There Should be a New Admission system in Place

Applying to College
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<p>And for those of us in strange financial/merit based aid situations, say a student whose state school has decided that merit scholarships are a giant question mark, whose real financial situation is far more complicated than the point on the graph that FAFSA makes, in an atmosphere where the only guarented affordable school is the local community college(which may not offer a merit scholarship either, due to decreased state funding to everything that isn’t the NEA) what would you suggest?</p>

<p>For admissions purposes, your plan works, for you, I suppose.</p>

<p>But that’s my situation. The odds of getting into a school that might look past the obvious with finances is very low, and requires compensation by increased applications. My entire state has no idea what it’s doing with scholarships, and there is no, to my knowledge, other source of guaranteed scholarships for out of state students. </p>

<p>Six schools, do I:</p>

<p>6 safeties, pray for the best merit aid?</p>

<p>6 reaches, pray to get in and have the finances understood?</p>

<p>Anything else would be, quite frankly, foolish. Match schools offer money(in my case) very sparsely. There are scholarships and financial aid, but I qualify for neither. </p>

<p>Scholarships and admission to the top financial aid schools are extremely competitive and unpredictable, to the point that splitting the odds would make them unwinnable. Yes I could go reach, and five safeties, but then I’ve wasted a huge chance at money, and hence really being able to afford college. </p>

<p>And money is getting more and more scarce.</p>

<p>Those of you in Florida with Bright Future scholarships have no idea what it’s like when your state university is saying, in short, “We have no money left for scholarships, so all bets are off. Hope for the best, but it’s not likely.” Or, what they really say is, “Funding represents last years’ applicant levels, due to decreased funds the amount and size of scholarships will likely be decreased.” </p>

<p>I applied to 10+ schools. I applied to the schools that offer really nice financial packages, even if they aren’t my tippy top favorites. I know that seems unfair, but it’s not as though I don’t like them. It’s a financial safety, if you will. It’s not considered unfair when people apply to admissions safeties and take up spots, why isn’t the same true with finances?</p>

<p>I’ve gotten no word from any state school I’ve applied to on scholarships, save the extremely competitive out of state school where I have a better chance of getting into Harvard(probably Julliard for that matter, and I can’t sing/dance) than actually getting the scholarship. No, it’s not one of the public Ivies, the scholarship is just very competitive.</p>

<p>And I have no trust that any of my state schools will remain cheaper than 25-30k a year by the end of my tenure as a student due to a collapse in funding and complete disregard by the government(recently leeched 100 million from the university to fund high schools.)</p>

<p>So yes, for those of you who don’t worry about finances, it’s probably better that you would just apply to six and be done with it. Unfortunately, that isn’t everyone, and it wouldn’t be fair to make it impossible for some people to go to college so you can get a better chance at your top choice.</p>

<p>In my opinion, anyway. Everyone is talking about admission, but there are other factors.</p>

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<p>Bluebayou, i’m sorry but I do not have an official source for the data. But if you are so unwilling to believe something simply because I am not citing it, even though everybody is aware of it simply because we live in its reality, then I’m sorry but you are making a mistake..facts will not clarify the situation, especially when they are not available, yet most of us students know it’s happening…otherwise it wouldn’t be discussed here in the first place.</p>

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<p>The basic problem with the OPs suggestion is the actual implication of such a plan. Does it entail the national government taking over the college admissions process? Or does it involve the voluntary collusion of all of the colleges in the US basically deciding that people shouldn’t be allowed to apply to too many colleges? If the latter is the case, how would they enforce such an agreement? Would they outright prohibit people from applying to too many schools, and furthermore, how would they know if you’ve applied to too many? The only tenable solution would be the forced acceptance of the Common Application everywhere and, from there, limit the number of applications that can be submitted. But that brings up further problems: the legality of such a system. Doesn’t a system that eliminates people form contention even before they’ve applied to a school simply because of the number of applications they’ve previously sent out violate the current legal precedents on discriminatory/exclusive admissions? </p>

<p>This of course leaves the other primary option, namely the nationalization of the college admissions process. Previous posters have spoken very admirably about the systems currently in place in certain European nations, Britain comes to mind, but they have failed to take into account the innate differences between the nations that make such a comparison invalid: the size and population of the United States and the failures at previous attempts to nationalize other parts of education. Consider the size differences between the nations as well as the number of people applying for college; how can the United States government take on an undertaking like nationalized education when we cannot even fix our existing nationalized programs (Social Security). NCLB, the largest advancement towards a nationalized education system in American history, has largely been criticized by bi-partisan forces as an unmitigated failure, a mess of a system that hides problems better than fixing them. The idea that this same government would handle an intrusion into the college admissions process any better than it did it’s intrusion into secondary education is laughable. </p>

