<p>I recommended to my son that he leave that blank. It was on one of two applications he had submitted to date so I felt that it wasn't entirely dishonest so early in the game, but I felt it was none of their business and potentially prejudicial! I feel the same way about what we do for work although I could not see a way out of that one. If we say that my husband is a physicist, then the colleges will wonder why my son didn't get an A plus in physics and score 800 on the SAT II. I don't think that's fair (as if my husband remembers high school physics (he is not in a traditional physics field) or has the time to read the book, practice some problems, then tutor my son....and, as if my son would sit there and listen to his father (not!). If you are an outstanding student and list top tier or Ivy schools I think you could easily be rejected. First they might assume that you won't accept an offer as you will have better offers and second they might assume that you won't be happy there if you do accept. Either way you are not a good "fit". The only way to respond is to list inkind colleges and even that is potentially prejudicial. I think it's ok for the colleges to ask later, not on the application. I also think there are too many kids applying for them to want that information to chase after a particular student to sweeten the pot. I am very opinionated today it seems.</p>
<p>Call me a Pollyanna, but I really don't think that many schools use this info for enrollment management, with perhaps very rare exceptions. (They can guess a student's probability of enrolling from a variety of other factors.) </p>
<p>Some schools, though, want to know who their real overlaps are. They generally send admitted students questionnaires after the fact, so they can get this info on cross-admits for admitted students. But they also want to know about where the students who were on the cusp of admission applied, and since it's awkward to ask the question after you've denied a student admission (I'm guessing the response rate wouldn't be great), this is the only point in the process where they can get that info. </p>
<p>Ever notice how when schools list their overlaps, the list almost always includes schools at or above the institution in selectivity? If they really want to know the whole picture they have to ask the students who will ultimatelyh be denied admission during the application process.</p>
<p>No, call ME Pollyanna...I don't like the subterfuge in the cute answers and the lie by omission of the blanks. I think schools ask in order to manage their yield, to the extent that they can. I think they go through the list and "chance" the applicant, recognizing where their school lies on the list and the liklihood that the student will get turned down at "better" schools and choose theirs.</p>
<p>Schmoomcgoo - lie by omission of the blanks? This is an application for college. Imagine if you were applying for a job and the prospective employer wanted to know where else you were applying - would you feel he had the right to know? I don't think so - it is an application and I think the students have a right to some privacy. It may be in the best interest of a very desireable applicant to reveal everything but it is probably not in the best interest of an applicant who is not going to be wooed. From what I learned today, the Collegeboard shares where they send the scores with schools so they may have a lot of that information anyway!</p>
<p>Riley - Characterizing the omission of information on an application as a lie was an error on my part. It is more correct to say that I (and to a larger, and more relevant, extent my daughter) would feel guilty as if I were lying if I were to omit the info. Furthermore, I would believe my omission to be harmful to my chances of admission--whether or not it should be (it should not). Don't get me wrong--I don't think a college has any more right to information about the other colleges I'm applying to than an employer does to info about other prospective employers. I am just saying I am not comfortable witholding information they have requested and I am trusting they are not using it against me...hence, the Pollyanna moniker.</p>
<p>"were applying for a job and the prospective employer wanted to know where else you were applying - would you feel he had the right to kno"</p>
<p>this will also depend on who holds the power in the situation. If you're afraid to disclose, what does that mean? (this might rile a few). In our situations when asked we told, no worries, no problem. We had no "dream school to die for" which freed us up to look at all offers objectively. This also led to situations where some schools improved their offers. </p>
<p>So it really comes down to who has more to lose in the situation... if a prospective employer wanted to know whom else I was talking to, no problem either. The employer might sweeten the pot a bit. If not, oh well.</p>
<p>I assume they ask for any number of reasons, one being to be more precise in determining yeild and how many acceptances they can offer w/o over enrolling in the freshman class.</p>
<p>However in some instanaces honestly answering the question may be a big benefit to students and their families. I believe that our son, who was not in the top 10 if his hs class, received the most merit aid offers which topped out at $376,000. However he did have one of the higher SAT scores in his class, beating out the val by 80 pts. Also he did not apply to any highly selective colleges nor even colleges which would be considered a reach like Northwestern, WUSL or Rice. Among those he applied to were Case, Rensselaer, and Oberlin, all very fine colleges.</p>
<p>Because he was a very strong applicant to all the colleges he applied to and they knew who they were competing against, I believe that answering the OP question may have helped max out his merit aid offers.</p>
