Additionally, most of the stress in our area revolves around the kids who are shooting for T20/30’s. My kids attended a decent public in a large state with a good state system, so maybe the situation is different in highly competitive areas where the state schools may appear to be “beneath” the high achievers.
The Vals and Sals in my 2 kids’ classes were happy to go to state schools, and not necessarily the flagship, with huge merit. There was virtually no stress among the other college bound kids. They either went to one of the state schools, in-state privates or went to the local CC with plans to transfer to a state school to save money. The high achieving kids that aspired to a T20/30 that were friends of my kids or that I interviewed all seemed to have a backup school (usually one or more of the state publics) lined up. My kids applied rolling admissions to our state flagship so they only ended up applying to less than 10 reaches. IMO trying to apply to more than 20 colleges that require their own essays is what gets you in trouble. At some point the quality of the essays will suffer across all applications if the kid overextends in the number of apps.
I was not addressing you personally. I was noting that we are a country which loves choice, which thrives on consumerism and customization, which idolizes individuality over the common good. And so we have a few thousand colleges (more than we need, if you analyze the demographic data) to “narrowcast” each particular want and need. And nobody likes to compromise- ever.
I have cousins all over Europe. They find our college system both admirable and hilarious. “But the dining hall closes at 7 pm” said no European college kid ever- since many have no dining halls at all, kids live at home and fix themselves a sandwich when they get home after classes. I heard questions about what time the dining halls close on every single college tour with my kids- and even when the guide explained how “dining bucks” work in the cafes, after hour food court, etc. parents were still having a fit that the college would actually close down the kitchen for the night!
So families with short lists to navigate will have a MUCH easier time of it than families trying to thread the needle on a laundry list.
As a dose of reality - the average number of colleges a kid applies to is around 5.8. So, no, a student doesn’t need to apply to 50 colleges. My son applied to 8, was accepted to 4, WL to 2 and rejected at 2. Most of his friends had similar outcomes and applied to the same number or less. Of course, they weren’t applying to T20’s but to very good schools in the T50-75 range.
My S22 applied to two schools - talk about stress free! Had his first acceptance in hand in October. His friends averaged about 5. For him, graduating with 0 debt was the number one priority, as it seems to be with all in his friend group.
I was being sarcastic with 50. My D applied to 19…accepted at 4, rejected by 7 and WL by 8. It will be very interesting to see what happens with all these waitlists this year. Something weird is happening in admissions when there are so many WLs. It seems to be the trend this year. D18 applied to similar number and caliber of schools. She had a few more rejections, twice as many admits and only a couple of WLs.
There isn’t a mystery. When tons of high stats kids apply to tons of super selective colleges, colleges are going to create longer waitlists. They have to hedge their bets. Kids can only attend one college, but might have ten acceptances. Then comes summer melt, as everyone starts shifting around with waitlist acceptances. This is the natural consequence of students applying to tons of schools.
I do, however, disagree with your last statement. Some kids DO need to apply to 50 colleges…those who are applying to the same 50 colleges as everyone else.
Okay but be careful!! I wouldn’t be giving people too much hope. Not a lot of kids were actually admitted to multiple top 20 schools so it’s not like yield will be different this year. If yields are as predicted, then WLs do not move. Like last year.
Can you explain “summer melt” please? My understanding was that it describes the phenomenon where students who’ve committed to a college lose motivation over the summer, find a job, etc. and ultimately don’t show up to college in the fall. Often seen among low SES groups that lack sufficient resources and support.
But I’ve seen this phrase used on CC a few times recently in ways that suggest maybe I don’t understand this term correctly. Can you please explain?
I am as mystified as you. In some cases it’s athletes who train in the late afternoon and early evening who want a hot meal when they are done (not a veggie wrap at the food court). In some cases it’s kids who have grown up with parents who serve as short-order cooks!!! The rest? Who knows! They looked like nice, normal people on a college tour!!!
Maybe! Last year, we thought schools would accept fewer students, see how yield works out and then go to WL but that’s not what happened. Seemed like top-ranked schools accepted the same number of kids and then didn’t need waitlist very much at all as we all know!
As one who is on both, and is a moderator here, I can assure you that Reddit is moderated. They tend not to be as visible in their moderation, but they are certainly active.
Whether by design or by happenstance, Reddit’s A2C is almost exclusively HS students, many of whom don’t know how much they don’t know. CC has more parental involvement.
Summer melt, as far as I am aware, refers to kids getting off waitlists to other schools (“melting away” from College X to go to College Y), then the school they are not going to attend after all has to go to its waitlist. The kid that accepts the waitlist offer at College X and will no longer attend College Z. College Z has to now go to its waitlist. And so on.
This can start happening as early as April, but my own kid got off a waitlist in July and ended up attending that college.
One of the great things about my kid’s high school was that the counselors made sure that every kid who was within the stats range with at least 50% acceptance rate would apply to UIUC and UMN or Iowa. It didn’t matter that a student had the highest weighted GPA and 1500+ SAT, the counselors would make sure that they applied to UIUC and one more Midwestern flagship AE at the beginning of the applications season.
@blossom Wrote that kids find themselves shut out because of these long silly lists, so your case is not a counter argument, but actually supports their statement.
I am not the terminology police, but I think that is better described as double-depositing, and it will usually resolve itself before summer.
Summer melt is more typically used to describe a sociological phenomenon: low-income, URM, low-college-going capital students failing to follow through on enrolling in college for a variety of reasons, but almost never because they enrolled in a different institution of higher education.