<p>tomo88 said–
How would a student applying to a certain college deprive another student of his/her place? Would the other student have gotten in if first student did not apply in the 1st place?</p>
<p>I would think the answer is, Yes, the first student took up an ACCEPTANCE slot. The ad cons make acceptance decisions by comparing the apps in one pool. If the first student is a superstar (relative to the college in question), and applies to a school that the second one dearly wants to get in, and who is <em>ONLY</em> a numbers match to that college, then the adcons will choose to accept the superstar - I think. I wish I KNEW how the adcons decide.</p>
<p>Despite what I think about some applicants hogging acceptance slots, the last clause about the applicant <em>not knowing</em> is ultimately why I think applying to more schools than less in this day of competitive applicants is justified.</p>
<p>Applying to more schools instead of less is justified because of so much ignorance in so many aspects of this whole application process. It reminds me of the blind men trying to describe the elephant. Each sees only a bit of the elephant and says it is one thing, when it really is another. </p>
<p>Ignorance is mitigated by more choices.</p>
<p>Some of the ignorance off hand …</p>
<p>1) the admissions criteria</p>
<p>2) the admissions <em>process</em> by which decisions are made</p>
<p>2) the final price of the college</p>
<p>3) the applicant’s own values and preferences</p>
<p>4) the family’s ability to pay</p>
<p>5) what the college is - vs what it presents or markets itself to be</p>
<p>OP you are missing the fact that the UK has a national curriculum. if we had a system like theirs it would be more clear which students were the most qualified. things like race, ECs, recommendations, etc. would be much less important. as a result of their system it’s more clear to students where they can actually get into so there’s no point in applying to many schools.</p>
<p>If college and university applications required applicants to list each school to which they have applied, then students might give serious thought as to whether or not a shotgun style approach is in their best interest. To be effective, a verification process, such as a signed consent form permitting release of this info. from the college board or from the applicant’s college counselor, would be needed. Certainly not an ideal system, nor even a recommended system, but a good discussion point. In short, systems that get abused risk regulation or change.</p>
<p>I agree with Classic Rocker Dad… when your kid is seriously, passionately interested in out-of-state schools with acceptance rates hovering around 10% to 20%, and you are from an urban public school with very little history (or time) to help you figure out “chances” your list must grow to counter the unpredictability. </p>
<p>We vacilated between over-confidence and sheer panic when she cut her list off at 13 schools. Now that she has gotten a couple acceptances, that panic seems ill-placed, but it was very, very real at the time. I think the scariest part is knowing that the safeties are actually not safe - that is where her list grew. And she is still considering the safeties - they were not schools added at random. </p>
<p>Until the schools can increase (and publicly acknowledge) predictability, and until FA offers can be predicted, limiting applications to 5 or 6 won’t fly - as long as the schools find it cost-effective to maintain their admissions staff and deal with the onslaught, this system is here to stay.</p>
<p>Univ of Iowa had a very predictable admissions system that was transparent:</p>
<p>If you were at or above a certain admissions index, and you apply by 2/1, you were in.</p>
<p>An admissions index was, I believe, (ACT Score x 2) + Percentile Rank</p>
<p>Unfortunately, repeated inquiries to the registrar as to what the real final price will be have gone nowhere - either no answer or pointing me to sticker prices that they admit is the not the final price.</p>
<p>SHOW ME THE INFORMATION</p>
<p>But then the applicant would also need to know his or herself and whether he or she wants U Iowa. Said applicant is young (uh, she’s in <em>high school</em>, by defintion <em>naive</em>, inexperienced, ignorant, to college) and as busy as heck trying to keep up in insanely challenging AP type of programs. I do not know how kids find the time to do the AP curriculum in HS and visit colleges to preview them.</p>
<p>If she finally understands and figures out she is more of a small college person, if she did not apply to those types of schools, the door is probably closed by then on that option.</p>
<p>Admission officers at a lot of colleges are very used to admitting MANY more students than they can actually enroll–the yield of admitted students who turn into enrolling students at many colleges is well below 50 percent. Strong applicants applying to more than one college doesn’t hurt anybody, because, again, every college has to fill its entering class every year. All admission officers know how to get a full class out of their pool of applicants. </p>
<p>After edit: I see it was not in this thread, but in some other recent thread, where I last mentioned the national match program used for medical residencies. </p>