<p>Schools ask for 2 major reasons: </p>
<p>1) to understand who their "peer" institutions might be</p>
<p>and </p>
<p>2) to help predict the "yieldability" of a student. </p>
<p>For #1, it is important to understand what other schools students might be interested in because it gives a school a sense of who their competition is or who, nationally, students are comparing them to. For #2, there are schools that are explicit in their admissions materials that demonstrated interest is a component to their decision making process and this is one way they can gauge this. Also, it does help schools understand who might be possible to enroll. For example, if you are relatively unlikely to be admitted to a most selective school because of your academic credentials and are applying to several, a less selective school may see this and think they've got a good shot at enrolling you because they may be only 1 of 2 or 3 on your list to admit you. Because so many students are applying to so many schools nowadays, it has become more and more difficult to predict yield - asking this question can help predict who may or may not come. </p>
<p>This can also have an impact on who gets merit-based financial aid awards. For example, if two schools are seen as equal in terms of quality and fit for a particular student and one of the schools knows the student applied to and was probably admitted by the other, they could offer a merit-based award to induce the student to enroll over their competitor. This isn't so unusual with recruited athletes admitted to schools that do not offer athletic scholarships but do offer academic "merit-based" awards - one of the schools will offer the student an "academic" scholarship knowing that the competing school might not, thereby swaying the student's decision of where to attend (and play). </p>
<p>At my school, one of our "peers" (depending on who you ask, it is or it isn't, but that's another story!) asks this question on their application. We see a lot of cross-applications with them and when admitted to both schools, the vast majority of students enroll at my school. Since this peer school began asking this question on their application, we have been hearing from more and more of our students that they were not admitted to the other school, despite the fact that they were much stronger academically than the other school's published "middle 50%" information would suggest. The other school's admit rate has come down dramatically while their yield has shot up over the past several years, giving the appearance that they have become more selective - they've apparently been denying students they see as potentially being admitted by us.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The other school's admit rate has come down dramatically while their yield has shot up over the past several years, giving the appearance that they have become more selective - they've apparently been denying students they see as potentially being admitted by us.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Wow! That's disheartening. They need to read this article, which was cited on the Bates thread recently :)</p>
<p>Moral</a> Reasoning and Higher-Education Policy - Chronicle.com</p>
<p>Leaving a question blank is not lying. And maybe some look at this question differently depending on age. My d or s would say who cares if they know or I am not lying. I would say it is none of their business or this is unnecessary information. That comes from age and experience. I have interviewed for jobs while working elsewhere and when I went on an interview during lunch I did not feel like I had to explain to my current employer where I was going. For all of those that live in the idealistic world, I really wish it was like that. But the world operates in a different way. And please don't call me jaded. It is economics and survival. A school that needs to fill its freshman class wants kids that really want to go there and that come April are going to send in the deposit. They admit more than actually accept. So if you appear to be using the school as a fallback, and that school needs to get its freshman class filled, then I could see them not bothering accepting you. And, I have read over and over that schools look at a kids sats (for instance, a good but not ivy school might not accept a 1600 kid knowing that he is going to choose an ivy anyway) and if they think the kid is not going there anyway, it matters on whether they are accepted.</p>
<p>Leaving a question blank is not lying. And maybe some look at this question differently depending on age. My d or s would say who cares if they know or I am not lying. I would say it is none of their business or this is unnecessary information. But then I for one think admissions should not know sex, race, or any other information other than what a kid can actually contribute to the school. That comes from age and experience. I have interviewed for jobs while working elsewhere and when I went on an interview during lunch I did not feel like I had to explain to my current employer where I was going. For all of those that live in the idealistic world, I really wish it was like that. But the world operates in a different way. And please don't call me jaded. It is economics and survival. A school that needs to fill its freshman class wants kids that really want to go there and that come April are going to send in the deposit. They admit more than actually accept. So if you appear to be using the school as a fallback, and that school needs to get its freshman class filled, then I could see them not bothering accepting you. And, I have read over and over that schools look at a kids sats (for instance, a good but not ivy school might not accept a 1600 kid knowing that he is going to choose an ivy anyway) and if they think the kid is not going there anyway, it matters on whether they are accepted.</p>
