<p>Two fantastic schools have reported 42% and 20% increases in their second years using the common application. In a year when most schools are static with admission numbers, and the student population didn't increase, this is something worth discussing. </p>
<p>UChicago and Brown are incredible schools and two of the last and most proud holdouts (Brown only until recently was only a paper app school) to join the Common App movement.</p>
<p>I will also post this on the College Admissions forum. But I want to bring up this question. Though of course preferences change from year to year, you are hard pressed to find schools that are as different as UChicago and Brown, and yet I'd assume that they received a lot of common applications (pun-intended) because of their merger.</p>
<p>So speak out- say what you think, praise the common app, decry it, most people on the Columbia forum know how I feel. But it is certainly a topic to be discussed. And lastly, if Columbia went common...do you think it is a good or a bad thing (from an applicant perspective, and from a columbia one).</p>
<p>I like the Columbia app personally. When I first started on it, it seemed difficult since there was such a small limit on the Why Columbia, but what I liked about it versus the Common App was that it felt like you’re really showing yourself, yet leaving a lot of room open to interpretation. I liked that it asks about movies/concerts/shows/etc that tend to reveal certain nuances about the applicant. </p>
<p>That, and it reminds me of the TASP application. Oh, nostalgia.</p>
<p>There’s almost no doubt about it, if Columbia joined the commonapp movement, it’s admissions rate would decrease to microscopical numbers, even lower than its ~9% (I would guestimate around 6-7%)</p>
<p>I strongly disagree with you, the Columbia App was honestly very similar to the common app. The only main difference was the short answers you mentioned about movies/concerts/shows/etc which are actually in many of the SUPPLEMENTS of the commonapp. Look at Stanford or Princeton and you’ll find that their supplement had very similar or the exact same questions, and they both use the commonapp. </p>
<p>For an applicant, the commonapp makes it MUCH easier because then you wouldn’t spend hours just filling out your birthday/ activities/ classes etc. again and again. The downside would be that more people will obviously apply meaning a lower admissions rate.</p>
<p>For Columbia I think the commonapp would be greatly beneficial because as I said earlier, they will have more students to choose from. Of course they might not want to go through an extra 5000 applications.</p>
<p>well 1) columbia’s app has asked the same questions since the 1980s. </p>
<p>2) i think there is a problem with a school getting 5000 apps without good cause. in no way does it make sense that any school should receive 9x applications than the spots they have in the class. you make it sound like it is a good problem to have, but it sounds like a tragedy. and if columbia is anything like brown or uchicago, they would get somewhere on the order of 6-7000 new applications, or ~32,000 for a class of 1400 or so. that is 22x the size of the class.</p>
<p>more is not always better. better is better. How do you get the ‘democratic’ aspect of the commonapp, the ease of use, the one-stop shop mentality, and avoid superfluity. i don’t think the answer is to throw our hands up and say it is an unfortunate side effect. </p>
<p>the fact that a school receives 30k applications in fact makes some students feel they wont have a chance, or feel like the system is impossible to stand out.</p>
<p>i mean here is a proposal: what if the number of schools you could apply to was capped…the common app is good in the sense that it requires that all its members use holistic admissions. if you could do commonapp but could only apply to 1-4 schools, you’d see a lot more sanity. further a lot of folks in higher ed decry the death of mid-level schools, solid places that have trouble filling their enrollment cause everyone applies to too many schools. its back of the envelope idea, and sure the common app is a starting point, but unlimited applications is absurd.</p>
<p>I liked Columbia’s app also, and I agree with Obstinate. Another thing that I loved about Columbia’s app is that I never had any technical problems with it. With the commonapp there were quite a few nerve-wracking incidences of things not uploading, of the site being down, etc. The design of the Columbia app works so well that I don’t think it’s too much of a burden to do it. Then again Columbia has been my number one choice since I was a Sophomore so I would have put up with a lot to apply.</p>
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<p>I suppose the easy-adding of schools adds to some craziness, but that seems like a very low limit to me. Some people just aren’t very decisive, or want to apply to a variety of different types of schools. I personally added seven schools to the common app and did two independent applications. I don’t know how capping apps would encourage more apps to mid-level schools, I would think it would lead to people applying to HYP and a safety and other similar patterns.</p>
<p>Yes it is similar, but the fact that you have to make the extra effort to fill out the entire application says volumes about Columbia. 20,000 or however apps they have means that 20,000 people took the time to complete an entirely new application (unless they include incomplete/pre-lims that only finished Part 1). Some kids that re-did everything and took the time out to really focus on the app (or probably not, who knows?)</p>
<p>haven’t much to add re: admissions merit, but just wanted to chime in, for love of cu app. </p>
<p>dunno if it was because i was borderline columbia-obsessed, but i found myself taking the most time on CU app. strict character limit adds pressure to use it wisely/keeps you in check. and i would have filled out biographical info six times over just to avoid obsessing over how much time i spent on X activity/year on the common app (ranking is sufficient, i think). columbia app: facebook minus overly cutesy, fb-induced what-have-you (though u prob still reserve the right to be cute). common app reminded me of first job app to a nursing home? just picky, i suppose :)</p>
<p>I agree. I spend hours trying to average the times I spent on my activities. Utter nightmare, I tell you.</p>
<p>Truth be told, I wouldn’t be too upset if Columbia switched to the Common Application. The spirit of the Columbia application could be retained through the college-specific supplement. And the increase in applicants would bring the admit rate nicely down to the level of H and Y.</p>
<p>If you like Columbia enough to fill out a separate application, it shows you’re dedicated to go. Instead of applying for the heck of it, like you may with the Common App, you save the AdCom a whole lot of time.</p>
<p>I agree with most people here. going to commonapp wuold DEFINITELY increase apps significantly. it doesnt seem that much harder, but it is to a lot of people. for example, my school has a policy that they will only do online transcripts to common app, so my SSR actually had to be mailed on paper. school policy only made the exemption for commonapp because it was so widely used</p>
<p>I know this is elitist, but I LIKE that applying to Columbia takes extra work, since it provides a line of “defense” against people who are just applying because it’s an Ivy and don’t really want to go there. This is especially relevant given Columbia’s position as the 4th-most prestigious Ivy. A lot of qualified overachievers in the Northeast who are gunning for Harvard, Yale, or Princeton will probably apply to eight or so schools and have Columbia somewhere on that list. It hurts the yield and keeps out students who are less spectacular but who actually want to go to Columbia. This would be much more likely to happen if Columbia was on the CommonApp.</p>
<p>I’m really against Columbia switching to the Common App for the same reasons mentioned before. It would encourage more and more prestige whores with no real interest in attending Columbia to apply to Columbia. That’s wrong.</p>
<p>The only argument in favor of the Common App is that by making it difficult to apply to Columbia, we may be weeding out the “prestige whores” but we may ALSO be weeding out the disadvantaged who find the admissions process confusing and difficult, and cannot understand how to apply to Columbia with a separate application. I don’t find this a terribly convincing argument, but it is worth remembering the downsides of limiting accessibility. As I wrote in another thread, this tension also underlies the debate about binding Early Decision. Is it a great way for colleges to weed out those who want to apply, but not actually attend? Or is it a discriminatory practice that gives preferential treatment to those of means who are “in-the-know” while forcing the disadvantaged to apply regular decision, when admissions rates are much lower? I’m a big fan of ED, but it’s worth considering the unforeseen consequences.</p>