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> more students sending out far more applications (out of paranoia? Pressure?)

No, it's actually a rational choice, because no one can accurately forecast what a given school will cost anymore.

At some point (I believe in the late ’00s, but could be wrong), elite schools started to extend their financial aid programs to include students from middle-class families. Prior to this change, a student from a family with middle-class income or above could know with reasonable certainty what a given college would cost: they would expect to pay the tuition, fees, etc. listed on the brochures. After this change, they would have no idea until after they were admitted. They might get a generous financial aid package that brings the cost down to the price of their local state university, or they might get nothing except loans. The systems used to determine financial aid packages are opaque and not well-publicized, so the outcome is unpredictable.

In 2009, I applied to a broad sample of 14 schools on the east coast. They were a mix of “elite” private and flagship public universities. My parents were comfortably middle-class. I was lucky enough to get into most of them, and so I had the opportunity to compare financial offers. In maybe 1 case out of 12, I would have had to pay the full sticker price. The rest would have been heavily “discounted”, but the discount varied widely between schools, from ~5% off the total cost of attendance, to 60% off, to 100% off (full ride). For the private universities the “discount” came from a mix of “need-based aid” and merit scholarships, while for the public universities it was exclusively from merit scholarships.

In this system, you don’t know what the financial offer is until you get in, there are possible windfalls from getting a generous financial offer, and it’s difficult to predict in advance what the financial offer will be until you get in. The incentives here are obvious: student who are conscious about the cost of their education have a strong incentive to “play the lottery” by applying to as many schools as is feasible for them, while biasing towards schools that are known to provide generous financial packages.

It was really fun for me to receive tons of mail from colleges in 1997, but the catch was that I was living in Nigeria at the time. I had actually written letters to dozens of colleges requesting their brochures and even their entire course catalogs (I had barely heard of the World Wide Web but hadn't personally used it yet) and I was quite delighted that most of them actually mailed all this physical paper to me overseas! It probably didn't change my life to compare course descriptions from all those different institutions, but I enjoyed it in a nerdy kind of way. Still, I think the information I had to compare helped reinforce my choice, even though it was the only college I had been able to visit on a trip back to the USA.

Contrast that with now when so much more information is available immediately, and yet I'm still surprised by how often I have to sell relatives on Rice University, my alma mater. What surprises me the most is how they don't seem to realize how good financial aid can be and just assume a private school is expensive even though they know my parents didn't have much money. Perhaps it's a bit of a branding problem, but it might also be people not digging around the college websites enough to find out how financial aid works and just walking away after seeing the sticker price.

I think most people know how good financial aid can be, but they are realistic about how good financial aid is in practice.

Early 90's, I had just left the military and was thus able to apply for financial aid without recording my parents' income. So I was able to claim having made $15k the year before. I also accurately reported my savings. My total non-loan financial aid package consisted of $500/year of some state matching fund. I was also expected to contribute 100% of my savings in year one. I was told I had made too much money for a Pell grant. Something which remained true the next year when my income totaled $8k.

So in 2.5 years of college after the military, I managed to deplete my 4 years of aggressive savings and take on $15k in debt, over the GI Bill.

All of this is anecdotal, but as I prepare for my son to go to college next year, I have no realistic hope of him getting a cent. $200k for four years at Rice seems reckless.

If your son has good grades and test scores, there are lots of merit scholarships available if you're willing to look below the "top tier" of universities. I had multiple friends who chose to accept full-rides from regional state universities rather than pay full price at their flagship state university, and their career outcomes have been excellent. There are definitely trade-offs, but they benefited from being a "big fish in a small pond", and were always the first in line for research opportunities, internships, etc.

University of Alabama in particular has massively increased the amount of merit aid it awards to out-of-state students, and it now attracts a huge number of students from the Northeast and the Chicago area that would never have considered it before. There are other schools using similar strategies.

As I mentioned in another comment, the cost of any given school is very unpredictable until you actually get accepted and get your financial package. The winning strategy is to research schools which are known for generous financial offers for similar students, and then apply to as many of them as is manageable to increase your odds of a winning "lottery ticket".

I had good grades and test scores. Very nearly straight 4.0. I applied to a wide variety of schools. I got zilch at every single one, save some strange merit scholarships that were basically 1/2 off after increasing the price by 2x, but everyone who had at least a B average got these. I was actually in the accelerated program in HS, but the schools didn't take in the different GPA scale, so taking the harder courses ended up screwing me out of money.

