<p>Cellardweller:
I can see your point on negative returns of too many applications.
But I do not agree that increased selectivity is strictly a function of demographics with echo-boomer generation being a major problem. There are other changes in the society that drive it. I think the major reasons are the increase in the % of college-bound kids at high schools; the increase in the % of parents with college degrees ready to send their kids to 4-year colleges, the increase in the age when girls plan on tarting family even in stats with traditionally early marriages, etc. And these trends will keep feeding college app. craze.</p>
<p>Citymom:</p>
<p>It is true that other factors beyond the echo-boomer phenomenon is feeding the increase in college applications. Please note, on the other hand that 95% of all colleges have a high acceptance rate. </p>
<p>At the most selective colleges, these other groups feeding the college boom have had little effect so far. Despite all efforts at AA by elite colleges, the supply of academically qualified first generation colleges students, recent immigrants and URMs is still very small. </p>
<p>SAT scores are tightly correlated with income. It is simply not the case that highly qualified applicants are being crowded out by first generation college students at elite colleges. The percentage of middle and upper income females going on to college also has not changed in the past decade. At the most selective colleges, the rise in median SAT scores is tightly correlated with the increase in echo-boomers. They are already planning for a significant drop in selectivity within 5 to 10 years and with average incomes stagnating, not much can be done to prevent it.</p>
<p>"the increase in the age when girls plan on tarting "</p>
<p>har har</p>
<p>While these rough mathematical calculations that people have created do a good job showing that this doesn’t necessarily diminish the chances of an elite applicant getting into AN elite school, they don’t take into account the various preferences that students have among the schools. </p>
<p>If applicants X, Y, and Z apply to colleges X’, Y’, and Z’ (where X’= first choice of applicant X, and so forth), then it’s very likely that X gets into Y’, Y gets into Z’, and Z gets into Y’.</p>
<p>The English system allows people whose first choice is either Oxford or Cambridge to have a better shot. The Brits know what they are doing. Some of the foolish comments directed toward my position need to provide better arguments rather than assuming that competition is always good and that the free market sorts everything out. You’ve all been listening to too much Ron Paul hype (just kidding!).</p>
<p>This discussion needs to take into the account the nuances of the elite schools and the fact that they are not interchangeable.</p>
<p>I am not saying that people “should” not apply to 20+ schools. That is for the domain of ethics. My brother, for many of the arguments people have suggested, is applying to a boatload of schools, and I can’t argue with him. But this is a response to a broken system. I am only suggesting that:</p>
<p>A. The system is indeed broken.
and
B. A plausible solution is SOME SORT of regulation for the number of applications that one can send, whether that be minimum admissions requirements, a centralized system, or cooperation among applicants from the same high school.</p>
<p>I love the wide variety of educational options available in the US, but I do think that people need to have a bit of a reality check if they think sending out anywhere above twelve applications is “normal” or reasonable for reasons other than financial ones. The main problem as I see it is that with skyrocketing numbers of applicants, admissions committees are simply put in a tough place. Harvard, for example, has over 27,000 applications this year–and the same amount of time to review those applications as in years gone by. All admissions blogs have posts about reading files late into the night, rushing to complete a stack rather than being able to reflect thoughtfully on each file. Yes, schools can hire more admissions staff, but with so many apps, it’s very difficult to make meaningful distinctions between candidates. The holistic judgement of applications, a hallmark of our system of higher education, falters under the burden of so many applications. You can talk about “chances” and probability all you want, but admissions is ultimately a human process and when the number of applications overwhelms available human resources, it is the applicants who will suffer.
Caveat: I was deferred early action from my top choice school (which saw a huge increase in apps), so this might just be sour grapes. :)</p>
<p>Here’s my FAQ on demographic trends, which were mentioned in an earlier reply: </p>
<p>Population trends in the United States are not the only issue influencing the competitiveness of college admission here. The children already born show us what the expected number of high school students are in various years, but the number of high school students in the United States, which is expected to begin declining in a few years, isn’t the whole story. </p>
<p>First of all, if more students who begin high school go on to college, there will be more applicants to college even with a declining number of high school students. And that is the trend in the United States and worldwide. </p>
<p>Second, colleges in the United States accept applications from all over the world, so it is quite possible that demographic trends in the United States will not be the main influence on how many students apply to college. The cohorts of high-school-age students are still increasing in size in some countries (NOT most of Europe). </p>
<p>Third, even if the number of applicants to colleges overall stays the same, or even declines, the number of applicants to the most competitive colleges may still increase. The trend around the world is a “flight to quality” of students trying to get into the best college they can in increasing numbers, and increasing their consensus about which colleges to put at the top of their application lists. I do not expect college admission to be any easier for my youngest child than for my oldest child, even though she is part of a smaller birth cohort in the United States.</p>
<p>I confess up front that I didn’t read the entire thread. In case it has yet to be mentioned, I believe Phillips Exeter allows seniors to only apply to five schools. (If it’s six, please don’t flame me!) They even have a plan of attack with regard to number of reaches, matches, safeties. This plan may be optional, but either way, it’s sound advice IMO.</p>
<p>What kind of stupid idea is it to be restricted to only applying to 5 schools? </p>
<p>What if there are other issues at hand, such as comparing financial aid/ merit scholarship offers, applying to super selective colleges/programs, etc?</p>
<p>Look people, sometimes applying to 20+ colleges is reasonable. It depends wholly on the circumstances, however.</p>
