<p>If only a few students apply to more than 6 colleges, then why bother restricting anybody?</p>
<p>I think most students apply primarily to colleges that are highly likely to accept them, and where they’d like to go (often, state schools). Obviously, there is no reason for such students to apply to a lot of schools, and they don’t.</p>
<p>What if kids were limited to 1? I’m amazed at how much time people have in such a bad economy.</p>
<p>My son’s high school requests that the kids only apply to ONE school. They say if you do your homework on the front end then there should be almost zero risk of not getting accepted. I find this unacceptable and borderline lazy on the part of the GC’s. Trust me when I say we will apply to multiple schools…at least 3</p>
<p>I don’t think instutitions (be it the high schools or the testing agencies) should be making such decisions. This is a decision to be made within the family, after a discussion between the parents and the student applicant. I just can’t see us going back in time. For better or for worse, the Common App is here to stay and the huge consumer demand will be for them to make it better and to ensure more of the top schools are on it (still have some prviate that are outliers, like USC.)</p>
<p>How do you know where your kid will be accepted? D graduated #1 and got into 50% of programs that she applied to. She did not get into her #1 choice. What if she was restricted to only one? Her friend next year got into this this program with lower stats. How you can predict that you will get into program that has 15 spots for 800 applicants? It seems very severe restriction.</p>
<p>Per collegeboard: [Why</a> 20 Is Too Many: Understanding the Application Frenzy](<a href=“College Board - SAT, AP, College Search and Admission Tools”>How to Finalize Your College List – BigFuture | College Board)
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<p>Per Newsweek: [College</a> Admission Gets Tougher | Newsweek Education | Newsweek.com](<a href=“http://www.newsweek.com/id/83159/page/1]College”>http://www.newsweek.com/id/83159/page/1)</p>
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<p>Why don’t we just do away with the whole concept of individual freedom and make life easier?</p>
<p>If people want to restrict their own kids to 6 applications, I have no problem with that, as long as their kid agrees.</p>
<p>My hs senior daughter will not be applying to more than 6, because the choice set she has suits her just fine. I have no desire to limit someone else, though.</p>
<p>Come to think of it, my son applied to 8. He threw one in at the end that I didn’t even know about. That is the school he now attends, on a lovely merit scholarship. Thank heavens he had the freedom to make his own choices about these things, and didn’t have to get the approval of the CC community for the number of applications he filed.</p>
<p>S’s high school didn’t limit the number of transcripts they would send out, but only the first three were free. After the first three, they were $5 each, which I think is very reasonable. Makes the kids think twice before sending out 20 applications, but it’s not so high that lower income kids would be limited to the 3 free applications.</p>
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I don’t think either part of this is true.</p>
<p>Those links sure do look familiar , jym. Have I seen them before? Should I bring over posts contra the links from the other thread, too? Whattaya think? lol</p>
<p>I never posted the content of the links in the other thread, 'mudge, and it didnt look like anyone was reading them. So I posted the content here.</p>
<p>Look at the kids who are pursuing some type of performing arts/conservatory program. Combined, the top 6 schools on my D’s list will enroll less than 50 girls TOTAL in their freshman classes. And realistically, they will only enroll one, maybe two girls depending on the size of the class, of her “type.” So now you are looking at maybe 12 to 15 slots for girls my D’s type for 6 schools. Should she really be limited to 6 applications? Some schools do not require you to be admitted before you can audition but many do.</p>
<p>Although I think that the majority of kids should be able to limit their college lists to 10-12 by researching their choices carefully, I believe it is not the high school’s place to impose restrictions on the number of applications students can file. </p>
<p>But I recently had an eye-opening conversation with a college counselor from a private school that limits the number of applications kids can submit. At this school, students targeting highly selective colleges had begun filing many, many applications, sometimes upwards of 20. To put the brakes on trophy hunting and mindlessly filing applications at every university in the US News Top 20 + AWS, his school began limiting applications to 10. They also began announcing the limitation in the high school profile. Because colleges know that the high school limits the maximum number of schools to which students can apply, they also know that applicants from that high school are reasonably serious about their college.</p>
<p>I had never looked at the issue from the colleges’ perspective. This counselor also said that families have generally accepted the limitation gracefully, knowing that it gives their kids’ applications credibility with admissions offices.</p>
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<p>Exactly. This isn’t a real “problem” except among the CC set.</p>
<p>Here’s how I think a high stats kid in a competitive high school might game the requirement if everybody in the country were limited to 6 (and maybe it’s what some might do if the high school limits students to six): Apply to the three reach schools he really wants to go to, one very selective school that he thinks nobody else in his school will apply to (this is how Grinnell, et al., will stay in business), one match, and one safety. Can anybody dispute that this kid is more likely to be attending his safety than he would be if he were allowed to apply to more schools?</p>
<p>PG-
^^^ And the cc set seems unduly weighted with students who comprise the top end of that “number of applications” bell curve :rolleyes:</p>
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Well, yeah. It’s unduly weighted with people who want to attend highly selective schools that take very low percentages of applicants. Those two things are closely related.</p>
<p>I concur with post # 35. Very high stats kids who are targeting uber reaches have to cast a wide net. How many kids on these boards report getting into H and Y, but not P, etc. Lots and lots. With the highest reaches, there is little predictability.</p>
<p>Hunt,
But one doesnt have to lead to the other. The poignant arguments for the large number of applications are those from people with significant financial need, not the ones who want to go to the top 20 schools. As I mentioned in the other thread, my s’s HS is one of those that limits applications to 6, the next 2 go to the bottom of the pile, and more than 8 have to be justified and paid for at $50 a pop. The school is competitive with a lot of students applying to to top schools. Still, the number of applications per student is low.</p>
<p>I think the example wjb gave in her post above (#33) is true for our HS, and having lived through it twice, I understand it and it makes sense to me. I think the issue that rubs most folks the wrong way is the trophy-hunting, and those who, as some say, will apply only to the schools whose car decals they’d be willing to display. For those who arent playing the window decal game, thats a different story.</p>
<p>I’m intrigued by the idea of having the limit in the school’s profile. Especially if it is in GREAT BIG RAINBOW LETTERS. wjb, did that counselor say if the restriction made any difference, one way or another, with how the kids did with admissions? I wonder if there’s some similarly elegant method to dealing with the FA conundrum. </p>
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<p>Un-freaking-believeable. Sounds like the GCs are the ones who need to do their homework. Have they really managed to hypnotize families into believing this nonsense? This wasn’t even true 30 years ago. </p>
<p>This thread makes me think about the way that University of California used to run undergrad admissions. You could only apply to one campus, though you could name a first and second choice. If you didn’t get into your top choice, you’d be offered a spot at your second choice, if there was still room. If your second choice was still quite popular, you might not get in there, and would be shunted to a campus where there were still openings. If your first choice was going to be a reach for your stats, and your second choice was a match/safety, you had to place your bets. Go for the sure thing and give up the reach? Or try for the reach and risk being offered an admit to a campus you definitely didn’t want to attend? </p>
<p>I’m thinking about what has changed over the past few decades to drive the number of applications higher. Larger population, more people interested in applying to four-year colleges. Parents who were the first or second generation in their family to go to a college now want their child to step up the ladder to a more rigorous school. COA has zoomed way way up, making the hunt for FA even more of an issue. Oh yes, and that USNWR selectivity ranking which rewarded colleges for generating lots of apps.</p>