<p>So, let’s assume that the government does take on the added burden of regulating the college application process and adopts a system similar to the one in the UK (that people choose 5 schools on a universal form and decisions are made from each accordingly), how does that render the process any easier. And, more importantly, is it worth it sacrificing our freedom to apply anywhere we can for increased efficiency or perceived equality? I think not.</p>

<p>FTR, I applied to 1 school EA (U of C), got in, and haven’t looked back since. So I’m not writing to defend the decisions I’ve made nor am I doing so out of malice or hatred.</p>

<p>In fact, if pressed, I would never recommend applying to any more than 8 schools because of the added stress increased applications entail and that it is far more important to work harder and more thoughtfully on 3 or 4 good applications than 13 or 14 ok ones. But I would never force anyone to agree with me on this and, furthermore, I feel it is people’s God given right to apply to 100 schools, if they are so moved. It is of no concern to me (nor should it be to you) what people waste their time doing.</p>

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<p>I’d much rather hear the facts. I rather suspect I know a greater variety of students than you do.</p>

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<p>Serithin, are you from new jersey?</p>

<p>im already in college, but my brother is a junior now, and when he went to the rutgers information session he told me that they basically lost state funding. how could they lose state funding!?! last year 10% of my graduating class went to rutgers because it is an amazing affordable education. he told me that right now, they are running on private donations. honestly, they should just join up in the ivy league then, if they don’t have state funding to lose.</p>

<p>anyhow, aside from that, i completely agree with you Serithin. the OP assumes that every single person applying to college has the financial means (or knows he/she will receive aid) to attend whichever college they like the best. for some people, a favorite school might not be the one they eventually attend. the financial options need to be kept open. it is not fair to limit the number of applications, because it might actually deny a person any sort of higher education past community college.</p>

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<p>The OP’s argument seems flawed to me. Wouldn’t applying to 20+ schools affect the applicant’s chances more than other students who applied to those same schools? I agree with zarathustra and would personally prefer to have 3 or 4 great applications versus 13 or 14 decent applications. There are, however, people out there who feel they can handle the extra work. If they want to dedicate their time and money to 20+ applications, then by all means let them.</p>

<p>With that being said, I would like to pose a question to the OP. How many student’s do you think actually apply to 20+ schools? I highly doubt 20+ (I’ll go even lower and say 15+) applications is considered the norm. I know more people who applied to a single school ED or EA than I do students who applied to 15+ schools. In order for these applicants to have a significant enough impact for the admissions process to be altered across the board, there would have to be a lot more students who are willing to apply to so many schools.</p>

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<p>My problem is that it would constrict the dreams of applicants. If I only have 5-6 apps, I better have visited every school I apply to, and also have a legit shot at getting in. Other than people who can visit every school on their original 15+ school lists, you are generally hurting applicants, forcing them closer to home and less adventurous than now. I think you would see a greater crunch on the schools who already have a name and those closer to population centers. This wouldn’t fix the problem, it would hurt any school that could be overlooked at first pass.</p>

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<p>That’s an interesting counterargument to the proposal to limit the number of colleges to which each student may apply. There are a lot of good colleges to choose from, </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; </p>

<p>but maybe some students would load up their lists with the usual suspects if limited to a small number of colleges to apply to. </p>

<p>P.S. I still will make the factual claim here–prove me wrong if you can–that the majority of high school students applying to United States colleges for undergraduate admission submit fewer than five distinct applications.</p>

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<p>I agree with that. CommonApp has caused the distinct apps to shrink a lot.</p>

<p>I did 4, and thought about 2 others, by that measure. However, there are unique apps with no essays, and then CA ones with 5+.</p>

<p>And I remain confident that if there such limited options, only a select few would recieve big time apps. Visits are dependent on distance, money, and name(people who do go cross country are more likely to do it to check out Cornell than Hamilton). And if you can only apply to 5 schools, they better all be slamdunks. No room for fulfilling different niches, and no ‘potentially’, it better be guarunteed merit aid, not ‘possibly’, it better be a definite must attend reach, not a ‘after I visit’. And so on.</p>

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<p>A few points…</p>

<ol>
<li>dsc said–</li>
</ol>

<p>And if you can only apply to 5 schools, they better all be slamdunks. No room for fulfilling different niches, and no ‘potentially’, it better be guarunteed merit aid, not ‘possibly’, it better be a definite must attend reach, not a ‘after I visit’.</p>

<p>Precisely. Yes, I agree. BUT, since one cannot KNOW </p>

<p>–whether you’d get in (despite fulfilling the admissions criteria) due to not knowing the applicant pool, the applicant’s competition
–how much money you’d get until you fully apply</p>

<p>…this means that it is justified to apply to more and not to less schools.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>token, this cc forum conducted an informal poll of the number apps done and ones greater than 5 were in the majority [need link here]. Obvously cc responses are a skewed sample, but this is the only data that I know</p></li>
<li><p>I am reading the much admired and referred to How to Pay for College without going broke book and the authors repeatedly advise to apply to more schools instead of to less schools so that you can let a certain competion take place, playing one college against another. Free enterprise. As the college selects the applicants (one college, many applicants), so the applicant select the colleges (one applicant, many colleges).</p></li>
</ol>

