<p>To me this is pretty simple giving advice to my kids … to be fair to both yourself and the greater pool of applicants keep any legitimate options open as long as needed however as soon as an option has been closed off let the school know so your application/acceptance will not affect anyone else.</p>
<p>I think the key is 3togo’s comment about legitimate options. Sometimes kids apply to places they would not attend, it’s silly but it happens all the time. Once some acceptances come in and it become obvious that the kid will not or never attend colleges where there are applications or acceptances the “right” thing to do is to tell the college(s) there is no intention of attending. If the OPs student might attend and there is no acceptance yet I see nothing wrong with leaving the application in place.</p>
<p>It is very hard, if you have never done college apps before, to really know where your kid will be accepted. Plus the GC’s always advice applying to safeties, good fits, and reaches. Once the good fits come in, hopefully with a positive answer, then I agree, let the safeties know you will not attend. But there is no problem with holding a place at any school, until a final decision is made. </p>
<p>It would be interesting to see a list of colleges that do NOT fill their freshman class. I am sure the colleges would never publicize this. My guess, is even the second tier elite schools that are crazy expensive, can always fill with foreign students, willing to pay the whole bill. I am not saying this in a negative way, just that I don’t think as applicants we need to worry about the spot not eventually filling.</p>
<p>^^Actually in the spring there is a published list of colleges that still have openings. I believe the NACAC publishes this and generally someone posts the link when it’s up on their website. There is always a surprise or two on the list.</p>
<p>I think there is, for some kids and parents, a gee I wonder if I/they will get accepted is flittering around in the brain. That’s somewhat natural. The “glow” from that will last for a day or two, but really kids can only go to one college and parents can only afford so much. The thrill of the “wonder” is a fine and normal response. The only negative is if the student gets excepted and wants to go when clearly the finances aren’t there. But if the kid is well grounded and if the parents can say “no” there is no harm/no foul. Our flagship gets an abominable amount of applications and is very expensive for OSS kids, but still they apply. The school accepts three times the number of kids than they have places for. They know that people will just say no when they see the costs and every year there are a small number of kids that get blessed with big scholarships. Lightening does strike which makes the next year’s batch of kids apply.</p>
<p>I would love to see that list</p>
<p>^^ Keep watching…it shows up sometime in May generally. I think they call it “Space Availability” or something like that and the link will be on the homepage. The organization is the National Association for College Admission Counseling.</p>
<p>[NACAC</a> Homepage](<a href=“http://www.nacacnet.org%5DNACAC”>http://www.nacacnet.org)</p>