<p>I see people wanting to apply to like 10 different schools...thats at least 400-600 bucks</p>
<p>you still have to pay even if you could get rejected to all of them?</p>
<p>^Yep. Some schools waive the application fees, though. So I applied to 8 schools last year, and 2 of them waived the fee, but it's still around $55 x 6 schools. And if you got rejected, you don't get your money back. Then, once you get into a college, you have to pay a deposit of around $250 depending on the school. It's all very expensive.</p>
<p>This is a surprise to you?? Actually the cost is more when you add the price of sending SAT scores, the Profile and mailing costs to the $60 application fee. Another reason to develop a reasonable list of colleges.</p>
<p>But do keep it in perspective, you could be paying up to 50k/yr to attend, so it might be smart to apply to several schools up front so that you can compare FA packages or merit scholarships.</p>
<p>yes you have to pay. They spend hundreds of hours a week to read your applications... don't you think it's reasonable to pay a bit? Plus you can apply for fee waiver...</p>
<p>^ You have to be super poor to get fee waivers. Even if you're lower middle class, forget getting any waivers. </p>
<p>You know, I never got why some unknown schools with smaller endowments will waive application fees, but HYP among others never do, even though they definitely don't need to charge. My dad made an interesting observation, saying it's a deterrent to prevent kids who aren't serious about the school from applying, but wouldn't it be better to have those kids apply because it means a lower acceptance rate, more selectivity, and thus more prestige?</p>
<p>^
Yes but they want a bigger pool of QUALIFIED kids.</p>
<p>it would take a lot more effort to read all those subpar apps... i bet a lot more people would apply to harvard for the heck of it if it was free... and i dno't think a lower acceptance rate is more prestige... it's more a higher matriculation rate</p>
<p>^ I'm not so sure about that...... The University of Nebraska- Lincoln had a matriculation rate of 70.8% (4235 enrolled out of 5978 admitted) for 2007...</p>
<p>Some schools waive the app fee if you have attended an open house or college tour. Inquire when you visit.</p>
<p>lol because higher education is not compeling so you have to pay if you want to continue.
600$ is big for me. but I think 60$/application is the money that you have to pay for the official to read your application :)</p>
<p>Of course it's a deterrent. What if HYP said tomorrow that they completely waived their app fee. What do you suppose would happen? ANYTHING GOOD?</p>
<p>They'd get 200K apps each. That would be intolerable.</p>
<p>And folks really need to drop the conspiracy mindset -- that the top schools are manipulating things in order to get more apps in order to have lower and lower accept rates in order to raise their perceived prestige. What the REALLY want are more apps from great kids -- that's why they've put $ into recruiting non-traditional sources of apps (rural, inner city and international schools). They want to find "diamonds in the rough" but not more apps for the sake of saying they got more apps. No offense but the top schools are not concerned about their prestige. As a graduate from an HYP college, it was (and is) very poor manners to speak about our "ranking" or how "prestigious" others perceived our school to be. The idea that we'd manipulate nos. to increase apps and appear "more selective" is rubbish to me.</p>
<p>A lot of school will waive the app fee if your guidance counselor writes a letter on your behalf - most schools don't delve that deeply into your finances.</p>
<p>It is probably more than $600 total with SAT I, II reports, plus postage (i.e., something like priority mail so you have a receipt), copying stuff, etc. We estimated it was basically $100 per school -- keep in mind it is really easy to underestimate your true costs..</p>