<p>Lately, I've been receiving offers from various colleges to complete an application free of charge and with no essay. The free applications I receive go by many names such as Akron Gold Application (University of Akron), Inspired Excellence Application (Thiel College). First off, these are colleges I never planned on applying to but I thought, "Hey, if the application fee is waived, requires no essay and takes only about 10 minutes to complete, why not?" and I would also broaden my options to see how much financial aid they would give me. My biggest skepticism is their reasoning for not needing an essay because they feel they "already know enough about me" but if they knew enough about me, they would know that I don't have quality SAT and ACT scores to qualify for such an opportunity. My question is does, it work? Is it a fraud? because they ask for my social security number and I've already completed one of these type of applications and provided my social security number and now I'm kind of regretting doing so.</p>
<p>Some schools use this tactics to increase their applicant pool. Obviously, you would not apply to these 2 schools if they do not offer you that. My suggestion is, do not apply to any school that you would never go. If you never heard of that school, disregarding it to be legitimate or not, will you ever consider going to that school?</p>
<p>There are some other schools that purchased mail list from test agents for high scorer without knowing the exact score. They target to those students trying to recruit better students and improve their admission stat. Some of these schools are actually pretty good schools. University of Minnesota at Twin Cities actually offer that as Golden Gopher Application. For these schools familiar to you, you don’t need to worry as long as you are applying through official way instead of unknown links.</p>
<p>@billcsho thanks for the response and I’ve actually gotten an offer to complete the Golden Gopher Application which was the one that I said I completed. I am now relieved since you say that the Golden Gopher Application is credible.</p>
<p>Yes, Golden Gopher Application is very credible. My D also submitted that 2 weeks ago and we have already confirmed that they have received the complete application including scores and transcript. The review process will begin in October and someone said one may receive a response as soon as within 6 weeks.</p>
<p>Is the Akron Gold Application binding? I have applied for it and am worried because the University of Akron is not my first choice.</p>