Parents of the HS Class of 2021 (Part 2)

Parents Forum Class of 20xx Community
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In re to application waivers, it doesn’t thrill me to pay hundreds of dollars for applications. We also didn’t bother sending official test scores because no schools are requiring the official scores this year since you can self report them. If he goes, then he has to send the official score. Same deal with AP tests. After he takes them in May, he will know where he’s going to college and have those scores along with all past scores sent one time for one fee.

But back to waivers. I get that no one, and as I said including me, wants to pay for applying to college. However, colleges have to pay staff to read these applications. My student isn’t going to just apply to a school for the fun of it or because he has a waiver. That isn’t fair to the students that truly want to go there. Additionally, when we’re already going to be spending tens of thousands of dollars to send these kids to college each year, spending $50-75 to apply is nothing in the scheme of things. To me, a waiver should truly be used by someone who needs it. I saw in our inbox a waiver for Harvard if he wanted to apply and say yes, it’s a hardship to pay. I wonder how many people say it’s a hardship just so they don’t have to pay that?

Again, it’s one thing if you truly can’t pay, but to say “I refuse to pay” when you can? That just makes no sense to me. This isn’t a contest to see how many free waivers someone can get. Or how many schools someone applies to free or not. So many kids don’t get the chance to go to a great school because they can’t afford it, and then there are the kids who just apply somewhere for fun and do take the opportunity away from someone that really wants to go there. Not sure if this is happening with people in this group or not, but I keep hearing of it happening it here.

I’m thrilled hearing from the parents who’s kids were able to apply to 1 knowing they’d be accepted or only a few with the same knowledge. Obviously not everyone can apply to just a few but feel fortunate that you’re in that situation with happy kids and that pressure off! I’ve already told my kid that as he hears from the schools he has applied to, he can consider withdrawing and/or declining any acceptances he might get as soon as he has a preferred school. He doesn’t need to hold a lot of acceptances if he gets them. At this point he’s just looking for an acceptance to a school he wants to go to.

Good luck to those waiting for decisions over the next few weeks.

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2198

We would never claim financial hardship to avoid paying fees, nor would we bother using a waiver for a school where D had no intention of going. That being said, while waivers likely started as a way to remove barriers for students with need to apply to college (and still are, in many cases), they are increasingly used as marketing tools. I would argue that the places with <15% acceptance rates that sent D fee waivers were looking for more applicants. Not a more diverse set of applicants, not low-income applicants, just more applicants. This is how they retain or increase their selectivity rate. D didn’t use these waivers because she didn’t want to go to those schools, but the marketing works, or they wouldn’t use it. To me it’s no different than any other marketing tool if that’s how it’s offered.

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We got waivers in the mail or email for lots of school, I agree they use it as marketing to get kids to apply.

Also, some schools when S21 checked he was applying for financial aid, automatically waived the fee. We also got css waivers.

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2200

U Chicago offering waivers and extending their deadline, then (wait for it) announcing a record number of applications this year, gets a bit under my skin.

BTW, all three of my kids were offered U Chicago waivers, but none of them had a chance in H of getting in, so we didn’t bother.

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I see nothing wrong with kids applying to as many schools as they want, as long as they would really like to go to each and every one of the schools to which they apply. What you wrote above about declining acceptances once a preferred school is in hand is the responsible thing to do - D21 has only two acceptances in hand from her Early Action schools, but she has decided she definitely prefers one over the other, so she will decline the less preferred school on Monday, giving that school plenty of time to offer her spot (and merit award) to someone who is still waiting for an acceptance. She’ll likely withdraw from all the U of CA schools as soon as she is accepted (IF she accepted, we don’t want to take anything for granted) to one of her match LACs. I do think it’s fine for a kid to cast the net wide if there are a lot of high match/reaches they genuinely like.

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2202

They send DS something near daily via email. He finally unsubscribed. It is disgusting how they are trying to bait kids to apply knowing they’d have no chance to get in just to lower that %

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2203

Yale also sent an email with an extended deadline.

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2204

That’s not nice you are hurting their selectivity percentage which is why I am sure they offer all those fee waivers.

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2205

Just like the swallows returning to San Juan Capistrano, the U Chicago record number of applicants email signifies spring is here…

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2206

Last year, Tulane was the most aggressive about offering waivers at our north TX household. Baylor also offered waivers multiple times.

2207

Very sorry to hear of your dear sweet cat passing. She sounds very special and very loved.

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2208

Thank you

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@JanieWalker 100% agree with them applying anywhere as long as they truly want to go and not just to see if they can get in or for fun. That was my point. Mine has an EA decision from his safety with a full tuition ride, which is nice but it’s not his top choice and is deferred from his top choice. Hasn’t heard from the rest and most aren’t until the end of March so it’s a long road. The full ride may be enticing for him if he decides to apply and is admitted to the honors program. Otherwise I don’t think he will want to attend if he has other options, but the way this year is going I don’t know what we will see. In other years he would have only applied to a few schools but this year schools that would have been likely in the past, may not necessarily be so now.

