What if kids were limited to 6 applications?

Parents Forum
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<p>Hunt – we also felt having those 1/1 RD apps ready to go before EA decisions came out was important. By mid-December, S1’s list had stratified somewhat into which he really preferred vs. who would not come out ahead in a head-to-head vs. his EA acceptances. At the beginning of senior year, though, while he had a couple he really liked, he also felt he had significant reasons for liking and choosing to attend every school on the list.</p>

<p>OTOH, an app list consisting solely of Chicago, MIT, Mudd and the flagship was a little too risky, in our view, even though he was accepted at all four. (As for the rest of the list – rejected @ Harvard & Cornell, waitlisted @ Caltech, withdrew app in Dec. @ UMich, Stanford, CMU.)</p>

<p>Would be interesting to see how many apps are “prepared” (which is what the CC survey asks about) vs. how many of those apps actually ever see the light of the admissions committee.</p>

<p>While S2 has twelve on his list, I suspect some will drop if he gets an EA acceptance, and others may fall to the wayside because there are only 24 hours in a day.</p>

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<p>I for one would love to see JS Sons list of 19 schools and see what they have that he could see himself at each and everyone of them</p>

<p>The location, the size, the student body, the ECs, the majors, are they in a big city or in the country, Greek system, housing options, how many commuters, internship possibilities, do you have to declare a major going in, can you easily switch majors, are they near the water, or the mountains, is the nearby town cool, are the “religious” schools, what are dorms like, do you have to move out after one year, can you have a car on campus, do you need a car on campus, how are the schools endowments and are they giving away more or less money in years past, do they give merit or need based or both, are they wholelistic in their approach or more number based, are SAT scores important, do they dump certain classes when calculating GPA, can you make your own major, can you take classes at other schools, is the vibe more to the left or to the right, do kids vacate on weekends, is the school stricter with drinking on campus, how is housing for upper classmen, can you get your classes most of the time, is there time to do your ECs, is it a campus that has a reputation for being all work no play, how did it feel when, if you were able, to meet with a school rep at a college fair, if you couldn’t visit, how did the website feel. What was emphasized.</p>

<p>What was the criteria, besides $$, did the son use to make the list of 19 schools, what did they all have in common, or out of the top needs/wants the applicant had, did all these schools meet, say at least, 75%? That is what I asked my kid.</p>

<p>Put in order what is most important in ord, and if a school doesn’t meet at least 75% of that, don’t bother appliying. Its like dating, if the humor isn’t there, no matter how nice dinner was, there will be no second date.</p>

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<p>A case to WHOM, though? </p>

<p>When my kids’ high school doesn’t offer the breadth of languages offered at some nearby high schools (only Fr, Ger, Span vs others offering Russian, Chinese, Japanese, Arabic) … when they don’t offer the breadth of AP’s offered at some nearby high schools (thus “dampening” what one’s weighted GPA can ultimately become) … when their college counseling is mostly focused on the mechanics of getting kids into the state and directional flagships … I’ll be darned if I feel I have to “justify” any decision <em>I</em> make with <em>my</em> finances and <em>my</em> kids’ college choices to them. I do not need to justify what schools applied to any more than I need to justify my choice of vacation spot or whether I buy my kids matching BMW convertibles for their birthday. I’m sorry, I just don’t see how this needs any justification or explanation to the school whatsoever. Frankly, thanks to the advice on CC, I’m going to come up with better lists than they could have ever counseled me to in the first place.</p>

<p>I just spoke with one of S’s teachers who said something along the lines of, “I heard that [highly selective top 20 east coast college] wants to diversify, so being from the midwest will really be an advantage.” @@ It was all I could do not to laugh at the well-intentioned but misplaced naivete of that statement. These are people I need to run my kids’ college decisions by? Don’t think so.</p>

