<p>I cross posted with FLVADad just now but agree with all he wrote too. My kids had very specific selection critiera (including quality and rigor of academic life) but their other criteria were not frivolous factors at all.</p>
<p>Maybe I am missing something? What is wrong with applying to over 10 schools? I want to broaden my list as much as possible, and there are many schools which offer what I want and can afford.</p>
<p>It gets expensive (not only app fees, but sending in scores too), and takes up lots of time.</p>
<p>Applying to lots of schools also takes up other peopleās time - not just the applicants. Your counselor has to sent out materials, your references too. The admissions folks are burdened with yet more applications. Colleges have to constantly reconfigure their admissions numbers (aka the number of kids over slots) that they accept to deal with yields that must drop.</p>
<p>I am applying to 8, though two of those are UK universities. My safeties are Suffolk University in Boston and UVM. </p>
<p>I have friends who are applying to Ivy Leagues plus 8 additional āhalfway thereā colleges. I think itās a bit ridiculous, since those āhalfwayā colleges are my top choices, so I run the risk of them getting accepted instead of me and not sending their conformation that they are uninterested in attending the school until after the deadline.</p>
<p>Probably 11 at the most, for me. Only 4 are for sure, though. Princeton, Johns Hopkins, UC Berkeley, and Michigan State are for sure and I am looking at applying to georgetown, UPenn or Yale, UChicago or NU, Vassar or Grinnell, Wisconsin, and Georgia Tech or Emory.</p>
<p>I feel your pain , law2011! It is true that colleges know that not all accepted students will attend, so , ideally, this shouldnāt affect you. But , I think it does, at least indirectly. Colleges get more applicants every year, and admissions folks are worked very hard They have less and less time to spend on each application which means, I suspect, that some kids who should get it may not simply because the admissions folks get very tired. And, , of course, colleges tend to assume a slightly higher yield than they may get. Itās more viable to add to the class over the summer than to deal with having more kids than you can handle. The latter can be a nightmare - kids have ended up in hotels or on cots and neither solution is very good.</p>
<p>Iām applying to 8 schools- 2 Ivys, 2 almost-but-not-quite Ivys that are probably matches, 2 very good state schools out of state, and 2 good-in-state schools that I have no desire to go to (GET ME OUT OF NEW JERSEY!) but am almost guaranteed admission (Iām a double legacy and my father is a visiting professor there.) List is Penn, Columbia, Tufts, Northwestern, William and Mary, UMaryland College Park, Rutgers, TCNJ. Think itās a really good blend of public and private, reaches and safeties. Iāll have to gauge it after I get my decisions, but I think Iāve made some really good choices regarding the number of schools to apply to.</p>
<p>I donāt think itās a waste of time to apply to more than 10 especially if youāre aware that many are reaches. also, a lot of schools have free applications, and there are some scholarship foundations that give you free applications (questbridge allows for 8 apps for free to their partner schools which are all top tier). Iām applying to 18 schools, but i only have to pay for 9 apps.</p>
<p>I want to know, āhowā can counselors restrict the number of applications processed? I thought all they had to do was upload transcript and recos, and the rest the student fills and sends to colleges along with any required supplements.</p>
<p>Even if a school has free apps, factor in how much it costs to send scores, plus time.</p>
<p>goodwood8 - depends on the school. At some, counselors write recommendations that are fine-tuned for the college. So, twenty applications = twenty different letters. They may also oversee the filling out of applications to make sure that things are put forth in the best and most accurate manner. They send college profiles. They contact admissions officers. They may use their āinsider informationā - basically, their knowledge of the high school and the college and public data to provide estimates of admissions, and suggestions concerning EA/ED and the like.
I donāt know if they have any great legal power to limit applications, but there are limits as to how much time and energy they can spend on each student.</p>
<p>Meh. The only reason someone would apply to 20+ schools is if that person hasnāt done enough research concerning the schools. He/She would later discover that he/she wouldnāt actually attend many of those schools. The allure of reputation/academics simply convinces an applicant to apply (why the heck not ā commonapp is easy, right?), but in terms of fit/location/etcā¦, many will find that a certain school doesnāt appeal to them. </p>
<p>The moral of the story ā¦ actually do research on schools and determine which ones you would earnestly attend. Saves time and money.</p>
<p>Iāve done all my reasearch, lots and lots and lots of reasearch, on CC, college giudebooks etc and I need 9-10 apps, there are some schools that you just canāt differentiate with others much like carleton, oberlinā¦ and a few more. if I had the chance to visit, I could have decided but I donāt which is why iām a bit rantish over the 8 apps limit. 10 would be perfect for me. and iām ready to do the work for each and every supplement, and i know why i want to apply to that schoolā¦ every school has its own personality and aspects that appeal to me. Its really not all that fair to limit apps.</p>
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<p>Why would yields have to drop? Yield is the ratio of enrolled students over admitted students.</p>
<p>xiggi - Letās say that right now the average student applies to 8 schools, gets into 4 and chooses 1. Then the average college must admit about 4 kids to get one. Yield is 25% Now, if the average student now applies to 16 schools, gets into 8 and still , of course chooses 1, the average college must admit 8 to get one. Yield is 12.5%.
Now, of course, yields and number of applications and number of acceptances vary widely so this is a rather overly simplified explanation. But the basic fact is that if there are more applications , but the same number of applicants and the same number of slots, something must change.
I also think that the hysteria we have is feeding this need by some to apply to far too many schools. This makes the application process worse since the same number of professionals (admissions folks at both the high schools and colleges) must deal with more and more applications. Yes, colleges can hire more admissions staff - but admissions staff donāt learn their jobs overnight.</p>
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<p>Very little seems to support that a growing number of applications results in a growing number of admissions. While there is anecdotal evidence of the success of trophy hunters, this is neither novel nor important. The number of absolute admissions at most selective schools has remained very flat.</p>
<p>Something does indeed change, but it is not the yield. What change are the admission rates and, in some cases, a higher reliance on emrollment crutches such as the extensive use of a waiting lists.</p>
<p>I applied to 3, my friend applied to 16. </p>
<p>At my school, the first transcript is free, every next one is $3 (midterm reports do not count). This curbs the number of applications per person, I think, especially since most people donāt want to dish out $30+ for transcripts only!</p>
<p>iām going for the record-- all 4,352 of them. be jealous.</p>
<p>You are gonna need major FA at the schools you apply to. Youāll be broke after paying all those app fees!</p>