@stem2017 Yes, that is common with U-Chicago. They have always been super high on the marketing, used to give some nice swag too, but also have a lot of low income applications as well so not surprised they also offer the waiver. They’ve always been about marketing. They’re also a school that has a lot of experience with test optional since they have been doing it for a few years now.

@Aguadecoco This is also my point, for kids that truly need it, it makes sense and schools like Tulane make it sound like they are waiving it, but they have never charged an app fee, so that’s a marketing ploy, or just good marketing. I know you didn’t mention Tulane, but just bringing the marketing in since you mentioned marketing. That’s reasonable of course. But your student didn’t only look for free waivers. It doesn’t sound like he applied necessarily knowing he was getting the waiver, but when he clicked applying for financial aid, that’s when it showed up.

@kbm770 Maybe not you, but plenty of people do, or people apply to schools and way more than necessary that have free waivers with no intention of going. Few elite schools offer waivers unless for financial need, and have low acceptance rates (other than UofC like I mentioned above and a few others), so kids applying to elite schools do have to cast a wider net and apply to more in general and it’s unlikely to find those waivers other than for need purposes, but even if someone gets one for that reason, if they aren’t seriously going to attend the school, or know there’s no way they can afford it, even with the financial aid they get, then they shouldn’t bother to apply just to see if they get in. Every year I have seen this with my older kids. Someone applies to a school, gets in, and then can’t afford to go. We’ve all seen it on here too already this year. College isn’t free at this time. Schools don’t all meet unmet need, and to meet it, the income and assets actually have to be below a certain amount. I think people have trouble understanding that. Again, not directly speaking to you.

As for those shopping around for best merit. Something else to consider. The best merit, doesn’t always equate to the best school. Your student should ask a lot of questions, such as how easy it is to get into classes, how are the professors, are they adjunct or full professors? What are the professor’s backgrounds? What is the job prospects? I have often seen in another forum I’m on with college parents that their kids went for money and didn’t do their due diligence and then wound up somewhere that the professors were no good and thus there were no job prospects due to the reputation of the program. Or, they couldn’t get their classes. In the long run, sometimes there is a long term cost to a full ride to college that people don’t think about because they’re only thinking about the short term. That also doesn’t mean someone should take out $80k in debt either! Everyone should find the right balance for their family.

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Tulane never has an application fee, that’s why they’re so aggressive at making you think they’re offering a waiver!

That’s their MO. They market the hell out of everyone. So does Case Western and U-Chicago among others. They want everyone to think they’re special, when they aren’t.

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2211

Haha, I had to read that 3x. I think I have brain fog from staying up late and watching too much news last night. ;(

If U-Chicago gets tons of applicants, kudos to them, because they have the weirdest essays. So that’s one school that to apply you must really want to go there because it takes a lot of effort to do those essays or you’re not very serious and you can’t just simply recycle your other essays. If you’re not familiar with them, go check them out. It does take a certain type of student to want to go to U-Chicago. Their motto is “where fun goes to die” lol.

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2212

This just isn’t true. My original point is that U Chicago isn’t the only highly selective institution that has offered fee waivers as a marketing tool in the past few months. WashU, Northwestern, Yale, Penn, Rice… the list goes on. They’re all offering fee waivers to kids who can afford to pay the application fee. Highly selective schools are not above marketing to increase applications.

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2213

Well, I definitely agree with no school being above marketing to increase applications. For the last 10 or so years we’ve been inundated with marketing email and snail mails from colleges even when none of my kids ever checked the box requesting the information, giving permission, and had set up completely new emails for college materials they still found us! This was an issue well before covid.

I cannot wait for the day it all ends. I’m still not even sure why schools that have had their application deadlines pass are still sending mail.

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We got an email from WashU saying that you could select “fee waiver” on the app if you were applying for aid and if it would cause a financial hardship. Had a couple of others like that. But since the fee did not cause hardship, we paid it.

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2215

The fee waiver we got from Wash U came very late - I think mid Dec. It was definitely for anyone, not just for those with financial hardships. They made that clear in the email. Rice too. D21 did sign up for Rice’s mailing list in the early fall but never reached out to Wash U so that one was a surprise. Seemed like these were coming only after the schools could see how many kids were applying.

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2216

Rice and Wash U must’ve known they were tracking with lower than prior year applications or increases below their peers ED rates.

My daughter didn’t have Tulane stats so I told her not to even give them the benefit of rejecting you. Sure, there are needles in a haystack that have fabulous grades and tippy top ECs that will overshadow a test score in the bottom 25% of their admitted range of 1410-1510, but it’s going to be very rare. And our school has no Pell Grant targets so it’s intended for those with $$ and recognition of the Tulane brand.

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