i get what you are saying, but practically and anecdotally, i have seen students get rejected from their focused/curated "best fit" schools (admittedly reaches), but randomly/unexpectedly get admitted to a reach school they weren't really focused on. they ended up going and ended up very happy. to me, it suggests that the students are adaptable and can adjust to the "unexpected" school even though they didn't necessarily think it was the BEST fit at the time of application. they ended up getting the "prestige" of the reach and the school offered their career path/major. this is what scares me to have too small of a list.
Agreed. My daughter applied to just 8 universities and had success with all of them. She gets the benefit of selecting and has done so. 6-8 is just fine assuming the student is realistic in his or her selections. She had safety, possible and reaches and got into 7 and waitlisted on 1. She's headed to UCSD and we couldn't be happier for her.
Every university with an acceptance rate of less than 15% is essentially a reach for most students applying, regardless of how good their credentials are. So devoting too much time to a few universities is a bad strategy given that you have no idea what the universities are really basing their decisions on. The universites heavily downplay the SAT importance. Everyone has perfect grades. Everyone has recommendations, which are inherently subjective and biased. Everyone is coming with a basket of AP/IB/DE. Who knows how much of any essay is a student's own words vs the words of someone else. The complete uncertainty/randomness/opacity of admissions makes the shotgun approach the most strategic. Frustrating!
What we can know is that Harvard was essentially making decisions that student X was "too Asian" to admit. Probably other universities were making their decisions similarly, too Asian, too many from high school X, too many from zip code X, too many from state X, not diverse enough, don't need another oboe player, whatever. The perfect essay would have no impact at all for this student.
For regular/typical majors you are right. Although I think 8-10 is ideal. 3 safeties, 3 targets and 3-4 reaches. One of my kids applied to 10 schools - perfect number. She got into all of them and chose based on scholarships and other things. She had no reaches because of cost, but she had a mix of safeties and targets. My other child applied to 26 schools because she applied for a musical theatre major - far more selective than even Ivy League schools. She had 5 non musical theatre schools and 20 for her major - 15 ended up turning into auditions. She ended up with 7 offers for musical theatre and acting so it worked out really well. And she had a few non theatre options too in case theatre didn’t work out. Perfect number for that situation too.
One former college admission officer said, the admission decision process was so random and subjective based on the officer's mood and bias, in a couple of minutes time frame. It's lousy and unfair!
21.23 I don't think it's because they don't want to. It's exhausting. My son goes to a rigorous school. As a freshman he is on 3 committees that require his time and additional research, is running for advanced positions in 2 more and another in model un, is in band, takes extra instrument lessons, and still has to find time to do his homework. The top schools require so much more than just top academics that kids now are burning themselves out just trying to do this, let alone do the research on universities
I don't know how I stumbled on this video because I am WELL past the college application process and I don't have a child who will be doing so in the future. Nonetheless, this is rather fascinating to watch. For reference of how different this process seems to be today from what I experienced, I only applied to 1 university: the only one in my state that offered an accredited program in my chosen field. I didn't have a safety school and I was fortunate to be admitted after my application and interview. I was naive at the time since my parents didn't go to college and they weren't terribly helpful in the process. I can't even imagine the stress today of even getting accepted to the university where I studied.
To answer your question, yes, you are wrong to recommend only 6 applications! You are crazy! I can see that you are out of touch with the college application process. How can you be a coach? College decisions are like the lottery. It's a number game. The more you apply, the more chances you have to land in a good college. I am a mother of a senior student who just went through the process. He applied to 30 colleges (all private, tier 20, and ivys) with a 5.18 GPA, 12 AP classes, member of 7 honor societies, and a violinist since 6 years old. With 1st place awards on a few international violin competitions, selected to 4 consecutive Florida All State Orchestra, fencing since he was 10, and sailing team, student ambassador, almost 300 volunteer hrs. And many more awards, Etc. He was accepted to 6 schools and was waitlisted in 5 schools. On the ones accepted, he got the merit Presidential scholarships and has two full rides. But he wouldn't have had that chance if he had only applied to 6 like you recommend. My advice for other students is not to follow your advice and apply to as many as possible.
Congratulations to you and your son. You should be very proud. That said, he can only ATTEND one school, and it is possible he would have landed in the same spot with a smaller list, right? But congrats again.
30 is way too many. I’ve been through this process twice - once this year and once last year - and even my performing arts kid didn’t apply to 30 colleges - and those acceptance rates are less than 0.5% at many programs.
Lol, what a nightmare. Don't let your college define you. Sounds like your son is pretty successful regardless of where he got accepted. Nobody needs an acceptance letter from a certain college to validate their accomplishments. That just smacks of insecurity.
Congrats to your kid!! I do think 30 is a lot but understand why people choose to do so. We are chasing merit for a NMF and focused on 3 state schools, 6 schools that offer full COA or tuition for NMF, a couple reaches and a few targets for a total of 15. He hasn’t applied to all 15 yet and may cap it at 10 based on acceptances that are already coming in.
i get what you are saying, but practically and anecdotally, i have seen students get rejected from their focused/curated "best fit" schools (admittedly reaches), but randomly/unexpectedly get admitted to a reach school they weren't really focused on. they ended up going and ended up very happy. to me, it suggests that the students are adaptable and can adjust to the "unexpected" school even though they didn't necessarily think it was the BEST fit at the time of application. they ended up getting the "prestige" of the reach and the school offered their career path/major. this is what scares me to have too small of a list.
