There Should be a New Admission system in Place

Applying to College
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<p>This is the silliest thread I’ve seen in a long time.</p>

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<p>This is fallacious thinking at its finest. More applicants will not get in. If they have X number of spots, they will fill X number of spots. If more people apply, more people will be rejected. But the same number of people will get in anyway. The same people are being rejected in each scenario. So, if Oxford has, say, 500 spots open, and 1000 people apply…rank them all and numbers 501-1000 are rejected. If 2000 people apply…rank them all and numbers 501-2000 are rejected. The same people are rejected.</p>

<p>I think you’re also forgetting that the UK only has about 150 universities (give or take a handful). The US has 2618 colleges and universities. That, alone, is the reason why people cannot be limited. In addition, funding is not an issue in the UK as it is here - uni is far cheaper because it is subsidized. Here, many apply widely for financial aid purposes.</p>

<p>People can only attend one school. So if a person gets accepted to several schools, that is where the waitlist comes in. if you are outright rejected, that means you didn’t make the waitlist. You weren’t going to get in - no matter how the apps were limited. I know it hurts a little, but that the way life is.</p>

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<p>It does not matter how many acceptance letters go out (nor how many rejection letters, for that matter). There are only 2x matriculants out of 20,000 students. Limiting applications only impacts the acceptance rate and yield rate, but not the number of matriculants at each college (unless they increase class size), and certainly not the “number of qualified candidates” being accepted since the “number of qualified candidates” is already fixed number even before the applications are mailed.</p>

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<p>One thing you can hope for is that when the best schools see increasing pent up demand for their product, 27,200 apps for 1600 spots at Harvard for example, maybe they will increase class size. The bigger problem is that the second and third tier schools satisfy the demand AND CHARGE THE SAME PRICE. Like going to a car dealer for a Porsche and the salesman saying sorry we are out of Porches but I have a Chevy Malibu you can have for the same money. In what other consumer market does this happen? For middle income it gets even worse as Bart Giamatti points out. Williams’s grad on the board of Fairfield U. It costs more for a middle income student to attend Fairfield than to Williams or Yale or Harvard. There is nothing Fairfield can do about it since they do not have the endowment money to subsidize tuition. Given all this and the fact that there are deals out there like free Harvard or Yale a students needs to apply everywhere. Like buying a lottery ticket, you know you have a better chance of being hit by lightning, but you buy it anyway. And no one stops you or limits the number of tickets with some arbitrary policy.</p>

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<p>One other concern that may have not been mentioned: our kids and others in our school tried to keep applications down so as to avoid interfering with someone else’s chances. Colleges limit the number of applicants from one school, in general.</p>

<p>Both our son and our daughter refused to apply to some schools that they liked a lot, but weren’t desperate to attend, because a (lesser qualified, in a few cases) classmate was absolutely desperate to go to that school. They didn’t want to affect the classmate’s chances.</p>

<p>If your match is someone else’s reach, and you are just applying for safety, or even for the heck of it, you can be directly affecting the chances of someone else in your grade at school.</p>

<p>I have no idea if this principal applies mathematically to a broader context, but it must be a philosophical concern. It certainly can make things a lot more civilized and gentle all around.</p>

<p>Also, for those who say things like “I worked hard all during high school on academics and extracurriculars and service” or whatever…Letting college admissions rule your life like this creates a spiritual sickness. Kids should be able to live naturally, do what they are naturally interested in, and if they are inner driven rather than driven by externals like grades and scores and college acceptances, they will end up in the right place, an even better place, in the end, and enjoy life a whole lot more.</p>

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<p>I think there is a huge difference in perspective between the applicants who can afford to go to any college that admits them (presumably because mom and dad will pay for that) and the large majority of applicants who have to compare out-of-pocket price after receiving offers of admission and financial aid. My policy recommendation is to let each differing family decide how many applications a high school student should file. There are still many families that only file one application.</p>

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<p>A good concept for attaining spirituality, but not practical for college admissions. I didn’t get the impression from this person that the admission process consumed them. It was a wise and prudent strategy for maximizing potential opportunities and outcomes. Preparation precedes opportunity. Of course there are elements that are market driven and are artificially created, but knowing the game, understanding the game, and playing the game well keeps most from the “spiritual sickness” you speak of.</p>

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<p>I’m not implying that the admissions process consumed me. Just because one works very hard does not mean they are consumed – I enjoyed studying various things in high school and I did well, but I did not want that effort to go to waste. I was explaining why it was a smart idea to apply to a wide array of schools – it’s a worthwhile investment that is compensated for by the nature of college and aid.</p>

