Myth #20
“I’m going to apply to as many colleges as I can . . . a ton of them; that will increase my chances to get accepted at someplace good.”
I wish this one wasn’t a myth because it would make life so much easier for thousands of teenagers every year. If it was just a matter of playing the numbers game, then every kid could spend a little extra money, apply to a host of good colleges and then sort through the mail for his or her thick envelope. Regardless of what any well intentioned friends tell all of you parents at a cocktail party, that’s just not the way it works. If this was simply a harmless myth and that was the end of it, I wouldn’t be too concerned. Unfortunately, there’s a dark side to this particular myth that can, and often does, hurt a student’s chances to be accepted at the college of their choice. Once again, this myth has 2 or 3 parts so it might get just a little tricky to understand.
“Over applying” is dangerous for a several reasons. First, the increased popularity of the “Common Ap” makes it very easy to do. It’s obviously much easier to gamble your life savings away if you happen to be in Vegas. It’s easier to get fat if your house sits between an ice cream store and a donut shop. And it’s much easier to over apply if you don’t have to do much more than hit the “send” button on your computer. In the old days, over applying was a self regulating problem. Every college had a different application and required a different essay. It took a lot of time just to complete a good application back then. Not so today, the Common Ap has eliminated most of the pain of applying to as many schools as you want.
If it’s so easy, why not give it a shot? Well, applying to a top college in today’s competitive environment is much more involved than simply zipping an electronic copy of the application and credit card payment through cyber space. If that’s the approach you take, you’re not going to have much luck at a top college. The school is going to look for a demonstrated display of interest. If you apply to a dozen or more colleges, it’s not likely that you’ve spent a great deal of time or effort building a track record with most or maybe any of them. Did you really do significant research on 14 comparable colleges and weren’t able to develop a strong preference for any one, two, or three of them? That’s very hard to believe. The idea of making an average admissions effort at many schools is much less effective and rewarding than making a concentrated and focused effort at a few schools.
There’s another dark side to the over application trap. Applying to many schools sends a very clear message that you haven’t really mastered the admissions process, that you haven’t made a serious effort, and that you don’t really care. This message is going to be noticed by the college counselor at your high school and might well be passed along in one way or another to your application folder. Information like that has a nasty habit of showing up in notes and recommendations either by what’s said or what isn’t said. There’s a very strong prejudice in admissions offices around the country against applicants who are essentially throwing a handful of darts at the wall hoping that one of them will hit the bull’s eye! There’s a sense that students who drift through the admissions process are more likely to simply drift through college. That’s not what a top college is looking for.
Of course, as with most of these myths there is a counterpoint, that little piece of truth that keeps the myth alive and kicking. In today’s highly competitive admissions environment, the talented and confident student who only applies to one or two or even three colleges is probably foolish. In the old days, a top student had every reason to believe that an outstanding record would likely earn an acceptance letter. That’s not true anymore. Being well qualified puts a student in the running but doesn’t win the race. At the very least, you’re going to need some luck. Exactly how many schools you should apply to varies with the student and the schools; there’s no magic “correct’ number. The best rule of thumb, don’t apply unless you’ve made a serious effort to learn about the college and are confident that you’d enjoy spending four years there.
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