<p>^^ True on both counts. Both are enjoyable.</p>
<p>It’s really only a small group of parents/students who think that the world revolves around 17 colleges, and that thought process is so unsophisticated and lacking in critical thinking that it’s hard for me to have much sympathy for their “plight.”</p>
<p>^^^
What she said.</p>
<p>A little off topic, but in reaction to the comment by SteveMA, “The sooner kids learn that life is not fair, the better off they will be.”</p>
<p>It depends on the reaction to learning that life is not fair. I think that American society is better off, to the extent that people believe that it <em>should</em> be fair, while realizing that it isn’t. When a person learns that “life is not fair,” I’d hope that he/she doesn’t use it as an excuse to add to the unfairness on his/her own, or to tolerate unfairness when it’s directed against other people. </p>
<p>The New York Times last week carried some rather awful stories of abuses of young teenage women maids in India. This carries the unfairness of life onto an entirely different scale. A society is better when everyone is horrified by this level of unfairness, and finds it unthinkable.</p>
<p>I’d like to see things made as fair as possible. This does not mean that I support stats-only admission (I don’t), nor that I am anti-AA (I think it is part of fairness). But I have never told QMP in 20+ years that “life is unfair.” In other locations on CC, I understand the impatience I see with students’ complaints that “life is unfair” to them, based on college admissions. But I have only support for someone who complains that “life is unfair” to someone other than the “complainer” and his/her category of people.</p>
<p>In the American college admissions, limiting the number of applications would make the process less fair.</p>
<p>QuantMech–you have to define “fair” too. Fair is when everyone gets what they need, not that everyone gets the SAME. Even with that, life still won’t be fair.</p>
<p>Good and interesting discussion. I chuckle as there’s a thread over on the Cornell forum with soon-to-be freshmen fearful of communal bathrooms. Funny when 40% of the world doesn’t have clean running water.</p>
<p>And I concur about the Economist and Beer. I would add “Downton Abbey” as well!</p>
<p>But how does it make it less fair? And to whom? Whether it’s an A student or a B student, what’s more “fair” about all those apps? If you apply to 15 and get into 4- couldn’t you have applied to the same 4? No, you don’t know which 4 will take you-- but, many kids on CC also don’t know whether there is a lang requirement, if it looks good to found the pie club, etc., and tell each other all sorts of mishmash. They advise each other to apply to all the Ivies, cuz then “probability” is you’ll get into at least one. I say, if you aren’t qualified and can’t pull together a decent app, what statistics says you’ll get into “at least one?” Number of apps doesn’t mean some kid is truly ready for those colleges.</p>
<p>To handle the most recent question first: I think that for students for whom the reaches are reaches because the students’ purely academic qualifications do not match up, two reaches might be enough (or not, depending on other considerations, but two might be enough). For students for whom the reaches are academic matches, but still reaches because of the low admissions odds–and particularly for students who have a strong set of accomplishments outside of school, but nothing of the “absolutely knock your socks off category,” then more than 2 “reaches” are probably needed, if the student wants to go to a “reachy” school–by which I include all of the excellent colleges and universities that Pizzagirl brings up, in addition to the Ivies.</p>
<p>SteveMA, you are right to bring up the point that it is not easy to identify what is fair. I don’t have any full answer to that. On the other hand, I’d be happy to spend a lot of time working out the implications of various policies with someone else who is committed to fairness (as far as possible), and who sees different ramifications of the policies than I have noticed, and who could perhaps broaden my ideas of fairness. I have encountered in real life people who dismiss a complaint that something is unfair (to a third party) with a shrug. </p>
<p>Of course, people have to pick the particular issues where they think they can get some traction, to make a difference with the time that they have–but even if a person chooses not to engage on a particular issue, realizing (and saying) that something is not right if it is not fair is helpful for the person who can and does pick that issue.</p>
<p>Benefits of having fewer applications are numerous. I am NOT saying we should or should not limit the number of applications but if schools don’t have to deal with a truck load of applications I think everyone will benefit. Less pressure on students to polish their application to a professional level. If they make youthful mistakes, adcoms will have time to look through and not penalize the applicants as a hasty reading may do. Parents can sit back allow kids to own their process. At a time kids are taking their first adult step launching themselves into the world. It would be good to know that they can do it their way and it will work out. Society will benefit since HYPS brain is not drained to helping kids get in HYPS. They can devote their lives to making a better society for all in their esteemed career that HYPS should have prepared them for.</p>
<p>
I thinks xiggi makes a key point here. What’s more, even if we switched to a system of limited applications, the enrolled student body at the most selective schools would probably still be about the same, overall. So I can’t see the point of changing the system.</p>
<p>There are a few cases where I think a student really should limit the number of applications. For example, if a student has applied EA/SCEA to HYPSM+C, and is admitted, and if the family is full pay, then except in a few circumstances (such as change of academic direction during senior year), I think the student ought to withdraw the applications elsewhere. There are a few students on CC who apparently want to wait to see how they fare at other schools as well (for bragging rights? or because they might develop a sudden-onset allergy to Massachusetts?)–the application readers’ time could be better spent, if they just withdrew the applications.</p>
