There Should be a New Admission system in Place

Applying to College
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<p>I don’t think it follows logically that more applications per student means “there’s a higher chance of people getting into schools they aren’t going to be happy at and being rejected at their true first choice.” People apply to colleges that they might like to attend. They don’t get into some colleges (very few colleges are very selective at all) because lots of other students desire to attend those colleges and also apply. Nothing about the overall number of applications per student (which is still quite low as a national average) changes either of those facts. </p>

<p>But I would like to point out here something I learned from somone else on CC years ago–although I should have been able to figure it out myself. The other poster pointed out that eighteen-year-olds are adaptable. In his view, it’s perfectly logical to apply to, say, both Brown and Columbia, or both Dartmouth and Penn, even thought the colleges are in different environments and have other dissimilarities that affect “fit.” He thinks that most eighteen-year-olds can thrive in and enjoy any good college that admits them. (Of course some students will not thrive in some colleges, and that is one basis for admission committees denying admission to SOME students–but most are just unlucky because there are a lot of applicants to the most desired colleges.) Everyone might just as well apply to a reasonable-sized (which could be rather large) group of colleges that are of interest, and then see what the results are. Nearly all students find a college to fit into, and there are a lot of good colleges out there. </p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/437362-still-looking-college.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/437362-still-looking-college.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Really good point, Token Adult. These are often 17-year-olds (like my D) and at most 18-year-olds. It actually makes me sad when I read of kids this age who have it all figured out as to whether they like urban, suburban, rural, arty, businessy, intellectual, sporty, etc. Way too early in the game for these kids to really know themselves that well. Heck, I still don’t have it figured out to that degree and I’m about to be 49! For many, they simply want to be in an environment with kids who are at a similiar intellectual level so that they can relax and be themselves. Whether that’s in a small LAC in the wilderness or an urban national university doesn’t really matter that much. For my hs senior it’s mostly about the fit of the student body. The external environment is moot.</p>

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<p>The Admission director at the LAC where I work likes to say that by Thanksgiving most freshmen are at their number one choice.</p>

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<p>that is why colleges accept more applicants than there is room for, because some students that get accepted do not go there. for example, princeton has room for 1650 students, and only 90% that get accepted actually go there. so instead of accepting 1650 students they accept 1835 or something. and only 90% actually go there so that brings it down to 1650. this is just an example btw, i just made up these numbers.</p>

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<p>I completely disagree with this as my GPA is lousy. I applied to twenty schools hoping that at least one will like the other aspects of my application more.</p>

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<p>Oh cmon!!!
It’s common knowledge that most top students apply to more than two Ivies!!!</p>

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<p>"That may make sense, but limiting the number of applications per student doesn’t necessarily help that. There is no guarantee that the Val and the “other guys” wouldn’t apply to exactly the same 5 schools. And if that happens, then your scenario plays out - the “other guys” are left with no school to go to. Or they apply to 4 out of the 5 that the val applies to, and one safety. Under your scenario, the “other guys” are accepted only to their safety.</p>

<p>On the other hand, if the other guys apply to more schools, there is less of a likelihood that the val will also have applied to all of those same schools. Thus, the “other guys” are left with more choices in the end."</p>

<p>Chedva if you limited the applications to say around six, lets see how many people have the audacity to apply to HYPSM. the system itself would force people to have lesser reaches to include safeties and matches. And if limiting the number of apps isnt feasible, then we can probably have a system where one cannot apply to say all ivies but 2 or three. Even that would help</p>

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<p>Sure, and in the dark ages, it was common knowledge that the sun revolved around the earth. So, where is the data that kids apply to many Ivies?</p>

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<p>I applied to 26 universities.
And I am happy I did so; go ahead and hate me as much you want.</p>

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<p>I’d like to ask for the data too. </p>

<p>I’d also like to ask where the problem is about “fit” or about missing out on “real” first-choice colleges if most of the colleges with huge numbers of applications also have very high yield (percentages of admitted students who actually enroll). If the students that HYPSM admit largely end up enrolling at one of HYPSM, it seems to me that there isn’t mismatch in who is admitted under the current system. All those colleges have very high graduation rates, </p>

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<p>so it appears they all do a good job of admitting students with the right fit for the college. </p>

<p>P.S. A limit to six applications per student (which, allow me to repeat myself, is higher than the national average of applications per student today) would still allow a student to apply to all of HYPSM and one sure-bet safety. That’s not a bad application strategy either, especially because a sure-bet safety for a credible applicant to HYPSM is probably a pretty good college in itself.</p>

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<p>Just look around at chances threads…that ought to give you a good idea of the schools of applicants…HYP often go together (which is one of the grounds behind the abbreviation anyway)</p>

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<p>The sheer number of cross-admits (let alone cross-rejects) should be indicative enough that there’s at least a decent correlation between those who apply to one Ivy also applying to at least one other, but whatever.</p>

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<p>Ok, where is THAT data?</p>