<p>If anything, the ones who are consumed are those who plan on getting into Harvard/Yale/etc and ONLY that school and will be forever upset otherwise. That will drive you insane. It’s good to have a top choice, but it’s even better to be realistic and look into a wider selection of schools you’d be thrilled to be at. I happened to find 15 such choices, and it was worth the money to apply to those 15. I was willing to put in the effort and the money, and as a result I was able to cherry-pick my college.</p>

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<p>I agree completely with ClassicRockerDAD early in this thread. Kids (like mine) who apply to a lot of schools do so because of the capriciousness of admissions. It is the only rational response to an admissions process that is becoming irrational.</p>

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<p>I’m one parent who thinks 6 plus or minus a couple is a good target, less of course is just fine. In my humble opinion more than that shows a lack of decision making skills, a lack of focus, a lack of research on the kids part and a lack of guidance by parents, guidance counselors etc. Kids who apply for “sport” are particularly immature. The argument about fishing for money is harder to counter, but from my experience with kid #1, my estimated EFC was pretty much what my real EFC was and within $400 of what my husband and I really felt we could contribute and with all the schools it was pretty easy to search their web pages and see what kind of merit dollars and scholarships were available, one school even gave us a preliminary package estimate before spring and schools that release the Common Data Sets are even easier to ascertain where the dollars may fall. I would think that more applications means that admissions officers have less time to really think about each applicant, less time to actually read the application and in the long run is a dis-service to students which can’t be good. In the high schools it creates more busy work for guidance and school offices and more letters of recommendation that teachers have to write which most likely creates less insightful comments and more sloppy paperwork in general. As far as transparency…I’m not so sure what that “means”. I don’t think colleges or universities should admit solely on stats. I could make the case for public universities and in-state students, but for the most part I really believe in the holisitc approach. Part of growing up is understanding that people are multi-dimensional. Again, there is enough data available these days that a student should know before they touch the submit key whether they are “statistically” in the run for a particular college so I can’t buy into stats based admissions. So all in all, I definitely side with the high schools that set limits. Is it a “right” for kids to send 10 or more applications, sure, but really, I think it hurts everyone involved in college admissions from the high school to the college in the long run. The young posters who talked about “fear” of not getting in anywhere I really feel for, obviously they aren’t getting support and counseling from adults to alleviate that fear. My “stats” - S #1 had 15 schools identified and was able to narrow down to 5 where he submitted apps --which was the target his father and I set for him.</p>

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<p>Those who say that there should be a limit will never be able to convince the opposition unless they are able to show that applying to fewer schools does not hurt the applicant, even though it may help the system in general. Basically, I’m saying people are selfish by nature. Why would someone sacrifice having more options if they aren’t getting any benefits out of it? Why change the status quo when the system is working perfectly for them?</p>

<p>If the application limit comes with transparency as someone mentioned earlier, more people would support it. Students sacrifice options, but gain predictability. </p>

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<p>I think 6 is fine as well; I had applied to 7 undergrad schools and 6 grad schools. But what about the people you just mentioned? The ones who have a difficult time making decisions (I know plenty), the ones with poor guidance from parents and schools, the ones who don’t know about collegeconfidential, etc… you can research schools on your own all you want, but you will still never be comfortable with just 5 schools if all you’re going by is information posted on the college admissions websites. </p>

<p>College admissions is stressful enough as it is already. Forcing a student in October or November to decide on 5 schools that they want to spend the next 4 or more years at will make it even tougher. Come April, many will be second-guessing themselves; should I have applied to school x instead of school y? Maybe I would have been accepted to school x, but because the limit is 5, I won’t know. I can see transfer applications rising if the freshmen applications are limited, since many will want to try to apply to that reach school that they couldn’t apply to one year earlier.</p>

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<p>Second guessing oneself is pretty normal behavior. But decision making and critical thinking skills are essential once one is on their own. So I don’t think it’s unreasonable to expect seniors to be able to winnow down some choices. As to the expectation that there will be more transfers…I don’t know if I buy this as many kids settle down and are very happy where they land.</p>

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<p>My school has been having issues because the matriculation rate is up. The rate has been increasing every year for the pass several years. It’s hard for them to set up proper admission formulas because of that, since they don’t want to increase the number of students at the school for financial reasons.</p>

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<p>There is absolutely no evidence that an increase in the number of applications by a few candidates is having any negative effect on the admission of the rest of the applicants pool. </p>

<p>If that were true you would find an increase in the number of multiple admits and a decrease in yield as more admitted student fail to enroll when admitted. The data shows the opposite. As admission rates have been going down, yields have actually gone UP not down. Here is the comparative data for the top universities over the past ten years. </p>

