I know you said you’re trying to reduce the number of colleges on your son’s list, but if he likes the co-ops of Northeastern, make sure to take a good look at Drexel, U. of Cincinnati, and Rochester Institute of Technology.
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This is a great idea. We used to have a set weekly time for household chores and family hangout, she’s been too busy for that for a while. Hopefully we can get that back this fall, and the check-in would fit in great there.
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We only have one school with ED, but will apply RD because it’s on the high end of affordability. I think the list is at 11 right now with one auto admit, 3 safeties, 3 matches and 4 reaches. I think we can get it down to 7 or so by application time by comparing majors and a few more visits.
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Today I sent the kid a screenshot of what her scholarship situation and net cost of attendance would be at Arizona State, and she then asked for a similar breakdown for another couple schools. So I made a spreadsheet with Tuition, Room & Board, and COA and likely or guaranteed scholarships. I was conservative with the assumed scholarship money, and she could do much better at 2-3 of the schools. But It was very stark. Most private schools were coming in right around $50K and state schools were coming in at $20-30K. Michigan State, one she was interested in had a really good calculator even accounting for a small scholarship she would get from a grandparent alum, but it was $38K, so off the list. It took 45 minutes for me to set it up, but while I had done the research (Thanks CC Community!) exactly how much she could expect to receive, she didn’t really know.
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When we started this process, we thought, no way is our D applying to more than 10 schools.
But as you watch the hyper comeptitive landscape and horror stories, I am now much more empathetic to kids who want the maximum amount of options.
Im still not completely clear as to why there’s an explosion in applications that does not correlate to some crazy population increase other than test optional is making everyone just throw their hat in the ring.
So here we are, looking at 18-20 schools. Have we considered Vanderbilt? Maybe we should? How about Wash U? I heard they have nice dorms.
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And so it begins. Common App is open
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I thought tomorrow….?
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Tomorrow is the official day. Apparently, it went live around the end of the day today.
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Apparently it is mostly driven by the minority of applicants who apply to a lot of colleges applying to even more colleges. Test optional has likely contributed, but so has the very feedback loop you described. It would be nice if we could call a national convention of families of applicants like this and all agree to collectively stop doing this to ourselves. But for the moment we appear to lack such a mechanism.
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Test optional has been the primary driver behind the increase in apps since the pandemic.
This has led to admission results becoming highly unpredictable for high stats, unhooked kids. Schools that they would have considered target/likely schools just a few years back are now deferring/waitlisting/rejecting them. As a result they have to apply to many more schools, which causes the acceptance rate at those schools to drop causing more uncertainty, more apps to other schools, and so on. It’s a feedback loop.
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Supplemental essays should help. If you look at Williams, their acceptance rate went up dramatically this last cycle since they added an essay when in the past they had no supplement. It is easy to just pay another fee and submit at the last minute but if you have to write another essay there is a lot more involved. There are not many low acceptance rate schools now that have no supplemental questions. Northeastern may be the exception and that may be why their acceptance rate is so low.
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For DS2022, we were chasing merit/financial aid. He applied to 19 colleges.
If colleges had a more ACCURATE NPC or some way to figure just how low or high of aid we could receive BEFORE APPLYING, then he wouldn’t have applied to 5-6 of them where the aid did not pan out as hoped.
With DD2024, with the NPC, we kinda know that ED1 college (not an extreme Reach) is affordable. ED1 college is offering a kinda-financial-aid pre-read, so we’ll have a much better understanding of what we’re on the hook for. With the ED1, she’ll apply to 2 safeties, and 2 targets, so 5-6 colleges total.
Just a warning, each application is exhausting.
So you can start with a long long list, but as you work on each application, I know many many students just slash their list as they run out of steam.
So instead, focus on your top 5 applications and throw all your energy into those, and then after they’re done, then can apply to the rest.
You don’t want to work on application #18 when it’s your #3 favorite college (RD) and you’re feeling burned out.