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<p>Joe - I agree with you, app limits are stupid. I think that people should be able to take admissions ‘risks’, isn’t that America? I think you took my post in the wrong way.</p>

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<p>That’s the problem with basing your view of reality on voluntary responses from CC participants. I have a FAQ about this general issue: </p>

<p>One professor of statistics, who is a co-author of a highly regarded AP statistics textbook, has tried to popularize the phrase that “voluntary response data are worthless” to go along with the phrase “correlation does not imply causation.” Other statistics teachers are gradually picking up this phrase.</p>

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<p><a href=“http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=194473&tstart=36420[/url]”>http://mathforum.org/kb/thread.jspa?threadID=194473&tstart=36420&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>‘voluntary response data are worthless’</p>

<p>–needs more alliteration if it is to ‘take’ as a catchphrase :)</p>

<p>Is there anywhere that reports</p>

<p>College, number of apps recvd, year</p>

<p>?</p>

<p>I assume that is a fact.</p>

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<p>Any IPEDS/Common Data Set data compilation should have as much of that information as is reported by the particular college. See, e.g., </p>

<p><a href=“ucan-network.org”>ucan-network.org; </p>

<p><a href=“ucan-network.org”>ucan-network.org; </p>

<p>or </p>

<p><a href=“College Search - BigFuture | College Board”>College Search - BigFuture | College Board; </p>

<p><a href=“College Search - BigFuture | College Board”>College Search - BigFuture | College Board; </p>

<p><a href=“College Search - BigFuture | College Board”>College Search - BigFuture | College Board; </p>

<p>or </p>

<p><a href=“College Navigator - Search Results”>College Navigator - Yale University; </p>

<p><a href=“College Navigator - Search Results”>College Navigator - Stanford University; </p>

<p>The federal database (last listed pair of example links) seems to give the most complete information.</p>

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<p>Ok, that is true. All the guidebooks do give the number applied for any one year in order to give an acceptance rate for that year. Is there any place that tracks and reports this data for many colleges over many years? I see that the NYtimes link had this for the elites. Maybe I can find out their source to see if there are others.</p>

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<p>Admissions seem to become more arbitrary every year, this year especially so, (I’ve been watching for about 7 years now) but to answer this question with another question what if you had a low limit, say 5 or 7 applications, what happens if you are not accepted anywhere? This does happen to some students, and it seems more every year –</p>

<p>I would truly prefer it if the elite schools would just admit that they can fill their classes with well qualified students many times over. If they would announce their process will be to: put applicants into 2 piles – qualified to attend and not qualified to attend.
Then the “qualified pile” would be put in a hat and the class drawn by lottery. This method would also be a great deal less stressful for students. I think it is far easier for a student to accept that “I did everything I needed to be able to qualify for xyz school but fate did not shine on me” than to get a rejection letter leaving the big shock and confusion of “why didn’t I get in question lingering” even though I met all of their criteria, showed interest, jumped through the hoops etc…</p>

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<p>I hate how people say the system is so arbitrary. If it is, it is. Get over it. </p>

<p>You either get in or you don’t. There’s no wondering that you should’ve gotten in. People assume too much. It’s as simple as that.</p>

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<p>I am also aware of research showing that if you are able to narrow your choices down to a small handfull of schools you have probably figured out the good match for you and are statistically more likely to be admitted..at least that was true 7 years ago the first time we went through this process and DS made 4 applications and was admitted to all 4 (and all were reach schools for any candidate). But having watched friends and family over the ensuing years be rejected from sure safeties…, I can’t advise my daughter to take that limited chance.
And more sadly she, and perhaps many students, finds the idea of applying to 10, 15 or 20 schools just overwhelming and she can’t believe she will find 10 or 15 schools special enough to want to spend 4 years at. It seems such a contradictory message we are sending our children – research and find the “right” school but not just one true “love” school but 10 or 15 true love schools. What if there really aren’t 15 schools she would be perfectly happy to go to?
I’m thinking of telling her to travel for a year if she doesn’t get into her top 5…am I the only one who feels it has all just become too capricious?</p>

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<p>Glucose101 –
Wow harsh – perhaps you don’t know any superstar, well rounded near perfect or actually perfect students who have been rejected from not 1 but many elites, and matches. Sadly I can name many – not just one. Its pretty awful and confusing to have pushed yourself “doing every thing necessary to get into a top college” through high school and end up at a safety… I think the current system is unnecessarily stressing out alot of great kids!! I wouldn’t wish it on my worst enemy.</p>

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<p>I think this “New Admission system” is an unnecessary restriction on freedom of choice.</p>

<p>Is it any of your business how many schools I apply to? If I want to apply to fifty, why should that concern you?</p>