Of course, there is no universal number, and many factors affect the size of your list. But why 12 schools? And how do you know when enough is enough? Begin with what you love and want to study. What are your talents and interests, and which colleges deliver a program in which you will be able to thrive? Working on your own or with a counselor, list colleges having programs that are most appealing.
Next, apply geographic preferences and constraints. Do you want to be on the East or West Coast? Is proximity to family important?
Do you prefer urban, rural or access to a college town? Do you mind being on a plane? Depending on your answers to these questions, there may be colleges to add to this list. A student who wants a large university with a strong business program might add Indiana University. Before going too much further, consider the most important aspect of your candidacy: academics, as indicated by junior year grades and rigor in the senior year.
How does your academic profile stack up against those of recently admitted students? If you have an Early Decision I choice, back that up with Early Action colleges fitting the criteria above. Say you are a strong student interested in studying neuroscience in the Midwest and have decided to apply ED to the hugely selective Northwestern.
Consider adding Michigan and Wisconsin to your lists; both have non-binding priority programs. You want to get in those apps for early consideration in the event that Northwestern does not work out in your favor.
You can apply to an unlimited number of campuses with the UC App. So just add one per system! Unfortunately, students often compete with peers at their high school, who no shock apply to the same colleges. But do your research rather than just throwing on names.
So add a few colleges where you can see yourself, especially if they like to accept students from your high school. The information will be kept in a secure database with no identifying information for the duration of the study. The findings of this study will be used to provide suggestions for programs and services that will improve long-term outcomes for former foster, ILP eligible probation, and dual status youth.
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Find out more about the admissions process and paying for college. As colleges below the top were improving, the old WASP insider system was losing its grip on business and other institutions. There was a time when an Ivy League diploma was vital to career advancement in many places, because an Ivy grad could be assumed to be from the correct upper-middle-class Protestant background.
Today an Ivy diploma reveals nothing about a person's background, and favoritism in hiring and promotion is on the decline; most businesses would rather have a Lehigh graduate who performs at a high level than a Brown graduate who doesn't. Law firms do remain exceptionally status-conscious—some college counselors believe that law firms still hire associates based partly on where they were undergraduates. But the majority of employers aren't looking for status degrees, and some may even avoid candidates from the top schools, on the theory that such aspirants have unrealistic expectations of quick promotion.
Relationships labeled ironic are often merely coincidental. But it is genuinely ironic that as non-elite colleges have improved in educational quality and financial resources, and favoritism toward top-school degrees has faded, getting into an elite school has nonetheless become more of a national obsession. W hich brings us back to the Krueger-Dale thesis. Can we really be sure Hamilton is nearly as good as Harvard? Some analysts maintain that there are indeed significant advantages to the most selective schools.
For instance, a study by Caroline Hoxby, a Harvard economist who has researched college outcomes, suggests that graduates of elite schools do earn more than those of comparable ability who attended other colleges.
Hoxby studied male students who entered college in , and adjusted for aptitude, though she used criteria different from those employed by Krueger and Dale. This helped convince Hoxby that top applicants should, in fact, lust after the most exclusive possibilities.
It's not so much that you meet the son of a wealthy banker and his father offers you a job, but that you meet specialists and experts who are on campus for conferences and speeches. The conference networking scene is much better at the elite universities. The remaining quarter, she thinks, is determined by the status of the school—higher-status schools have more resources and better networking opportunities, and surround top students with other top students.
But there's a lot of difference between the students at those places, and some of every person's education comes from interaction with other students.
Hoxby notes that some medium-rated public universities have established internal "honors colleges" to attract top performers who might qualify for the best destinations. The reason, she feels, is that they're not surrounded by other top-performing students. There is one group of students that even Krueger and Dale found benefited significantly from attending elite schools: those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Kids from poor families seem to profit from exposure to Amherst or Northwestern much more than kids from well-off families.
One possible answer is that they learn sociological cues and customs to which they have not been exposed before. In his book, Limbo , Alfred Lubrano, the son of a bricklayer, analyzed what happens when people from working-class backgrounds enter the white-collar culture. Part of their socialization, Lubrano wrote, is learning to act dispassionate and outwardly composed at all times, regardless of how they might feel inside.
Students from well-off communities generally arrive at college already trained to masquerade as calm. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds may benefit from exposure to this way of carrying oneself—a trait that may be particularly in evidence at the top colleges. It's understandable that so many high schoolers and their nervous parents are preoccupied with the idea of getting into an elite college.
The teen years are a series of tests: of scholastic success, of fitting in, of prowess at throwing and catching balls, of skill at pleasing adults. These tests seem to culminate in a be-all-and-end-all judgment about the first eighteen years of a person's life, and that judgment is made by college admissions officers.
The day college acceptance letters arrive is to teens the moment of truth: they learn what the adult world really thinks of them, and receive an omen of whether or not their lives will be successful.
Of course, grown-up land is full of Yale graduates who are unhappy failures and Georgia Tech grads who run big organizations or have a great sense of well-being.
But teens can't be expected to understand this. All they can be sure of is that colleges will accept or reject them, and it's like being accepted or rejected for a date—only much more intense, and their parents know all the details.
Surely it is impossible to do away with the trials of the college-application process altogether. But college admissions would be less nerve-racking, and hang less ominously over the high school years, if it were better understood that a large number of colleges and universities can now provide students with an excellent education, sending them onward to healthy incomes and appealing careers.
Harvard is marvelous, but you don't have to go there to get your foot in the door of life. Skip to content Site Navigation The Atlantic.
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