<p>Wow, that question never even came up in my house. My kids just filled out their applications without ever trying to second guess a college's intentions. AdOfficer, everything else being equal, would they be at a disadvantage because their thought process did not take them there?</p>
<p>You can also call me a Pollyanna, but I genuinely think honesty is the best policy. When I interview for MIT, I ask nearly every interviewee to which other schools he is applying. I am interested in the thought process an applicant is using to select a college, but mostly I am just trying to find something that a student can talk about. I frequently get responses similar to those below:</p>
<p>(1) MIT, Harvard, Yale, Penn, Princeton,
(2) MIT, Harvard, Boston University, Boston College, Tufts,
(3) MIT, Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon, CalTech,
(4) MIT, Drexel, Penn State Schreyers Honors College, Lehigh,
</p>
<p>I also ask them if, all else being equal, they would prefer to attend a college in a small town, big city, warm climate, close to home, far away, big school, small school, etc., mainly to allow their personality to come out. I really do not care too much about specifically what their answers are; I only care how they answer the question. Some applicants tell me that they would love to go to a school that had warm weather. I assume they know that MIT is not particularly warm in the winter, but I certainly do not hold this answer against anyone because I only asked it to see if they are enthusiastic about something, to get them to talk. Someone who is extremely guarded in his responses makes a bad impression on me. I am looking for honesty, and since most of the people I interview do not get accepted, I also offer general advice about applying to all schools. Furthermore, by their answers, I may have better follow-up questions. For example, if it appears that a student is applying to other schools primarily looking for scholarships, I might discuss MITs financial aid or suggest that they also apply to Cooper Union or Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering (fortunately, MIT is truly need-blind in admissions). I also discuss with students the status of their various applications and encourage them to complete the applications as soon as possible, rather than procrastinating.</p>
<p>I do not conduct interviews trying to hide anything about MIT from the applicants, and I do not try to hide anything good about other schools either. I do not say anything bad about any other schools, and I understand that applicants have many criteria they need to balance in selecting the right college (finances, location, fit, size, etc.). My job is to honestly present MIT to students, including how it is different from other schools, and to try to assess how well the applicant might fit in socially and academically at MIT. From the four typical answers I show above, I have written both very strong and mediocre recommendations for applicants from each group. I appreciate honest answers from the interviewees, and I hope they see that I am honestly presenting MIT. I havent been interviewing for MIT for that many years, but so far the ten students I interviewed who were accepted all chose to attend MIT, so perhaps my honest presentation of all schools has been a factor. Likewise, I appreciate the interviewees being honest with me when I ask questions, especially because there is no right answer I am just trying to get them to have a conversation.</p>
<p>pafather, you have restored my faith in humankind. I encourage my daughter to go into interviews and to be herself. Yes, I tell her to do her homework and be prepared, but never try to answer a question with an answer she thinks the interviewer wants to hear. She wants to stay in New England/New York because she loves to ski, among other things. That was how she first narrowed her list--by area. If she answered any other way, her passion for skiing would not shine through. I think by trying to anticipate the "best" answer, an applicant would not come across clearly, their true personality would not mesh with their answers. Perhaps this is how the "bad fits" happen.</p>
<p>ps, is there any student who is applying to just one college??</p>
<p>
[quote]
is there any student who is applying to just one college?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>There used to be. I was one. And today I still know a lot of young people in my area who will apply only to the state university. The honors program here draws a lot of students who probably have a decent chance of getting into more famous national universities, and the merit aid has been considerably enhanced since I attended State U. And, yes, State U doesn't ask where else anyone is applying, because it knows it will get some great enrollees from its much larger group of admitted applicants.</p>
<p>About half of the kids at my son's school apply to just one college. 65% apply early and those who get in, do not send out the rest of their apps. A catholic school I know has a number of kids who apply to one or at most 3 schools that take most of the kids from that school. They don't even have to send the app. Admissions comes to the school, they get the info at that meeting and the acceptance right on the spot. </p>
<p>Some state U's do ask where else. All of ours do. They want to know where they stand in among peer schools. I am confident that the info is not used in the decision. Though this is also a reason private colleges ask, I think there are some schools that use the info to the student's disadvantage.</p>