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<p>Yield figures provide a reality check on speculation about cross-admits, because (allow me to repeat myself) a student can only enroll at one college.</p>

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<p>look at it another way: Harvard’s yeild is the highest and, as a result, they accept ~2200 applicants. Thus, that is the MAX number of possible cross-admits to HYP. Out of 1.5 million high school seniors, that ain’t a big number, IMO.</p>

<p>And, yes, a student will likely apply to more than one Ivy, but some posters on this thread infer that students apply to 7-8, and not just two or three (HYP).</p>

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<p>My school used to have a limit of 7 applications. the idea was that most students would have around 1-2 safeties, 3 matches and 3 reaches. </p>

<p>Last year, some parents discovered a law (NY law i think, though it might be federal) that makes it illegal for schools to limit the number of applications.</p>

<p>This year there is no limit, though the recommended limit is 10, and you need to go through special procedure through the college office to apply to more.</p>

<p>Many people were against this because the most qualified applicants would probably add more reach and match schools just to be safe, and thus deny the less qualified applicants (whose reach schools are the more qualified applicants’ match schools).</p>

<p>Before, the most qualified applicants had to make a choice regarding which top schools to apply to, since you also need some lower matches and one or two safeties. Although some did apply to harvard, princeton, yale, mit, stanford, columbia, penn, for example, as their 7, this was generally not the case, and the majority would pick, say, mit, harvard, stanford, and then some match and safety schools.</p>

<p>But having no limit could give rise to increased competition as more students apply to the top schools. This could also decrease the quality of applications. Both could potentially be destructive in terms of the number of people that get into a school of their choice. The latter, for obvious reasons, but the former as well. For example, if the best student in the class applies to HPYMS but only really likes HMS, he could be denying a spot to some other qualified applicants to P or Y. Obviously, the number of people happy with their college acceptances decreases.</p>

<p>It will be interesting to see if these concerns are valid once april rolls around.</p>

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<p>This is a pointless complaint. If students were limited to the amount of schools they could apply to, yield rates would increase causing colleges to accept less students (meaning that the same students that are “on the bubble” in the current application system would be in the same situation in an altered application system).</p>

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<p>I talked about this a little bit during my interview with a certain engineering college. Part (most?) of the reason HYPSMC and just about every other “selective” college have low acceptance rates is because they just have too many applicants that they can take. No problem with that, but we both theorized what admissions would look like if every prospective college student only applied to 3-7 schools. </p>

<p>Quite simply, all the selective places’ adcoms would crumble if this happened in a single year. They’ve adapted in recent years to looking for just the right applicant, to pick the absolute best group out of what they’re offered. If Harvard went from 27,000 to 9,000 applicants, their admit rate would obviously go up, but so might their yield as well. Another big problem with so many cross applications is the applicants’ own fears of being rejected, so they compensate and apply to HYP when they really like Yale the most. In turn, it’s a game for HYP to find who’s going to actually enroll at their school. If they don’t need to worry about their applicants going somewhere else, they be a little less selective.</p>

<p>I think we as applicants would also benefit from some arbitrary application limits. I’d venture a guess that we’d write better “Why X” essays when we only have to write 2 or 3 of them, because we’d have more time to get to know X, Y, and Z, spend less time working on S, T, U, V, and W’s apps. A major part in admissions decisions nowadays (partially influenced by so many apps of course) is how good of a fit someone is. It’s hard to fake genuine passion, admiration, and love for a school, and I know this firsthand after probably applying to 1 or 2 schools too many this year.</p>

<p>If application limits are to happen in the U.S., I see this happening on an individual basis that gathers momentum, like LACs against USNWR rankings. It would be easy to implement with CommonApp, as long as people don’t make additional accounts (which could be remedied by requiring CApp accounts bound to SSN’s). If just one of HYPSMC did this, there’d probably be a ripple effect going around. People would have to (gasp) decide which are the top 10, 5, 3, etc. colleges they’d like to apply to, rather than arbitrarily picking every Ivy, every top XX USNWR school, etc.</p>

<p>Some have said that applicants who pay the fees should be allowed to apply however many places they want. Maybe application deposits (refunded if denied) could reduce the numbers, but that would further disenfranchise those too “rich” for fee waivers and not bother the rich much at all.</p>

<p>Now, having a lot of cross applicants and cross acceptances does force schools to throw more money at students to try and woo them to their school; I won’t deny that, there’s a good and bad to everything. I just think people should take more time and apply to places that fit them (and visa versa), that they love (now and x years later), and they know more about than their Wikipedia entry and USNWR ranking.</p>

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<p>They don’t really have to worry as more than 75% do anyway. Very few get multiple offers. </p>

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<p>The most selective colleges don’t really care about your demonstrated interest. Hardly anybody drops out or transfers. They just want to attract the best students they can get.</p>

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<p>How common place is it for kids to have secretaries? That seems really out there.</p>