<p>This is a long-established precedent for doing admissions to selective programs somewhat differently from the way college admissions are done for undergraduates. There has been a lot of research on the medical resident match program and the mathematical algorithm that underlies it, as well as on the strategies used by applicants to get into the best residency programs and the strategies used by residency programs to get the best new doctors they can. All of this could be applied to undergraduate admission, but that would be a big change in the current nonsystem and would require a lot of buy-in from hundreds of colleges and hundreds of thousands of applicants. </p>
<p>There seems to be a consensus that the lack of transparency in this whole process is the real culprit behind the admissions frenzy. </p>
<p>Notwithstanding, I still think that ‘admissions coalitions’ for selective colleges would provide a solution in the following ways:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>While we know how many people apply to each individual elite school, we don’t know how many of those are cross-applicants with other schools. With a more centralized system, we would know exactly how many people are vying for the coveted spots. </p></li>
<li><p>Waitlist panic would be minimized because there would be more predictability from the point of view of admissions. </p></li>
<li><p>Superstar applicants would be less likely to take up qualified students’ slots. </p></li>
<li><p>The fact that another independent body would be officially mediating the process COULD result in greater transparency about numbers. </p></li>
<li><p>Yield rates would be higher, as well as the probability that students who end up at a school ACTUALLY PREFER THE SCHOOL. </p></li>
<li><p>The Early Decision commitment would be enforced more strongly. (Instead of just relying on people’s trust)</p></li>
</ol>
<p>In sum, it’s okay that people apply to 20+ schools, so long as the majority of those schools aren’t megaselective. What we need is not a cap on the number of schools to which one can apply, but a more transparent and organized admissions process through which certain tiers limit the amount of schools one can apply to within that very tier.</p>
<p>token, I understand that the college will get a full class. But when the admissions group is deciding on whether to send an ACCEPT or REJECT to an applicant, don’t they compare one applicant with another? The better applicant will get the accept. If that other applicant werr not there, then the other one would get the accept.</p>
<p>Tell me where I am wrong in this characterization. I understood an adcon saying this to me.</p>
<p>The people in this thread who keep asking how numerous applications/acceptances would hurt other students–you’re kidding, right? Colleges make decisions based on expected yields, so they can fill a class, but smaller schools, in particular, can’t afford to be way off on the over side because of a lack of space/facilities to accomodate too many extras. Even a college the size of Syracuse had a significant problem a few years ago when it wound up with a class over 20% larger than it wanted–it had to house first years in undesirable locations, and restrict acceptances the next year to compensate. For smaller schools, the problem is even more acute. Hence, as the number of double digit applications rise, schools are forced to delay decisions on all but clearcut students. This even happens at big schools–it’s happening at Indiana this year.</p>
<p>I am in favor of restricting applications–if you can’t accomplish what you need with 6-8, my view is that you’re simply applying to schools without any real consideration of personal, intellectual or financial fit. I do understand the opposing arguments. The one, though, which says nobody suffers seems silly.</p>
<p>FWIW, I have no bitterness in this fight. I have one child currently in college (the others are in ninth and seventh grades, respectively)–she was accepted everywhere she applied. We haven’t suffered from the double digit application craze. I hope nobody else does either.</p>
<p>and other colleges in a similar admission selectivity echelon have always received, and always will receive, some “safety” applications from applicants who expect to get into, but can’t be sure of getting into, some more desirable college. This happens every year. The job of the admission committee at a college in that echelon is to make offers of admission to many more students than will actually enroll, knowing that some applicants will enroll (they wouldn’t have applied at all if they were totally uninterested in that college) but some will not (because they received an offer from some college they like better). Limiting applications per student to any number greater than one is not going to make this problem go away. Students should use resources like the College Board College QuickFinder to compare colleges </p>
<p>I don’t see how star students applying for many colleges just because it seems good to do so does not diminish the chances for another good student who might have just a bit less than stellar stats. Indeed, there are more offers made than there are places, but it will render a lot of decisions based on luck (my MIT interviewer told me this), and this is fundamentally unfair.</p>