<p>ENROLLMENT YIELD </p>

<p>Most Recent , 1997 USNWR , Improvement in Yield , </p>

<p>65% , 48% , 17% , U Penn
60% , 43% , 17% , Columbia
70% , 54% , 16% , Yale
67% , 53% , 14% , MIT
67% , 55% , 12% , Stanford
37% , 26% , 11% , Emory
39% , 30% , 9% , Vanderbilt
32% , 23% , 9% , Wash U
68% , 60% , 8% , Princeton
56% , 48% , 8% , Brown
55% , 49% , 6% , Notre Dame
32% , 26% , 6% , Johns Hopkins
50% , 46% , 4% , Dartmouth
78% , 75% , 3% , Harvard
34% , 31% , 3% , U Chicago
39% , 36% , 3% , Wake Forest
43% , 40% , 3% , Duke
41% , 38% , 3% , Northwestern
41% , 39% , 2% , U Michigan
46% , 45% , 1% , Cornell
51% , 50% , 1% , U Virginia
37% , 38% , -1% , Rice
57% , 58% , -1% , U North Carolina
31% , 32% , -1% , Tufts
47% , 51% , -4% , Georgetown
37% , 43% , -6% , Caltech</p>

<p>If you are looking at the top of the pyramid at the HYPSM pool, the number of multiple admits has gone steadily down. Fewer and fewer students are admitted to more than one of the five schools. With an average of 70% yield up from 60% ten years ago, more and more of the students admitted actually enroll. They simply have fewer choices than 10 years ago. Of the 30% “excess” admissions, a large percentage is from students who enroll outside of HYPSM for financial or other reasons. Most likely no more than half, or 15% of the total acceptances are for cross-admits. That is less than 1,000 students with multiple admission offers at the most selective schools. This is consistent with statements by Deans of Admission at Harvard and MIT that around 15% of the enrolling students are so-called “super-candidates” with virtually guaranted admission based on merit (Olympiad winners and the like..). Valecdictorians and 2400 SAT scorers are routinely rejected. For the remaining 85%, acceptance was always a longshot. The only way a highly qualified candidate who is not a super-candidate can maximize his chances of admission to one of these schools is by applying to all of them. The colleges themselves say as much. Chance plays a larger and larger role in admission. You just have to play the odds. </p>

<p>You find the same phenomenon repeated at LACs and at each leach level of selectivity. If a student wants to be accepted to a top LAC, he’d better apply to as many that he feels he can reasonably feel attending. There just will not be many multiple offers as the yield data shows. </p>

<p>Even state universities have seen their yields go up. If the increased selectivity was somehow caused by overqualified students who were admitted but failed to enroll, you would find a rise in the median SAT of the admitted pool and a lower yield. But what you are actually finding is an increase in yield and a rise in the median SAT of the matriculating pool. More qualified students are applying AND enrolling. </p>

<p>The issue of “fit” has been vastly overplayed. Within a geographic region, the students bodies at colleges with a similar selectivity are virtually indistinguishable. You could shuffle the students at HYPSM around and you would find very little difference. Same thing with most LACs within a range of selectivity.</p>

<p>What you do give up by limiting yourself arbitrarily to a specified number of applications is choice and most likely quality as well. If you only apply to two or three reaches and one or two matches, there is a significant chance you will end up at your safety.</p>

<p>So don’t blame the increased selectivity on the applicants that do their homework, blame it rather on the baby-boomer parents which (pro)created this huge supply of students competing for a fixed set of slots.</p>

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<p>cellardweller – you and I posted the same contention at the same time. LIKE OMG! :wink: :D</p>

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<p>False. In fact, I think it’s just the opposite. As more and more students apply to more and more colleges, the matriculation rates on which colleges used to rely because of their mostly steady nature have become mercurial and ever harder for admissions officers to guess. As a result, many colleges are having to admit even more students to account for the changing matriculation rates.</p>

<p>Let’s use Northwestern University for our example. Since, as you say, too many people are applying to too many colleges, let’s take the converse of that: the exact number of students whom would ordinarily matriculate to the college apply. In 2006, that was 2,062. But wait, 18,385 applied, and 5,434 were admitted. Instead of a mere 2000 students that got a shot, over 5000 were able to choose NU. Doesn’t it seem like more students have an opportunity to attend Northwestern because of Northwesterns 39% matriculation rate? </p>

<p>As applications increase, matriculation rate decreases, and though it’s not exactly a 1:1 ratio, the relationship is clearly inverse. Though the admission rate drops, so does the matriculation rate, meaning that the admission rate isn’t exactly inverse related to the number of applicants who apply. Northwestern probably has the same number of spots for freshman students as it did 100 years ago, and as equity has (for the most part) swept America, more diverse and qualified students are applying more than ever. Sure, they may be applying to more schools as well, but the matriculation rate determines how much the influx of applications affects the admission rate.</p>

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<p>Of those that want to limit apps under the mistaken belief that it “hogs” places, I gotta ask: have you taken AP Stats yet? If not, I highly recommend it.</p>