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Common app does show an increase in average number of apps per student, but it’s fairly small (5.7 avg apps this year, 5.6 the previous year, 5.5, and 5.3 before that). Of course, common app doesn’t include the full set of college apps, maybe 60%-70% or so. The biggest missing piece is the UC app, which is relatively difficult, and not many students would add that one on a whim, not to mention, many OOS students can’t afford the UCs.
Relatively more growth is coming from the number of unique applicants, and for the highly rejectives…TO applicants. I agree those hunting merit often have to apply to relatively more schools, because one doesn’t know what the merit award could end up being at a given school (among the ones that don’t have a handy dandy grid based on stats).
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I agree about the NPC. I’ve run some that show data from the 2019-2020 school year. How does this help my kid entering in fall 2024??
I also agree with the exhaustion from applying. Make sure one of the first includes a safety that is a good fit and they are ready to attend.
That’s our strategy. Start with a Top 5, then a couple of safeties and the rest based on priority.
What I’ve learned is to google the tuition/room/board for current year 2023, and then update the NPC numbers with the current numbers.
I think I mentioned it before, example: WPI’s costs on their NPC were too low by $9K.
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Question about Common App (especially for those with students in college who have already done it). If D24 is applying with self-reported scores to some universities on the Common App, but later will choose not to report those scores to some other schools, she can just go back in and “unreport” them before she submits the app to the later universities, right?
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Of course, now that it’s probably too late to do anything about it, I’m fretting over C24’s senior year schedule. It’s distinctly less rigorous than junior year was; not because they purposely sought easier classes, but for structural reasons.
C intends to major in theater/drama (possibly musical theater). So, they’re taking theater and chorus (2 semesters of chorus, one of theater, all advanced level, but only theater gets an honors boost).
Because of scheduling conflicts last year, they had to switch from French to Spanish, and to get to the recommended 3 classes in one language, they’re taking Spanish 2 & 3 this year (3 is honors level, 2 is not offered in honors)
Our state replaced senior year history with a mandatory, non-honors, personal finance class, so that’s their “history.” (it blows my mind that students in my state only get two semesters of history in their entire high school careers if they follow the recommended course of study).
AP Lit and honors Sociology (which they were placed in instead of the honors Anatomy class that was their first choice) round out the year. So, no science class (because scheduling) and no math (because their counselor told them not to bother, which is a whole 'nother rant).
This all seems like a huge contrast with Jr. year, when they took theater, chorus, Spanish 1, AP Lang, AP Calc A/B, APUSH, and Honors Chem. I’m starting to worry that schools will side-eye this very light senior year.
I’m trying real hard to tell myself it’ll all be ok; C is only applying to one highly competitive school and all the rest of their schools are academic (if not necessarily artistic) targets. But I’m also pretty mad at their counselor (for advising C to take this light a schedule) and at myself for not overriding those recs and requiring C to try for at least one additional AP.
The one thing that sounds funky to me about the schedule is taking BOTH Spanish 2 and 3. Spanish 3 is continuing on from what is learned in Spanish 2. Could they take Honors Spanish 3 and an elective Spanish of some sort? ? It sounds like you do not love your counselor and I was going to say it seems strange the counselor would recommend this. Every school S24 is applying to, other than one high reach asks for only two years of a foreign language. I would look at the recommended high school courses in their admissions portal, or on their common data set and double check that. They may be able to just take hours Spanish 3 and use that other class for something else. I think the honors sociology is fine b/c it looks like most schools want 3 or 4 years of sociology which includes history most places, as long as it includes a year of US History. Push for a schedule change now before it really is too late. We were told that counselors are back 8/22 to “address scheduling issues” and classes start 9/5. Good luck. And if all else fails, have the counselor write something to the schools explain the scheduling issues.
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Yes. I would delete the scores from the app prior to submitting the app to a school where you don’t want them to see the scores. Just remember to put them back in for the next school where you do want them to see the scores.
While generally colleges do ask if you want your scores considered, and just checking the box should be enough, there may be a few exceptions, as I think I recall reading about back in the first year of test optional.
For the colleges where you do want them to see the scores, also remember to check the website to make sure they accept self-reported scores. There may still be several schools that require an official score report.
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