There Should be a New Admission system in Place

Applying to College
241

<p>This is why you shouldn’t apply to 20+ colleges:</p>

<p>1) You get tired
2) It costs a lot</p>

<p>and the Big #3 (drum roll please?)…you need to get a grip on reality. </p>

<p>Why the heck would you apply to 20 colleges? You have some serious issues if you can’t narrow down a school you would like to go to. You visit a couple, you decisde if you like it, if your grades are good enough you then apply. What is so hard about that? </p>

<p>I understand 8-12 applications, that is fine by me. But 20+ your just mentally insane. Cause you’ll realize halfway through college that applying to that many schools wasn’t even worth it. Undergraduate admissions isn’t even that important. It’s how you do in the school that matters. </p>

<p>And the guy who started this threat is 100% absolutely right. There are people out there who are overachievers and apply to every single Ivy League just for the sake of going to an Ivy League. </p>

<p>Kudos to the thread starter. Everyone else in here who wants to apply to 20+ schools is insane. Waste of time, effort, and money. Apply to 10 at max cause thats the normal sensible thing to do.</p>

242

<p>Oh and by the way? What the heck is a safety school anyways? Most of the time you people have safeties cause you think you’ll get in there easy, but really you don’t wanna go there as much as your “middle and top tier” choices.</p>

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<p>My definition appears in post #221 in this thread: </p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1059684472-post221.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1059684472-post221.html&lt;/a&gt; </p>

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244

<p>umardarr from toledo has been having his or her omega-3’s (gots some smarts).</p>

<p>I am on board saying that applying to more schools, and not less, is indicated in this shaky economy where there is no significant financial aid for most people, the middle class, where there is an unpredictable college search process - even in state schools- ; in short, where there is much risk, a lack of knowledge, and hundreds of thousands of dollars at stake+…BUT… </p>

<p>…as Capt’n Kirk said –</p>

<p>Too much of anything, even love, isn’t necessarily a good thing.
– Kirk, “The Trouble with Tribbles”, stardate 4525.6</p>

<p>[Too</a> much of anything, even love, isn’t - Freebsd Startek: 155 - 164 of 202](<a href=“http://motd.ambians.com/quotes.php/name/freebsd_startek/toc_id/1-0-11/s/154]Too”>http://motd.ambians.com/quotes.php/name/freebsd_startek/toc_id/1-0-11/s/154)</p>

<p>+The wider net is not only for Ivies. We don’t even know how to spell Ivie, but for us, middle tier LAC is also just as unpredictible, admissions AND money wise, as the big boys.</p>

245

<p>If you don’t think you can’t get into a safety, then you need to stop applying to so many reach schools then. A safety is a school that you should be able to get into pretty much no matter what.</p>

246

<p>remember that without aignificant FA, there are two issues here: </p>

<p>academic safety / reach
financial safety / reach</p>

<p>The latter is not known until you apply AND you’ve been accepted. This tends to mean that one needs to apply to more and not to less schools, since you do not know the final price til then. If there can be more predictiblility in this area, this would help reduce the crazy fishing.</p>

247

<p>Concur with token. My definition of safety includes a 90% chance of acceptance, but, of course, there is that 10% of non-acceptance (for one or more of a gazillion reasons).</p>

248

<p>I disagree. Financial aid isn’t as much as a secret as people believe. I know how much I’d be getting. I wasn’t in the dark because I researched and asked the right people.</p>

249

<p>How can you narrow your choices when nothing is certain? Admission process is not certain, no one knows what a safety is now a days. Even UC’s are not a safety anymore for California resident. So in that case how can you limit your choices to less than 10? </p>

<p>There are 6 top universities
HYPSMC - No one can consider even match now a days
5 other Ivies (Col, UPenn, Brown, Cor,Dart) - Some can call some of these matches but the way admissions are going now a days these are reaches for most.</p>

<p>So there are 11 to begin with which are reaches for almost anyone. Then how can you limit choices to less than 10 for any one now a days unless some is lucky to get in EA or sacrifice chance of getting into HYPMSC and go ED somewhere.</p>