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<p>But some kids genuinely could be fine with alternatives along all those dimensions. Not everyone is of the must-be-small, must-be-near-mountains, must-be-Greek, must-have-a-nearby-Starbucks, must-have-12-other-lifestyle-criteria to be happy. Some kids could be happy in a multitude of places.</p>

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<p>It would seem really odd to me to just work on an ED or EA application in the fall, and not make progress towards other apps in the meantime. Why wait and be behind the eight-ball?</p>

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<p>lovetoquit:</p>

<p>suggest your “personal ethics” comment is out of line.</p>

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<p>Bcos in our public high school the GC tells them to, that’s why. Indeed, even for top kids aiming at HYPS, our GC sends a e-mail home telling every senior to apply to the local Cal State – everyone. Of course, most top kids just ignore him, but some do follow his advice. And, applying to ~5 UC campuses is not unusual. With the UC common app, there is no reason to research and visit early. For top kids, a UC is a safety, and thus to be visited only after being rejected by other schools. </p>

<p>Moreover by definition, the UC’s KNOW with certainty that their yield of ELC’ers (kids likely aiming high) can be low, particularly in the mid-tier UCs. But, by design, they guarantee them a spot anyway. Thus, the UC system has built in their lower yield. I can’t fathom why this is an “ethics” issue at all.</p>

<p>Sure, trophy-hunting is obnoxious, but I’m not sure it occurs as much as we think it does. And in the case of applying to HP after an admission to SCEA, a simple call to the GC can clarify which students really want to go where.</p>

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<p>Incidentally, I just tried checking New Trier’s Naviance info as a “guest.” They seem to have taken down the graphs that could be viewed earlier on, and data are now just given for 2008-2010. So it’s not too useful to illustrate my point, after all.</p>

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<p>Ilovetoquilt, who says those 19 colleges had to share all those traits? Or any of those traits?</p>

<p>I’m blessed to have an easy, chill child. He sees the glass as half-full. Not picky about much in life. His list of schools might look crazy to the average person, but he has good reasons to like each of them. They range in size from 50,000 to 1,600. Some are in-state, some far away. A few have big-time athletics; most don’t, but they have stong IM programs, so that takes care of his need for competition. At the DI schools he’d be an avid athletic supporter ;), but at at least one of the DIII schools he might be able to be a walk-on. The common dominator is that they all offer strong academics, and that’s the MOST important factor to him. As long as he’s surrounded by bright, fun people, he doesn’t care if it’s up in the mountains or down by the sea. Now, he’s applying to fewer than 10 schools, but just because someone applies to 19, nothing says those schools need to be clones of each other.</p>

<p>xposted w/PG</p>

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<p>And no, I know very few kids who would be equally happy in a school in the suburbs compared to a school in a city, or a super jock school, to say a school like Reed.</p>

<p>That is like saying that they would date just about anybody, and that they have no real feelings about things one way or another.</p>

<p>Most kids prefer a large, small or middle sized school, not all three.</p>

<p>I think that this throw everything at the wall and see what sticks approach is nonsensicle one.</p>

<p>You talked about picking a vacation spot. Lets go with that then, shall we?</p>

<p>WOuld you be equally happy vacationing at a ski resort, or a dude ranch. What about going to New Delhi, or Paris? What about a place where you have to rent a car to get everywhere, versus being able to take the local bus? What about food, would be okay eating local food all the time, our would you want some variety? What about entertainment? Would you be happy with the same singer every night, our would you like a different one? </p>

<p>Do you want your vacation in the woods, or where you can go to a museum? Do you want your vacation digs to be simple or more elaborate? </p>

<p>How do you pick your vacation? Is it all about the money, or do you check out the hotel, the hotels location, the campsite ammenities, the beaches that are nearby? Do you see if you can do the tours alone, or with a group? </p>

<p>Do you want a place that is quiet and secluded, or busy and hopping?</p>

<p>Do you go to all sorts of vacation spots, or do you have a preference. Do you find you get bored if its to mellow, or too annoyed if its to noisey?</p>