Or maybe these schools are all interchangeable and the rest is just marketing BS?
Agreed. My daughter applied to just 8 universities and had success with all of them. She gets the benefit of selecting and has done so. 6-8 is just fine assuming the student is realistic in his or her selections. She had safety, possible and reaches and got into 7 and waitlisted on 1. She's headed to UCSD and we couldn't be happier for her.
Every university with an acceptance rate of less than 15% is essentially a reach for most students applying, regardless of how good their credentials are. So devoting too much time to a few universities is a bad strategy given that you have no idea what the universities are really basing their decisions on. The universites heavily downplay the SAT importance. Everyone has perfect grades. Everyone has recommendations, which are inherently subjective and biased. Everyone is coming with a basket of AP/IB/DE. Who knows how much of any essay is a student's own words vs the words of someone else. The complete uncertainty/randomness/opacity of admissions makes the shotgun approach the most strategic. Frustrating!
What we can know is that Harvard was essentially making decisions that student X was "too Asian" to admit. Probably other universities were making their decisions similarly, too Asian, too many from high school X, too many from zip code X, too many from state X, not diverse enough, don't need another oboe player, whatever. The perfect essay would have no impact at all for this student.
Absolutely agree with keeping the college list narrow by doing thorough research.
For regular/typical majors you are right. Although I think 8-10 is ideal. 3 safeties, 3 targets and 3-4 reaches. One of my kids applied to 10 schools - perfect number. She got into all of them and chose based on scholarships and other things. She had no reaches because of cost, but she had a mix of safeties and targets. My other child applied to 26 schools because she applied for a musical theatre major - far more selective than even Ivy League schools. She had 5 non musical theatre schools and 20 for her major - 15 ended up turning into auditions. She ended up with 7 offers for musical theatre and acting so it worked out really well. And she had a few non theatre options too in case theatre didn’t work out. Perfect number for that situation too.
One former college admission officer said, the admission decision process was so random and subjective based on the officer's mood and bias, in a couple of minutes time frame. It's lousy and unfair!
21.23 I don't think it's because they don't want to. It's exhausting. My son goes to a rigorous school. As a freshman he is on 3 committees that require his time and additional research, is running for advanced positions in 2 more and another in model un, is in band, takes extra instrument lessons, and still has to find time to do his homework. The top schools require so much more than just top academics that kids now are burning themselves out just trying to do this, let alone do the research on universities
I don't know how I stumbled on this video because I am WELL past the college application process and I don't have a child who will be doing so in the future. Nonetheless, this is rather fascinating to watch.
For reference of how different this process seems to be today from what I experienced, I only applied to 1 university: the only one in my state that offered an accredited program in my chosen field. I didn't have a safety school and I was fortunate to be admitted after my application and interview. I was naive at the time since my parents didn't go to college and they weren't terribly helpful in the process. I can't even imagine the stress today of even getting accepted to the university where I studied.
Wash U in St Louis is so cool
To answer your question, yes, you are wrong to recommend only 6 applications! You are crazy! I can see that you are out of touch with the college application process. How can you be a coach? College decisions are like the lottery. It's a number game. The more you apply, the more chances you have to land in a good college. I am a mother of a senior student who just went through the process. He applied to 30 colleges (all private, tier 20, and ivys) with a 5.18 GPA, 12 AP classes, member of 7 honor societies, and a violinist since 6 years old. With 1st place awards on a few international violin competitions, selected to 4 consecutive Florida All State Orchestra, fencing since he was 10, and sailing team, student ambassador, almost 300 volunteer hrs. And many more awards, Etc. He was accepted to 6 schools and was waitlisted in 5 schools. On the ones accepted, he got the merit Presidential scholarships and has two full rides. But he wouldn't have had that chance if he had only applied to 6 like you recommend. My advice for other students is not to follow your advice and apply to as many as possible.
Congratulations to you and your son. You should be very proud. That said, he can only ATTEND one school, and it is possible he would have landed in the same spot with a smaller list, right? But congrats again.
30 is way too many. I’ve been through this process twice - once this year and once last year - and even my performing arts kid didn’t apply to 30 colleges - and those acceptance rates are less than 0.5% at many programs.
Wow I feel sorry that your son wasted his time doing 30 applications. You completely missed the point of the video.
Lol, what a nightmare. Don't let your college define you. Sounds like your son is pretty successful regardless of where he got accepted. Nobody needs an acceptance letter from a certain college to validate their accomplishments. That just smacks of insecurity.
Congrats to your kid!!
I do think 30 is a lot but understand why people choose to do so. We are chasing merit for a NMF and focused on 3 state schools, 6 schools that offer full COA or tuition for NMF, a couple reaches and a few targets for a total of 15. He hasn’t applied to all 15 yet and may cap it at 10 based on acceptances that are already coming in.
WASH U!!!