250

<p>Legendofmax:
I think ou were already given multiple reasons of why the appliction process favoring applications to 20+ schoolsis bad idea.
As far as I understand, you did not apply to 20+ schools. Correct? And you have no evidence to support an argumet that you could apply to 20+ TOP schools and still get into Wharton.
From my point of view, more than a half of students who managed 12 or even 15 apps by themselves will not manage 20+ EQUALLY STRONG applications while keeping up with shool and ECs. Those fair-players will loose. And an unfair avantage will be given to cheaterts who use extensive help. Furthermore, those parents who could help but choose not to interfere now, WILL interfere if the game becomes ridiculous. Are your parents Wharton graduates or professors, or maybe admission officers? If not, you would have been in trouble in a 20+ apps system.</p>

251

<p>I don’t think there is any basis for calling a student a “cheater” if the student devotes his or her own time and effort to making applications. Some high school students watch a lot of TV, and some prepare well for college. </p>

<p>That said, to introduce a new fork in this thread I’ll mention the idea of the contingent application list. If one has a “safety” college that offers very early notification of admission (as I believe my son has found), then as soon as you get into the safety, you can drop from your application list any other college that doesn’t cleary dominate your safety college in your preference. That will reduce your total number of applications, which seems to be the OP’s concern in this thread. If there are some other colleges on the list that have nonrestrictive early action admission cycles, by the time EA results come out in mid-December you may be able to drop applying to any college that doesn’t clearly dominate the EA colleges that have admitted you. Now that Harvard, Princeton, and the U of Virginia have set aside their early round admission programs, some college applicants will have to apply to more than one college, if those colleges are of interest, but not everyone is interested in Harvard, Princeton, or U VA, so not everyone worries about this. It’s possible to have the effect of applying to a broad range of colleges while submitting only a few applications if one takes care to look at timing issues like this, and if one thinks clearly about how good the chances are of getting into particular colleges.</p>

252

<p>Many of the schools that kids consider don’t have non-binding EA or rolling admissions; my d’s schools didn’t until she got a VIP application in an e-mail. So “contingent applications” won’t work for a significant number of applicants. And I think it’s an even worse idea to force the application deadline for the EA schools.</p>

<p>Everyone is throwing around the “20+ applications” issue. Once again, I ask, how big a problem is this? Frankly, I don’t think there are many students doing this. And I don’t think it’s worth “fixing” a system because it might be abused by fewer than 1% of the applicants.</p>

253

<p>ParentofIvyHope:</p>

<p>Here is the algorithm that I think I would advise my child to do. Assume that you’ve done the research and could rank your preferences. (If not, at least do groups so that you can factor in the probability of going to a school given that you get in). Then attempt a reasonable calculation of the probability that she would actually attend each school and choose some reasonable threshold, say 5%, where if the probability falls below that, don’t bother with the application unless it’s a guaranteed safety.</p>

<p>For example, if you use USNews rankings as a preference (not that I recommend this, but just as an example) then it’s easy. Estimate the probability of D getting into #1, call it P1. The probability of her going there would also be P1. Now, taking into account some measure of correlation between the criteria for #1 and #2, estimate the probability of getting into #2 conditioned on not getting into #1. Call that P2. The probability of going there would then be Q2=(1-P1)P2. Note that if #1 and #2 had exactly the same criteria then the probability of going to #2 is zero! It’s important to get some sense of the extent the decision for #2 is independent from #1. For example, with no special hooks, I think it’s more likely to get rejected from all HYP than to get into just one. I don’t think you can use the acceptance rates independently.</p>

<p>Now continue this process. At some point, the probability of actually going to a particular school goes below the threshold (because you must be rejected to ALL higher priorities AND get into that school) as to make it not worth the investment in applying. At that point pick the next school down with a high enough probability of acceptance so that the probability of going exceeds your threshold. If that school is a true safety pick one more, otherwise pick two true absolute no kidding safeties. Now you have a probability of 1 of going to college, no college you apply to has a probability of going less than your threshold except your safeties. As I’ve said before, I think two safeties are a good idea so that you are guaranteed to have to make an affirmative choice.</p>

254

<p>If you take a second to be honest with yourself, if you’re applying to more than 8-10 schools, you’re either simply looking to collect “trophies”, poorly researched in your college search (OMG I’m apply to ALL the Ivies, MIT, Caltech, Stanford, cuz they’re totally the best!!!), or simply overestimating the schools you can get in to. </p>

<p>You really shouldn’t have more than 1/3 of your applications be reach schools. And if you find yourself applying to Harvard, Princeton, Yale, AND Stanford… then you’re just being a US News report whore, those schools are WAY different from each other.</p>

