Applying a Solution

Like the heroic little Dutch boy, college administrators are trying to stop a flood by putting their fingers in a dike. Ever-increasing numbers of secondary school students are submitting ever greater numbers of applications to two, three, or eight different colleges, thus creating the massive Problem of Multiple Applications.

It is natural enough for a student to want to assure himself of acceptance by a good school. Consequently, he will apply to several. The college applicant also wants to get himself the best "deal" possible and therefore he will want to compare the offers he receives from various schools. But it is equally understandable that college admissions officers, still smarting from the pressure of 4,000 applications for a class of 1,100, are trying to prepare for the future. Not only are students applying to more colleges each fall; the immense numbers of "war babies" will begin entering college within five years.

It is encouraging to see college administrators trying to lay the groundwork for a dike in advance of the flood. But at the same time, it appears that many colleges are attempting to throw the initial responsibility back to the student. While the colleges' problem may be understandable, their solution is unfair. They have scoured the hinterlands trying to intensify interest in their campuses, and thus, in a sense, have themselves created the problem of multiple applications. The high school student from Iowa often is no longer content to attend the state university. He feels, instead, that he should try for the added laurels of an Ivy diploma.

The colleges as a result complain of "ghost" applications --from students not intending to attend, but who are seeking only an insurance acceptance. Still, it seems only fair that the colleges themselves should assume responsibility for their own problem. A College Board Entrance Examination official has likened the situation to a marriage. While both parties may be willing, someone has got to propose." The colleges, since they are not bashful in their courting, should at least continue so make the initial advances.

Already they have taken steps to mitigate the problem by the establishment of the College Scholarship Service, which should serve to bring various financial aid awards closer together. But further solutions, such as the suggested requirement of preferential listing of schools, or a central clearing house for applications should not be set up at the expense of the student. Any answer should be based on the premise that the problem is not so much one of cutting down applications as it is the more efficient handling of them.

Operating under this assumption, then, the most obvious solution would simply be to increase the number of admissions personnel, thus casing the load on present staffs. Such a naive answer is impractical, however, both because of the prohibitive cost and the shortage of qualified people. An alternative would be to spread out the applications, so present staffs could read them throughout the year, rather than in a mad four-week race. Technically, at least, this would be immediately possible. The CEEB approved a September test series at its recent meeting; other exams could also be added making it possible for college applicants to take the Boards at almost any time of the year. It is also possible, with a reasonable degree of accuracy, to predict what a student who takes a September test would do on the same test in March.

But a suitable examination basis would not suffice. To make early college consideration possible, early student application would also be necessary. Admissions officials point out that many applications come in early anyway; students could continue to decide when they would apply. Yale, for instance, handled a thousand voluntarily early applications last fall in an experimental admissions program. With early exam scores and applications, all colleges could begin their weeding out processes in September, and continue in the spring. They would thus alleviate their mammoth blue-form burden in April.

One important difficulty would remain under a year-round setup: whether to begin actual admission as well as consideration in the autumn. Under the Yale program, students' school advisers were told how the applicants ranked--tentatively accepted, undecided, or rejected, and the student could, accordingly, apply elsewhere. A more sensible solution, it seems, would be to take the pressure off the applicant as soon as possible by immediately admitting acceptable students. To do this, however, would require a uniform reply date among colleges. An applicant to Princeton, for example, otherwise might not accept admission there before hearing from Harvard or Yale.

With such a scheme, colleges would be erecting their own dikes, relatively simple to be sure, but effective in channeling the flood of future college applications. By assuming their own responsibilities, they would avoid increasing the worries of the applicant. Instead of being a shot-gun wedding, the marriage of college admissions and secondary school students would be a happy one.