<p>tokenadult:</p>
<p>What you say may be true in general but again has little impact on the most selective colleges. </p>
<p>Borderline college applicants who may previously have skipped college and entered the workforce are not the ones sending applications to top colleges. They generally apply to community colleges where there is plenty or room. </p>
<p>International applicants are not flocking to the US either for undergraduate education. The overwhelming majority of internationals come to the US as graduate students not undergrads. Also, among qualified internationals who may consider applying very few have the financial capability or the desire to pay for a college education in the US while it is generally free in their home country. The near complete absence of financial aid for internationals (with very few exceptions) make it very unattractive. Furthermore, top schools have either an official or unofficial quota for internationals. Admission for internationals at most top colleges has hovered around 5% to 8% for years and is not going up in the absence of an increase in enrollment. It is just a not a significant factor.</p>
<p>amen</p>
<p>buzz buzz</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The “flight to quality” (third point in my post) precisely relates to the most selective colleges. You have seen the thread </p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/447625-applications-growth-class-2012-harvard-princeton-etc.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/447625-applications-growth-class-2012-harvard-princeton-etc.html</a> </p>
<p>showing that the highly selective colleges have gained applications at a much faster pace than the relevant United States birth cohorts have grown, haven’t you? </p>
<p>As for internationals (the second point in my post), yes, I am well aware that the majority of international students at a lot of research universities are graduate students rather than undergraduates, but I am also aware that several of the most selective colleges travel internationally to recruit undergraduate applicants, and that as other countries prosper, there are more and more full-pay international students who consider gaining their undergraduate degrees in the United States (as my own international nephews and one niece did). Check the percentage of international students at the top colleges have full financial aid for ALL undergraduates, domestic and international, and have no cap on international enrollments. Having lived overseas, I know there are a lot of very smart internationals who will use rising incomes or improved financial aid as a resource for obtaining an undergraduate education in the United States. (I think that is the OP’s situation too.)</p>
<p>well i dont know but i see on threads people scores getting interviews and not me so its depressing how it works.</p>
<p>I think people should be able to apply to more schools!</p>
<p>on cellardweller’s data</p>
<p>I -for one - ignore HYPSM. I guess I’d call them ‘outliers’, oddballs. When those schools says they can populate a full class w/ valedictorians several times over, they’re certainly not in this working man’s scope. But I know most of the audience in this forum is certainly interested in HYPSM, so go at it.</p>
<p>I agree with joshnewcollege, that the difference lies in which school a person is accepted at. Let’s take the Ivys for example. All of them are incredibly different from one another. No student, who was looking for fit, would apply to all eight. So, in a perfect world, all these top students would apply to only one or two Ivys that fit them, leading to smaller applicant pools for each individual Ivy, leading to a greater chance of the adcomms choosing students who truly love the school for its character, and not just for its prestige or name. Right now with so many students applying to all the schools, 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. These students may still choose to go to their not-top-choice Ivy (purely on the basis of it being an Ivy league school), but won’t be as happy as they could have been. Instead, they accepted a spot that should have gone to someone else, and that someone else probably accepted a spot that could have gone to them, making for miserable students all around.</p>
<p>maybe this was already suggested,</p>
<p>but i am in favor of abolishing the common app</p>
<p>yes, it helped a great deal during applications, but honestly, its so much easier to apply to more schoolss that you dont even like because they are easy to apply to. i am guilty of that. i applied to 2 more schools because they were common app and had no essays. do i like them? yes. did i apply for the ease and convenience? duh. </p>
<p>i think abolishing the common app would be a first step to filtering those passionate about a certain school from those who arent.</p>
<p>life is unfair..deal with it..</p>
<p>If a person wants to put that much time into 20 applications, he has the right to do that. I don’t really see how it’s possible, but if they want to that’s their choice. I had originally planned to apply to 10 schools (i liked all of them; couldn’t choose), but then ended up applying to 7 simply because I didn’t have time to do all ten. I wrote eighteen different essays total for my seven schools (including one for an unfinished app i never sent in). I think that shows I am interested in those schools thank you very much.</p>
<p>
</p>
<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>The only way to avoid that problem is to limit the number of applications to a particular school from a particular high school. “Sorry, you can’t apply to Yale. Four students from our high school have already applied.” That’s not a scenario that anyone (I don’t think) would support.</p>
<p>
The fact of the matter is that, based on just the information contained in applications and supplemental materials, there is no meaningful distinctions between candidates. That’s where the “luck” portion of the process comes in. And why all of these “why didn’t I get in?” posts dealing with highly selective schools make no sense.</p>
<p>
Yes, they do. And what they do works for Britain. They limit the percentage of the high schoolers who can go to university at all. They require that you apply to a particular major, and changes are not permitted. They do not take older or non-traditional students. Many fewer Brits go to college. And financial aid is a non sequiter; college is state-supported and if you can’t afford it, tough. Is this the system you really want? You can’t take one part of it and leave the rest.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>How do you know that most top students don’t apply to only “one or two Ivys…”, i.e., why would you assume that top students apply to all or nearly all 8? Are there any public stats for cross-applications?</p>
<p>btw: the American system used to allow people whose first choice was xx or yy to have a better shot, but many thought that unfair so two big schools dropped ED.</p>