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<p>Not so. Some well-researched college lists would look like that. Yale would be a bit of an outlier on the well-researched college list of a math-liking student, but Yale has a lot going for it, and students with other preferences might easily apply to all four of those colleges. That’s especially so if the student is looking for colleges with outstanding financial aid.</p>

256

<p>I think five is a little bit too few… I mean I only have five colleges on my list and I already feel uncomfortable, although I do agree that some people are excessive. One kid in my school applied to more than 40 colleges! So if there had to be a limit I would say ten.</p>

<p>I do sort of understand her argument about taking other people’s places, because then the people who might have gotten in end up on the waiting list, and while they still could get in once that person picks the school they actually want to, a lot of people take their name off the waiting list because it leaves the student in an uncomfortable situation.</p>

257

<p>poster above said–
…Financial aid isn’t as much as a secret as people believe. I know how much I’d be getting. I wasn’t in the dark because I researched and asked the right people.</p>

<p>I have had some clear as mud experiences on price so far…</p>

<p>I have been using <a href=“http://www.collegedata.data%5B/url%5D”>www.collegedata.data</a> to model the ‘net price’ of various schools. I input my financial data and it says it has the rules engine for FA, so it can simulate FA pretty well - it says.</p>

<p>So after S got into Iowa, I asked the registrar of the school how much would it cost, he pointed me to the COA web page. After I asked if this would be the final price after FA is applied, he replied that the final prices have not been set yet. The answer did not make sense and I was, and am, in the dark. I asked the person in the school who should have given me the authoritative answer. </p>

<p>I am not going to wholly trust [CollegeData:</a> College Search, Financial Aid, College Application, College Scholarship, Student Loan, FAFSA Info, Common Application](<a href=“http://www.collegedata.com%5DCollegeData:”>http://www.collegedata.com). For one, it is sponsored by a lending institution. I wonder if any of that net price assumes any loans? Probably does, but it does not flesh it out. Loans are not really Fin aid, as the elites are finally saying.</p>

<p>The other gray area of pricing is the backroom deals. I have heard many friends and people who have gone thru this process who have told me variations on … “S is a perfect match for college, but we need x,000 more dollars”, AND getting that price. btw, if one is going to engage in this exercise, one must have another choice to go to.</p>

<p>This is hardly upfront and transparent. If you must talk to the right person and be an uber negotiator, that’s gray.</p>

258

<p>It’s perfectly fine to apply to more than 5. I agree 5 is to little. 10 I say is should be the cutoff. 3 years ago when I was a senior I applied to 10 and everything turned out fine. </p>

<p>I don’t know if any of you will really hear me out on this, but don’t make a huge deal about undergraduate college admissions. The thing I’ve learned about college and admissions to undergrad has nothing to do with its prestige. At the end of the day it’s about A) does it do a good job with helping you prepare for your future career and B) is it the right size school. I stress B cause its very very important. Many people go to big schools where it’s not focused enough on student learning. </p>

<p>Once you get into college. You need to forget everything about admissions and what not. You must be prepared for the REAL next step which is what to do after your 4 yrs in undergrad.</p>

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<p>The data shows acceptances at HYP ARE largely independent. From the 70-80% yields at HYP you can see right away that very few students are accepted at all three. Even being accepted at 2 of the three is rare. At MOST 30% of Harvard admits are also accepted at Yale (if it were any higher Yale could not possibly have a70% yield). The actual cross admit number is probably lower than 10%. There is simply no reasonable connection between acceptance at a particular school and acceptance at another school of similar USNWR rank whether a LAC or university. The general rise in yields at most selective colleges is a clear proof of a general decline in multiple acceptances. </p>

<p>The main reason students need to apply to a large number of schools within the same range is precisely because of the unpredictability of admission. Admission to one selective school gives you very little clue as to admission to another. You can well be accepted at Yale and turned down at Brown. </p>

<p>With many more qualified applicants (per any objective criteria such as SAT, GPA or rank) than spots available at a given school, randomness is the norm not the exception. </p>

<p>The only way you can maximize your chances of admission to at least one selective college for which you are reasonably qualified (based on CDS data for instance) is to increase the number of applications. Every additional application will increase your chances of getting at least one fat envelope.</p>

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<p>If could find the financial aid, it isn’t that tough.</p>

<p>Look it up instead of losing money. I think that’s the stupid decision.</p>