Now that I'm older I still get no money, but I don't even get the "merit scholarships."

> Early 90's, I had just left the military and was thus able to apply for financial aid without recording my parents' income. So I was able to claim having made $15k the year before. I also accurately reported my savings. My total non-loan financial aid package consisted of $500/year of some state matching fund. I was also expected to contribute 100% of my savings in year one. I was told I had made too much money for a Pell grant. Something which remained true the next year when my income totaled $8k.

My parents income was slightly above your income, yet I got Pell grants all four years.

Just gonna say that you can get some level of federal grants and loans going to foreign schools which cost far less. I’m obviously familiar with the UK which is very open to having US foreign students coming over (with a weak pound it’s worth considering). The application process is also much cheaper and easier in most European countries. Of course this doesn’t solve the problem of US university being so damn expensive, but it can help individuals who want to get a good education for cheaper.

That's unfortunate. I used to be a tour guide and raved about the awesome need-based aid at Rice. The maximum amount of loans I had to take out each year was maybe $2,500 and my parents didn't have to pay much more than that, and I had a friend whose parents' total annual income was only $7,000 and he didn't pay a dime (and he had a workstudy job in the student pub). However, I also knew someone who had 2 parents with engineer salaries and they didn't really qualify for any aid so his parents weren't excited about him going to Rice compared to a state school since they didn't really get any aid.

No one at Rice has asked for my opinion, and I'm not privy to all the numbers behind the scenes, but I'm surprised they can't be more generous with the middle class since we have such a large endowment. They recently announced a big new financial aid initiative, but I wish tuition could be free again like it was until 1965!

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/09/18/health/rice-university-fi...

Back in 1999, I did really well on the PSATs. I was inundated with flyers. A dozen a day or more. I often just through them out.

One day, my dad glanced in the trash. It was a small box with a fighter jet on it. I had assumed it was an Air Force recruiting package (some of the flyers were... robust) and had tossed it.

Turns out, it was from Gillette. "Now you're a man. Use a man's razor." I laughed out loud. Gillette had bought PSAT scores just to get the birthday of males to advertise to them, which I thought was hilarious.

They made a loyal customer that day. (Loyalty of a 17 year old is pretty cheap to purchase but also worthless.)

The memories come flooding back.

Southern Illinois University (Carbondale) was the most persistent in my day. They sent a 45 rpm record extolling all of their fine programs. In a moment of weakness, I put it on the turntable and was serenaded by the chance to study mortuary science on their campus.

It was a great tension release for the rest of the college cycle. Anytime an over-curious relative asked me about my college outlook, the answer was: "I'm going to Southern Illinois to study mortuary science."

That ended the conversation nice and quick.

It's gotten kind of ridiculous. My daughters applied to 18 and 22 schools respectively. Why? Because the admit rates of the schools they wanted were so low. Hence, the cycle.

It would be slightly illuminating to also publish the statistics of how many applications aspiring freshmen are submitting. Not to mention, we paid $70-$100 per application.

How long before someone writes software that walks you through a series of questions (a la turbotax, but more in depth and less shit), and then spits out a series of applications. Of course you'd hand check each one, but until colleges collude on their into process, it seems possible.

I doubt it will ever be possible.

Back when I applied to college many years ago, IIRC all the colleges I applied to used Common App as mentioned in a sibling comment (I only applied to five top universities, no idea about the less competitive ones which constitute the majority), but each one had a distinct set of extra questions and/or short-form essays, and no amount of software could save you time on those. I even had to carefully customize the “common” personal statement in order to play to each recipient’s (perceived) interests.

I guess cookie cutter bulk applications could be used for fallback options, but those are not the time consuming ones in the first place.

This exists; the Common App centralizes applications for 800+ Colleges

This may have changed in the last decade but I remember while the Common App had mostly the same basic fields the College's using it could still attach several custom supplement applications to it (eg essays). So it's not a truly common system.

In talking to the parents of some students applying this year to colleges, the common application is truly one common app, including the same essay.

The consequences of this is now it is truly much easier to apply to a bunch of schools for undergrad.

Note, this is not the same for grad schools. I have been applying to graduate schools, and they seem to have their own systems (but there seems to be a common platform called "Applyweb").

I've written between three and ten custom answers for each college to which I have applied. For the schools with more, there are usually three extra essays plus a bunch of short-answer questions. I've also applied to a good few honors programs, which have about three additional essays apiece.