<p>When you research your vacation spots, what makes you pick that place? Do you like cruises, do you need sun? Do you like nature? Do you like old buildings? Do you want to be at a place you can go to religious services?</p>

<p>No one is telling you what to do. but suggestiong that applying to over a dozen schools maybe will not give you the outcome you think it will.</p>

<p>And to suggest the somehow being particular about what a school has, and thus rejecting other schools because they don’t fit what you want, is somehow bad, isn’t it smarter to go into the process knowing what you really want, what you can sacrifice, and what is a deal breaker?</p>

<p>I am not saying the schools need to be clones of each other, but just because a school has the perfect major, that does not mean the school will work for that student.</p>

<p>Just because a kid is easy going, doesn’t mean they will be happy just about anywhere if the major is there.</p>

<p>For they 19 schools, I would love to see a list of what the son wants out of a school, and to see if each of those schools meets 75% of his wants.</p>

<p>Why 75%? Cause any less and you wil have an unhappy kid who is compromising too much of themselves.</p>

<p>And while there is nothing wrong with having a kid who is so easy going they don’t much care about some of the things I talked about, there is nothing wrong with having kids who have a sense of themselves and know what they want and don’t want.</p>

<p>For my Ds, having a strong study abroad program was a deal breaker. If it wasn’t there, the school wasn’t going to be on the list. Also, they needed a school that was near or in a BIG city. They intern, and in certain areas, and not all cities would have the resources they needed. In this job market, they knew interning was imperative.</p>

<p>They wanted a place where movies changed and they would have access to museums and indy films.</p>

<p>They were more choosey, and for that I was happy.</p>

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<p>ilovetoquilt, my older son had two requirements. Good computer science, preferable no hot muggy summers (but that didn’t stop him from applying to some top computer science programs in CA). He didn’t care at all about anything else on your list. Not at all. Realistically of course he was going to be happier in a places with a lot of geeky kids like him, so he looked at the very elite schools and also a selection of tech schools that are much easier to get into. He liked big and small schools, city and country, he was fine with it all. We took him visiting he was fine. He’s pretty adaptable.</p>

<p>My younger son has a more opinions, but even so finding a school that’s either urban or near a city with a campus, a decent history department, perhaps international relations, not too big a Greek presence, and somewhere between 2000 to 12,000 undergrads still leaves you with a huge number of schools. He’s willing to leave the NE, he’s not particular about housing options, he probably doesn’t want a religious school (but a place like Georgetown is fine), he doesn’t drive, we aren’t looking for merit aid. How schools will look at his high stats and not quite such a high GPA is anyone’s guess. He won’t apply to 19 schools, because he’d never want to do that much work, but his potential list still has almost 30 schools on it.</p>

<p>By the way, if you look at the Harvard graph at our school, it look like a match if your SATs are over 1500/1600. A couple of kids are waitlisted, and two are rejected, but seven get in. Of course I know from experience, those kids with top SAT scores at our school are also the ones doing Intel research and other equivalent things.</p>

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<p>I didn’t see this mentioned yet…but schools in the United Kingdom DO have this system. You basically complete ONE application, and list your top 5 (6?) schools. That’s it. You’re done. And you can only apply to EITHER Cambridge or Oxford. BUT…this is probably in part due to the fact that the UK is VERY tiny compared to the size of the US, and has far fewer schools than we do. AND, that their higher level education is VERY reasonbly priced.</p>