<p>It’s important to remember that the Ivy League (and MIT, I believe) continues to operate under a consent decree relating to an antitrust charge in the late 80s. The scheme proposed would certainly violate that decree and require both Justice Department and judicial approval, neither of which would be easy to obtain. Proponents of the plan would have to show that it would not tend to reduce price competition among the colleges involved, and frankly that would be very, very tough to prove. For that reason alone, the scheme is a nonstarter.</p>
<p>I agree with the many posters above who have said this issue affects a tiny number of people overall, and who cares about them? I have said such things in the past.</p>
<p>But even for that tiny number of people, the benefits of the scheme might not be as much as they imagine. If a student could only apply to one of HYPS, each of their yield rates would effectively go to 100%, or close to it, and they would admit several hundred people fewer. Meanwhile, colleges in the bottom half of the draw might find themselves with too few applicants to achieve meaningful selectivity. (The UK system includes a number of colleges that are close-to open enrollment.)</p>
<p>EDIT: It looks like the consent decree expired 10 years ago, so one wouldn’t need Justice or judicial approval of a modification. But the law more or less stands that collusion to reduce scholarship competition is illegal.</p>
<p>I have no problem with high schools, colleges, parents and others encouraging kids to apply to a lower number of colleges but I really have no desire to see us “automate or police” the process. Agree with xiggi.</p>
<p>In the back of my mind, rumbling, nagging, is this: If a kid can’t present well for that college, he shouldn’t clog its admissions system, no matter which tier. (Certainly not “just because he can,” via the CA.) If he doesn’t know what that college wants, likes, what it’s unique self-image is (not the media’s,) how it expects its students to be prepared, have x personal strengths, etc, etc- then he’s likely not their sort of kid, no matter what his grades, rigor, scores. He hasn’t done his homework. Oopsie. This happens more than parents and kids think. Even top performing kids can’t intelligently answer a Why Us? So, what’s the advantage? Are we too romantic about college, applying at-will, and open-ended “opportunity,” even if a kid can’t fit himself to that college?</p>
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<p>I always wonder why can’t students make up their mind in deciding a major after going thru various subjects in sophomore, junior and senior in highschool. And how come UK students must determine their major before getting into university.</p>
<p>
Many subjects aren’t really taught in high school–psychology and econ, for example. For others, high school doesn’t give you much of a taste of what it’s like in college–I think engineering is probably an example.</p>
<p>Some people can decide, vbv8dad, and some people can’t. I don’t have any difficulty understanding that, as I personally had no idea where I wanted my education to lead and now find myself gainfully employed. The system is different in the UK, where the norm is specialization at the university level. Good or bad, that’s how it is, so university-bound kids in the UK, by and large, have to have narrowed their focus by the time they finish their A levels. </p>
<p>A quick Google search led me to this article about at least one UK university that is now offering a liberal arts curriculum: [Times</a> Higher Education - It’s the breadth that matters](<a href=“http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=414650]Times”>It's the breadth that matters | Times Higher Education (THE)).</p>
<p>Many private boarding schools that I know of and public magnets like mine not only limited the maximum number of applications each student could send, but also restricted the number of reachy schools to prevent the top students from taking all the places at the elite universities. </p>
<p>At my STEM-centered NYC magnet…we were limited to 8 total apps…one of which must go to our local CUNY/SUNY campuses(counted as one app regardless of number of campuses applied). </p>
<p>More importantly, like many boarding schools older cousins attended…the GCs also strongly encouraged(really insisted) us to avoid applying to colleges they regarded as far too above/below our stats. </p>
<p>A reason why an older classmate who had high stats for elite unis, but was gung ho about Boston College because of their college sports teams was effectively prevented from applying there. Heard he ended up at UPenn.</p>
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<p>I suspect the elite high schools limit the number of applications for a more pragmatic reason. As essentially 100% of their seniors go on to college, I imagine their teachers are SWAMPED requests for teachers recs!</p>
<p>If a teacher writes one recommendation, that’s good for one application or twenty.</p>
<p>My kids went to an urban public academic magnet school considered competitive (but nowhere near as competitive as Stuyvesant or Bronx Science, say), where almost everyone went to college. It sent ~30 kids/class to Ivies or the equivalent, out of a class of 500-600. I don’t know the actual figures, but I would be surprised if 20% applied to more than four colleges, and I bet close to half of the class applied to one or two. They could judge pretty well where they would get accepted (and some popular publics were essentially open admission). Even among the top kids, between early decision and simply knowing what they wanted, 4 of the top 10 ranked kids applied to only one or two colleges. I was aware of kids who applied to as many as 10 colleges, but not more than that. As far as I know, the school did not limit application numbers, but even there it was an issue only for a pretty narrow slice of the class.</p>