<p>Hi everyone-
My son is a rising senior and planning to apply to Rice. It looks like a fantastic school (yes, we are aware of how difficult it is to get admitted, etc). On the application we noticed a question that asks you to list the others schools to which you will be applying. While my son will certainly answer this question--does it bug anyone else that they are asking it? It is my understanding that adcoms from different schools are not allowed to share this information (ie, the Yale and Harvard reps can't go have lunch and discuss if they have applicants in common) --so this just seems like a backdoor way to get this info.</p>
<p>Just curious as to other's feelings on this one. I am not in anyway bashing the school, as it looks wonderful Just questioning this specific inquiry on the app. Maybe other schools ask this too, and I just haven't noticed it.</p>
<p>It is rather odd, but I can see some uses for it. The colleges listed could reveal what the applicant generally looks for, what the applicant’s standards are, or this might simply be for data collection. Looking at previous questions on this forum regarding this subject, it doesn’t appear to have that big of a play into the final admission decision. Tufts Syndrome, yield protection, whatever you want to call it doesn’t exist here.</p>
<p>There are other schools that do that, George Mason University (non-common app) does too. The common app schools don’t have that info unless they ask for it.</p>
<p>Thanks for the replies and the links to the old threads (I tried to search but couldn’t find anything that was fairly recent).</p>
<p>If it is truly optional, we will probably leave this blank. I don’t really like the “they want to see if your other choices make sense” viewpoint. Something that makes sense to ds, might not make sense to someone else. </p>
<p>I think this question is mostly for statistical purposes. If you check the Princeton Review top 370-something schools book, a common stat they provide is “students often also applied to” as well as schools that a lot of students preferred to the school in question and schools that often lost out to it. </p>
<p>when my son applied our college consultant advised us to leave that question blank because it was none of their business so we did and he got in. She said they use that info to judge your level of intent with the school and to see the level of the other colleges that you are applying to.</p>
<p>I recommend being honest and listing them. No reason not to. I listed 8 schools including many other top schools and got it. Several of my friends did the same. </p>
<p>I don’t know if it had anything to do with the question but Rice gave me a massive amount of money. Convinced me to attend instead of going elsewhere.</p>
<p>Thanks jfking01, IBWarrior and Antarius for taking the time to reply. I appreciate your responses and will keep them in mind. Most likely we will not fill it in (it was good to know that you left it blank and got in IBWarrior ). </p>