<p>Does anybody else find it ridiculous, and a little unrealistic, for colleges to give us only a few weeks to pick where we want to go? Many students will not receive a decision from all their colleges until early April, and students are applying to many more schools than in the past. While the admissions committees get four, or in the case of deferred candidates, six months to make their decision, we have to book plane trips, attend admitted students' weekends, and decide where we're spending the next four years in a precious four week period. Is anyone else dreading the month of April as much as I am?? :)</p>
<p>Actually I never thought of it that way. But now that I think about it, yea that is unfair. I doubt I’ll be accepted to most of my schools, but even among the few to which I gain admission, I’ll have a tough time making a decision.</p>
<p>yea i never thought abt it that way, but you have to remember that many schools have 20k+ applications to decide on, we have like 10-15 schools!</p>
<p>lol well I’m assuming you sort of at least had an idea going in which schools you prefer (even if you haven’t been admitted) and that with the crazy competition these days the colleges may make their decision for you. Though, I can understand if someone were admitted to HYPSM expecting them to come to a decision in 4 weeks is probably unreasonable-but then again-most of us don’t end up in that fortunate dillema =)</p>
<p>I think that’s reasonable time to make the decision. You should already know where you really wanna go and your backup plans</p>
<p>You’ve had years to make the decission.</p>
<p>Haha it’s true, a bit unfair… but they’re the colleges… they’re allowed to be unfair… as long as they will let me in :D</p>
<p>I agree with you, it does seem like there’s going to be too little time for us to choose.</p>
<p>But I bet that’s not how they look at it, because they probably assume you’re going to go to their school once you get in kind of thing. Which is probably why the really crappy schools tell you in like 2 weeks whether you got in or not. Lol</p>
<p>You, as an applicant, probably have at most 6 - 12 acceptances to choose from. And you really should be able to narrow it down to your top 3 or 4 after you have the acceptances and financial aid offers in hand. But universities and top schools can easily have 10,000 - 30,000+ applications to review, so 4 weeks vs. 4 months seems reasonable to me. Dragging out the response time would just make the waitlisted students agonize a little longer.</p>
<p>Well its much easier b/c you dont have to choose from 20,000 colleges; whereas, they have to choose from 20,000 applicants.</p>
<p>Hahah yeah, I kinda wish we had more time to tell them! ):
It’s sorta hard making a decision that you know will pretty much affect you for the next four years…</p>
<p>I agree that it could be considered unfair, but for many students it isn’t really a problem. Many students have had their eye on certain schools for forever, and for (I would venture to say a majority of students) many, it simply comes down to the financial aid package.</p>
<p>I don’t really think it is unfair. You should be figuring out where you want to go far before you find out plus they have to decide between 20,000+…which is of course > maybe 6 schools to choose from.</p>
<p>Quixote–I’m right there with you–this is crazy! I was just wondering if anybody ever put down a deposit with more than one school while deciding…I realize that’s a waste of money but it’s a lot to consider in a very short time.</p>
<p>When you think about the information available to you about the school compared to the information available to the school about you, and the number of applicants to a school compared to the number of college options for you, you might consider the time disparity a little more fair</p>
<p>No, I think it’s quite fair. In fact, I think we have a little too much time to decide.</p>
<p>Yes, colleges have many thousands of applicants to pick from and to admit. However, they are not booking plane tickets to visit every applicant. Once someone is admitted, they want/need to visit the campus on or not on the admit weekend. Colleges should honestly notify applicants sooner. I don’t want to hear about the volume of applicants and the manpower to review applications. The average application fee is $50, multiply that by the thousands of applicants, and you have a few million dollars to spend on processing/reviewing the applications.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s terribly unfair, but it can bring about some nasty predicaments if you need to make visits in order to narrow down your choices.</p>
<p>Colleges have to chose from thousands of applicants.</p>
<p>You have to chose from (at most) a dozen or so.</p>
<p>By the way, doing the math: 10,000 applicants at $50 a pop is still only $500,000 – not nearly enough to have tons of manpower.</p>
<p>10,000 applicants is weak compared to most universities. $500,000 would be plenty</p>