A Review of the Role of College Applications on Students ’ Postsecondary Outcomes

Students tend to submit too few college applications and do not apply to enough “reach ” and “match ” colleges. The application barriers they face may be procedural, geographical, cultural, informational, or financial. Potential solutions to reduce and remove these barriers include programs that substantially alter the usual application processes, provide information about and support outreach by colleges, promote the use of college application fee waivers, and improve college counseling. Identifying the best set of colleges to which to apply is not a simple task. The importance of any one application depends on the likely outcomes of other applications, and this logic and information is difficult to grasp for anyone, let alone high school students. To simplify this task, the College Board recommends that students submit a total of four to eight applications to a combination of “reach, ” “match, ” and “safety ” schools.1 However, many academically well-qualified students do not follow this advice, primarily by selecting too many “safety ” schools relative to “reach ” and “match ” schools. Quantifying the Problem Some national longitudinal data set