<p>My argument to a “limit” is this: </p>

<ol>
<li><p>My child is applying to ONE “safety”. It’s a decent school, she’ll go for free, or close to it. Done deal. </p></li>
<li><p>But that is NOT her “dream school”. She has one application in at a realistic “match” dream school that is probably far beyond our financial reach…BUT…we can’t know if she’d be awarded a scholarship unless we apply. So that’s application #2.</p></li>
<li><p>Then…all her other schools are “high reaches”. They’re even MORE her “dream schools”, but she is much less apt to be admitted at all. So, as has been said before, one does have to cast a wide net to get what they consider a “better” education. More students are imminently qualified these days. The pool is huge. But if you’re not in that pool…you can’t be considered. Acceptances are at record lows. Yes, Harvard takes 1 in 7 or 1 in 9. But those 7 or 9 are mostly VERY highly qualified. It’s not so much that kids are making frivolous applications. Mine is a PROBABLE no to upper level Ivy types. But a POSSIBLE yes to lower. You can bet that’s not stopping her from applying to upper level schools. You KNOW it’s a crap shoot. It’s that one doesn’t know what will tip the odds. And, most of us can’t afford to visit all these maybe schools. If you wait for acceptances, perhaps you can then winnow down to 1-2 to visit and decide. </p></li>
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<p>Do you send out one resume to get a job? 50 resumes = 3 interviews and 1 job offer. There is a fairly current poll at CC right now where 10 was the average number of applications by CCers. </p>

<p>I am wildly in favor of anyone sending any number of applications they darn well please.</p>

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<p>Quantmech,
Everyone likes to cite andison as the reason to send a large # of applications. Andison is clearly a remarkable young man, but his mistake was not that he didnt apply to enough schools, but that he didnt apply carefully enough. He applied to 6 reaches and 1 match. I happen to know that he had one more application essentially completed , but it would have required a frenetic last minute rush to the post office to meet the deadline, and they decided at the last minute not to do it. It was another match, and probably one he’d likely have gotten into (he is the kind of kid they like). What people should learn from andison is to apply smart. Quantity isnt the answer-- balancing applications with a match or two and a safety (his match/safety WL’d him, probably figuring he was unlikely to attend).</p>

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<p>“… isn’t it smarter to go into the process knowing what you really want, what you can sacrifice, and what is a deal breaker?”</p>

<p>But if there were deal-breakers, they wouldn’t be on the list in the first place. Certainly, ds has an ideal school. It’s his no. 1 choice. It’s perfect in every way for him and us. But, hey, if it doesn’t work out, we move to no. 2. It’s about half the size of his no. 1 choice and halfway across the country in a cold climate, BUT he loved the sense of community when he visited there, we would expect generous financial aid and – the most important thing – the academics are top-notch. And on down the list we go. No. 4 is in a bordering state and most resembles his no. 1 choice in terms of size. Much lower on the USNWR list, I’m guessing, but it still has LOTS of what he wants. They worked hard when we visited to make a good impression, and it paid off. No. 5 is one of his huge in-state publics. We have a prepaid tuition plan, so for me, the money is the best thing about this school, which has 40,000 students, but he also likes the big-time athletics, sense of tradition, etc. And it’s nice that it’s not too far from home. Several kids from his school go there every year and report back favorably, so, while not his TOP choice, it’s a reasonable choice to him. And every school on his list has its merits, even if they don’t all look alike.</p>

<p>Maybe he’s that way because I’ve vacationed at the beach and the mountains and a big city, and they were all fun. ;)</p>

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<p>I would like to make clear that I put “curmudgeon” in the same sentence with “trophy hunting” not to attack the admirable curmudgeon or his really, really admirable daughter, but to add a couple of nuances to the discussion of trophy hunting: (1) What constitutes trophy hunting isn’t terribly clear. (2) The kids who CAN trophy hunt have an awful lot going for them, they are kids who deserve a lot of respect. (3) Curmudgeon’s daughter, by his own account, applied to a bunch of high-prestige schools where she had a good chance to be admitted, but the family’s objective (and accurate) analysis of the schools’ financial aid policies made it unlikely she would attend if admitted. And that’s exactly how things went down, even after one of the schools confounded expectations and offered her more aid than expected, but not enough to match the best from her original list. </p>

