By Nora Lessersohn, A.M.
We often hear from families: “It can’t hurt just to throw our hat in the ring at X school!” This is what you might call using “hope” as a strategy, ignoring data in the name of playing the lottery. While Barack Obama might disagree, hope, alone, is not at all likely to get you the results you want. Here are three reasons why having realistic expectations and creating a wide college list is what will actually help you gain admission to college.
1) Unless you have a “hook” – that is, if you are a recruited athlete, a member of an underrepresented population, a legacy, have a nationally-recognized talent or achievement, or have an otherwise truly unusual profile – highly selective schools are highly unlikely to admit you. For this reason, it is disadvantageous to stuff your list with such colleges, and it is definitely a waste to use your Early Decision option on one of these schools. It is more advantageous, or more strategically astute, to use your Early Decision card at a school for which a little boost can make a big difference. Opting to “enter the lottery” or “throw your hat in the ring” at a highly selective school – i.e. hoping against all odds – is not a good strategy to gain admission, particularly when putting together the application (or applications!) takes away from putting together your applications to other schools. Which brings us to our next point…
2) There’s a reason we ask our students to apply to 6-10 colleges: any more than that, and you’re not able to produce your best application for every school. The weaker your application, the less likely your chances of admission. Supplemental essays, for example, take thought and time, and highly selective schools tend to ask for more supplemental essays than other schools. Plus, demonstrating interest at the schools on your list – doing the research, taking the tours, reaching out to the admissions reps – takes effort and time. You need to do these things sincerely and thoughtfully. If you apply to too many schools, you quite simply can’t do the work you need to do to give yourself the best possible chance of admission.
3) Now, while applying to too many schools can be a strategic error, so can not applying to the best fit schools. What do we mean? Well, we sometimes encounter students or parents who say they will not apply to a certain school because the school is not prestigious enough. This is not a good reason to not apply to a school: not only could you be missing out on admission, but you may also be missing out on a scholarship opportunity, or a college that could be a match made in heaven. The vast majority of the schools to which our students apply offer the same resources and opportunities as one another. When a family is too focused on prestige, more important factors like fit go out the window. And, if and when a student does get into a school that they applied to only because of prestige, they often have to adopt a “make it work” attitude to push through a painful experience at a school that doesn’t actually work for them.
Ascertaining fit — based on preferences for location, student body, field of study, and values — is good for you, the school, and your admission chances!
To put it simply, while it’s good to have a positive attitude, in life and in the admissions process, it’s always smartest not to rely on hope alone. With the right strategy, hoping for the best is a lot more likely to get you there.
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