<p>Additionally, five schools would mean you select schools that you love, rather than just random schools you pick of USNews. Plus, the unpredictability of the process goes away automatically as there will be a far lesser no of applications for one college. </p>
<p>So basically, this decreases the admissions frenzy and makes lives easier for both the students and colleges.</p>
<p>Although it doesn’t leave you with a myriad of options, I believe it’s reasonable to apply to only 5 colleges: 1 safety, 2 matches, 2 reaches. From personal experience, I only applied to 5. While I didn’t have the money to apply to every Ivy, I applied to schools that I wouldn’t mind going to no matter the circumstances–financial, preferential, culture, etc. Color me bitter from my inability to apply to as many flashy universities as others, but I just don’t see the argument that it’s acceptable to apply to 13+ schools. I feel that those who advocate this decision really don’t know what they want or love in a college. They should dig deeper into prospective colleges. In spite of the fact that applying to more colleges may offer you more options, the reality is that you’re only going to be attending only one. So make an informed decision from the beginning.</p>
<p>suppose you are only able to apply to 5 schools. what if you get rejected by all of them? this leaves you unable to attend a college. furthermore, reducing the number of applications will force students to visit the colleges they want to apply to so they get a feel of that college before applying. although i realize that many students do this, there are also numerous students that dont have enough time to do this, so they apply to a range of schools, and from the ones that accept them, the student will tour the campus after the acceptance. honestly, there just isn’t enough time for a person to visit many colleges.</p>
<p>With all these talk about applying to numerous colleges to get a better chance at getting in, or on students who do this just to quote unquote “be sure”. Its much more easier now to just apply to an online educational program. </p>
<p>Why waste your time worrying if you will get accepted or not. I say go online guys..you dont have to burn yourself out thinking if you will get accepted or not …or the no. of people you are in competition with. </p>
<p>Online programs nowadays are as hightech and is oftentimes even better than classroom meeting.You can do it in the comfort of your home or wherever and whenever you like.</p>
<p>“There seems to be a consensus that the lack of transparency in this whole process is the real culprit behind the admissions frenzy.”</p>
<p>I agree 200% with this statement. I compared the democratic U. S. with the not-so-democratic China. In almost all aspects of the society, the US is more transparent than China. College admission is about the only area that China is more transparent than U.S. The chinese system is almost soley based on college entrance exams. To be sure, their system is not totally fair, but it is transparent. The system is apparently working for the Chinese economy has been growing 8-11% every year over last thirty years since the national college entrance exam system was restored in 1977.</p>
<p>To piggyback on mirageimage’s point, not only do some people not have enough time to visit colleges before they’re accepted, many do not have enough money to do so, either. The current system may hurt those with less money because of application fees, but waivers go a way to helping that. </p>
<p>The proposed system seems even worse, and not only because it make sit harder to apply to a range of finacial safties. It’s still normally cheeper to pay app. fees to 13 schools (if somehow waivers are not usable) and then visit 4 or 5 once acceptances are in, than to try to visit 13 or more schools, esp. if they are all over the country. And it wold be REALLY hard accuratley chose the 5 best schools for someone without visits (and honestly, after visiting all of my choices only once, I don’t think I could have cut my list to anything less than 7 in a logical way, and even that is a stretch).</p>
<p>Anyone applying to 20 colleges has not taken the time to do their research. NO ONE needs to apply to 20 schools.</p>
<p>That said, OP is ranting. In the end, XYZ Univ will have the same number of kids in its frosh class whether they pick 20% of 10,000 apps or 40% of 5,000 apps. There is something vaguely Big Brother about someone (who? the government?) monitoring how many schools you apply to.</p>
<p>The scariest thing in this thread was the suggestion to eliminate the Common App. All 6 schools DS applied to took the Common App, and I’m only half-joking when I tell DD that she’s only allowed to apply to schools that take the Common App. Seriously, how many different ways to fill out your name, address and EC’s do you need? Common App has choices of essay questions, and the supplements allow the colleges to get the specific additional info they need (why do you want to go here, and additional/specific essay questions). Personally, I’d like to see EVERY college take the Common App. Certainly made life a heck of a lot easier when DS was applying to college.</p>