and FA offers, that he’d even be accepted to those 7. Nowadays, the line is heavily blurred between what’s “safety,” “match” and “reach” schools. If we all had the magical crystal ball prior to applying, we’d all have just a handful of predictable applications.

@TTG, if you’re looking for merit, then I’d agree that except for a few automatic award schools, you may want more applications because you don’t know how you’ll stack up against the competition. Merit can be unpredictable.

If you’re talking about families with non-straightforward finances (own a business, divorced, remarried, etc.) I’d agree that the cost may be difficult to estimate–so again, more apps may be in order.

But otherwise, “How much will it cost?” shouldn’t be much of a mystery. Run the NPC. Then run it again with different scenarios (one additional kid in college for 2 years, or one fewer kid for 3 years, or whatever applies to your household). If the 4-year cost is within striking distance of your budget, then it may be worth an application. If not, take it off the list, which is generally easier to do before applying than after an unaffordable acceptance is in hand.

@LuckyCharms913 - I don’t agree that you should rely on the NPC in narrowing down the list of colleges. I did play with the NPC before making the list. The results in FA offer were quite surprising. They all should be in the approximate ball park figure, you’d think. In reality, the difference between those two colleges that my son was accepted to with the most viable FA offers and the FA offers from the rest of colleges turned out to be $20,000 to $30,000. The NPC is still an excellent tool, but it only gives you a very general idea, not something that you can entirely trust all your decision on.

The number of schools a student applies to should flow strategically from what he’s trying to accomplish. If his goal is to go to a school “like Harvard,” then a smart strategy will include a larger number of reaches (as well as some matches and safeties). This can easily take you to 12, or more. As somebody else noted, if you also need financial aid, that can push you to add more schools, not subtract any. On the other hand, if you want to go to the state university, and have the stats to get in there, you don’t need to apply to a bunch of schools (although you may still need one or two safety schools these days).

@TiggerDad Actually, I would not expect NPCs (especially if they are Profile schools) to be in the same ballpark, even for schools in the same general tier. Home equity, assets, household characteristics–different colleges consider these differently. And of course some colleges simply can “afford” to be more generous due to their amazing endowments.

So if I ran the NPCs for Harvard, Brown, Johns Hopkins, and Duke, I would not expect them all to be within a few thousand of each other (but I would expect them to be within a couple thousand of what my actual bill would be). If the NPC results showed that Harvard’s price would be lowest, followed by Duke, and that they were both within my budget, I’d say go ahead an apply to both. Or, realizing that Duke has highly competitive but really significant merit aid, I might tell a super high stats kid to go ahead and take a chance on an app there, with the caution that without merit, Duke would be a no. If the NPC showed that Brown and JHU would come in more than 10% over my budget, I’d drop them from the app list without a second thought. That’s what I mean about culling the list before applying.

It’s nice to have options, but sometimes (often??) the unaffordable options can be predicted in advance.