<p>She didn’t value what was being offered that highly. Kudos to her for that, by the way. Not that she didn’t think long and hard about it, and it was nice to have that choice, but her pocketbook and value system wasn’t going to send her down that road. But then why did she apply in the first place, other than to see whether the advice she had gotten was right?</p>

<p>The idea of application limits – which, basically, I feel neutral about – is that kids have to make some hard choices before they apply, not after. I agree that, if there were such a scheme, six would be too few. But I haven’t seen any situation, financially driven or not, where a kid applied to 15+ schools, and there wasn’t a whole lot of refusing to face a decision that had actually already been made involved.</p>

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<p>Conclusion is that if you are sure 100% that you will get accepted to your #1 pick, then apply to this school/program. If you have less than 100% assurance, how in a world you can apply to one school/program? So, there are reasons to apply to one school as well as there are reasons to apply to 20 and everything in between. To take in to extreme, since there is only about 43% of applicants get accepted to ANY Med. School (talking about Grad. schools), it is very normal for each to apply to about 12. If average was about 90%, then I bet they would apply to very few (definately much loser than 12) since most care to get to ANY Med. School, not so much to top (but, of course, there are some who see themselves at Harvard and such).</p>

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<p>I very well may not be in college right now?</p>

<p>Well, that’s kind of a lie, because Brown was certainly in my top six. </p>

<p>But there were only seven schools I wanted to go to at any given time. The rest were just to keep options open.</p>

<p>And Brown was the only one I got into.</p>

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<p>A kid can prefer different constellations for different things. For example, S is interested in some colleges that offer more of a typical small / rural New England LAC experience. But he’s also interested in some colleges in the heart of Wash DC. </p>

<p>I think you’re projecting your own preferences onto others and assuming that everyone equally cares about the “lifestyle” part of the college experience. There are kids who could enjoy aspects of a small New England LAC experience AND yet also be happy at a large state school in the cornfields. It’s not inconceivable. Not every kid is all about a precision-tailored “fit.” Frankly I don’t want kids who are so narrow that they have 2,001 requirements – I want them to be flexible enough to consider all possibilities.</p>

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<p>You’re assuming that “doesn’t have this precise element” = “unhappiness and compromise.” Why can’t it just be neutral?</p>

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<p><a href=“3”>quote</a> Curmudgeon’s daughter, by his own account, applied to a bunch of high-prestige schools where she had a good chance to be admitted, but the family’s objective (and accurate) analysis of the schools’ financial aid policies made it unlikely she would attend if admitted. And that’s exactly how things went down, even after one of the schools confounded expectations and offered her more aid than expected, but not enough to match the best from her original list.

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When I made this observation yesterday I got tarred and feathered, fillet’ed and pounded flat.</p>

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<p>@R124687, Yes, the UK was mentioned in posts 60, 91, 148, and a few others. To add to something I posted earlier: One might wonder why it’s even necessary to apply to 6 universities in the UK, given their admissions policies. I suspect that some students may need 6 because admissions are usually offered contingent on the results of A-levels, which are not known until later in the cycle. The A-level scores that are required vary among the universities.</p>

<p>@jym626, I think it’s easy to know how to apply carefully in retrospect, but going into the applications round, one really doesn’t know–especially with the first child.</p>

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<p>Yes, well I expect the same. And it’s fair, to a large extent, because we only know these things because of how generous curmudgeon has been with sharing what he learned.</p>

<p>I, by the way, fully believe that there were dozens, at least, of colleges where my kids would have been happy, and that would have admitted them. Some were never even considered, others were rejected for irrational reasons, others just didn’t make the cut. Because there WAS a cut.</p>

<p>All those factors listed above – they are the kinds of things my kids and countless others use to make decisions, but they are pretty silly bases for decisions. Or, to put it another way, they are perfectly good bases for decisions that don’t matter much, because either choice is fundamentally sound.</p>