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<p>I thought it is easy to see how applying to 20+ schools can hurt the applicant:

  1. The quality of his individual apps is likely to go down. Simple: colleges tend to change apps from year to year, final versions usually appear in September, so students have to do apps during the school year. Those who submitted 15 apps - could you submit 10 more apps with extensive supplements for say Jan 1 deadline? I saw my daughter a month ago: 12 was very close to the limit.
  2. Your senior grades at school may become a problem. Or you will screw up something else. Like INTEL paper. And lower chances in reach schools.
  3. How do you show your interest to 20+ schools? My daughter had 3 interviews last weekend and has two more next week. And we go on a campus visit this weekend. Once again, more apps mean lower chances at schools that care about your interest in them.
  4. Couple of daughter’s teachers did set the limit on the number of letters they send per student this year. At 12. Students planning to apply to more schools had a problem (they eventually would agree to 13 or 14, but they would not send 20+ because they think it’s ridiculous. It’s teachers’ right to think 20+ letters is ridiculous.
  5. Not everyone is a marathon runner. And usually students do not know how long they can run in this case. Sloppiness and indifference can onset, and they will hurt. Kids exhausted by Jan 1 deadline are likely to send weaker apps for Jan 15. I saw my daughter - she needed a break after Jan 2. At least one weekend free of college apps. This worked since she had only two Jan 15 apps. What if she had 10 more?
  6. The last thing a great student want is a nervous breakdown. This happens!</p>

<p>What I am fighting for? I see a snowball effect here. My daughter just had to apply to 12 or 13 schools. Adding one more reach because acceptance rates in two other reaches are becoming single-digit, adding two more low reaches in order to increase the frequently discussed probability of getting into “at least one school”. She added three more safeties because her beloved safety is likely to have less than 30% acceptance rate. She managed and I hope her midterm grades will not drop beyond low 90s. And we will make couple more campus visits within next month. I hope that in April thick envelopes will come from schools on the top of her list.
But I have another child. And I do not want to enter her senior year with a 25+ list of colleges. I think it is HER RIGHT to go to a college she deserves without loosing sanity. That is through a convenient and efficiently working system that does not put a child attending a demanding high school and not using extensive secretarial help at a major disadvantage.
With the snowball now being at 12-15 we cannot put the cap at 5 or 6. But we still can put it at 12-15. And even those who applied to many schools would agree that with good planning it is ENOUGH to get a nice mix of reaches/matches/safeties. Enough to use the 0.9^10 formula. Enough to have a chance to compare financial options.</p>

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<p>But, once again, what about those kids that can’t afford/don’t have time to visit schools before apps go out? I did tons of research, but I wouldn’t have been able to cut my list down to anything close to 6 or 8 without extensive visits. I mean, if I were going on research alone, I would have had Grinnell on my list, because in a lot of ways it was exactly what I wanted. It took a visit for me to find out that it really was just too remote for me (nothing against the school, just a personal preference). And, oppositely, if I HAD been forced to cut down without visiting, I probably would have cut Carleton, which I liked but did not love before visiting, but it ended up being one of my top choices after a visit.</p>

<p>I mean, not everyone finds that visits help them, but many, many do, and not everyone can afford to visit everyone place they’re interested in—for some, it makes more sense to find out where they’re accepted (and got enough money, often), and then visit.</p>

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<p>the OP is clearly someone who has been rejected from top quality schools</p>

<p>even though there is a high number of people applying, only 1 admission spot is filled by them</p>

<p>and that’s why there is a waiting list</p>

<p>colleges do take this phenomenon into account - most colleges hand out more acceptances than the amount of people they expect to enroll</p>

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<p>Citymom:</p>

<p>There is no need to cap the number of applications at any threshold. This phenomenon will take care of itself. As all the evidence shows, the increased selectivity is strictly a function of demographics. As the current echo-boomer generation shrinks, selectivity will decline and therefore the need to file many applications to get at least one admission. Trust the efficiency of a free market. If the only person hurt by too many applications is the applicant himself, so be it. He will naturally move back to a manageable number that maximizes his chances of admission, taking into account the negative returns of poorly prepared applications.</p>

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<p>the one way i think an applicant is hurt when others apply to too many schools is when colleges decide to take a limited number of applicants from a particular school.
I mean if the val from a particular HS applies to say HYPSM and gets accepted at all, and enrolls only to one, the others will be waitlisted only because HYPSM dont want to take too many from one school. Now when admitting someone off the wait list colleges wont go like " oh we didnt get a guy from that school". instead they will simply just admit the next best applicant who is not from that particular school. And thus the guy who could have got in, had it not been for the val applying to ALL the top schools, will be rejected unless colleges make a conscious effort to admit a wait listed applicant from that particular school.
My arguement does sounds confusing, but i think its right.</p>