The only thing the common app does is standardize the name/dob/address form that's two pages of paper anyway. The essays, which are by far most of the work, are mostly different. Oh, and the schools all still charge full application fees.

It makes sense that the essays might be different since the schools are different and are looking for different things.

There is one shared essay, but back when I was applying (which wasn’t all that long ago) I had to write additional essays per-college in their college-specific question sections.

It has not changed.

There already is something kind of like that: It's called the Common Application. You fill out a single application and choose which schools you want to receive it. A little under 1,000 schools use it, so if one of the school you're interested in accepts it then you can easily click a few boxes to send it to a bunch more with no extra work.

As for paying the application fee, it's not too hard to get a waiver. All you have to do is get your guidance counselor to sign off on a waiver form. (That is actually not just for the Common App either: nearly every school will accept that sort of affirmation of need and waive the fee)

The primary reason fees exist is to make them high enough that students who aren't all that interested in attending don't bother to apply. Believe it or not, for most schools the application fee really doesn't impact their budget much. Take a mid-size school with 20,000 students and a freshman class of 3,000. They might get 12,000 applications that progress far enough that the student submits a fee. Take away 3,000 for fee waivers, and average a $60 fee, and it adds up to $540,000. Seems like a fair bit of money, Given a staff 20, marketing budget, etc., it's a very minor consideration.

Sure, it's not nothing, but having lots of not-very-interested applicants makes it extremely hard to make a target enrollment goal because you end up accepting so many students that won't attend. So you either come under your goal because you accepted uninterested students, or you accept too many to make up for it, making it look like your less competitive at the same time you risk enrolling more students that the school can handle on such short notice (I've seen that happen, it's not good for the school or the students).

Source: I work in higher ed analytics.

For sure, but I more wonder if there is a false advertising claim if they are specifically sending these brochures to students who’s scores are too low for them to be admitted.

The anecdote the article featured mentioned Vanderbilt sending her an application even though her SAT scores were lower than "most" of the admitted class, but it wasn't lower than everyone in the admitted class.

The SATs give college admissions a lot of information, but that information is still only part of the picture. I agree, it would be silly if they were sending out brochures to students with SAT scores lower than anyone they've ever admitted before, but it's conceivable that some of the lower scorers might have otherwise great applications and be admitted.

As a kid in a single-income home whose father only started making middle-class money at about my junior year of high school, I got mail from all of those schools. Given my family's financial situation, I felt it would be irresponsible to apply to schools for which there was little to no hope that I would receive adequate financial aid. My folks weren't going to contribute to my education financially, so I limited myself to a few state schools. I know that admissions cost time and money, but I would have to imagine that there are plenty of kids in similar situations who self-select below their talent / intelligence / skill level.

>more students sending out far more applications (out of paranoia? Pressure?)

Many college systems (e.g. UC) have a common application. Applying to more colleges is just checking more boxes. There's another common application I just found on google that advertises "Explore nearly 900 colleges and universities using Common App." If it were me, and it were just another check box, or even checkbox + $50 or something, I'd hit a ton of them. Back in the day, I think I applied to every single UC for that reason.

As it is, it's not quite that simple (different essay questions, etc.), but the barrier to more applications has absolutely gone down.

I seem to recall the Common App requiring work per-college that went beyond “check some boxes and pay us more”.

I don't think we're disagreeing? For the UC's it was that simple, but for the gigantic common app, it's not. Hence my comment "As it is, it's not quite that simple (different essay questions, etc.)..."

Ah, I thought you were considering the Common App to be equivalent to the UC application.

> To some extent, I think it's a positive feedback loop that doesn't require advertising at all to drive it. If you know the admit rate is low (because of all the applications being sent), then it's in your best interest to send out lots of applications -- throwing spaghetti at the wall. Then the admit rate gets lower...

Don't colleges charge around $100 per application? Seems pretty expensive for poorer students to have to apply to increasingly more places.

Most colleges waive the application fee for anyone needing financial aid, so I don't know anyone who didn't apply to a college specifically because of the application fee.

It may work for some, but is it really wise for our 18 year old young minds to travel across the country for a 4 year vacation if they DON'T know what field-specific school they want? Maybe it'd be better if our youth stuck close to home with better financials, family, and social supports, until they figure out a solid plan to head across the country?

I was the same way. Getting letters from Boston schools got me thinking outside my farming community in Missouri

I would maybe agree with you if the admissions process was quietly subsidized. At the moment it's about $80 dollars to apply to a college, and the fee waiver process is annoying and opaque.