RegGuheert Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 For starters, I'm cheap! :D O.K. Now that my confession is squarely off the table, I want to say that at the NOVA homeschool conference last weekend one of the universities my DD16 has been considering told us that they would accept her application without a fee during the conference. So she did it! IMO, application fees are designed as a barrier to application to prevent "nuisance" applications from students who have little or no intention of attending the school. I've sometimes wondered if this barrier may actually dissuade some excellent candidates from applying to their third or fourth choice, thus HURTING a school's recruiting efforts. So this brings up the following questions in my mind: 1) How common is this practice of waiving application fees? 2) Does it just happen at conferences, or are there other ways to apply for free? 3) If the fee is at the discretion of the recruiting officer, is it common to simply ask for them to waive the fee? 4) Will asking them to waive the fee somehow hurt the prospect of the applicant? 5) Does the current economic environment make colleges and universities more or less apt to waive their application fee? 6) Does the economy affect a school's willingness to waive fees differently depending on certain college characteristics such as cost of tuition and average scores of entering students? While the application fee is not usually a huge amount of money, I know that some students like to apply to many colleges, so perhaps this subject will be of interest to others here. Please post your experiences and thoughts related to free college application submissions! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted July 19, 2009 Share Posted July 19, 2009 (edited) You may wish to take a look at this site, Free College Applications, with the proviso that I don't know when it was last updated. One thing we did find out last year when my teen applied to colleges is that a number will waive any application fee if a student applies on-line. Here's an interesting article from a blog, AdmissionsAdvice.com, that I highly recommend. This article was written in 2008 -- Control Your College Application Costs. Regards, Kareni Edited July 20, 2009 by Kareni Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RegGuheert Posted July 20, 2009 Author Share Posted July 20, 2009 Thanks, Kareni! That's great information! :thumbup1: If nothing else, it seems reasonable to ask if they will waive the application fee for any of the reasons discussed on those websites. Thanks again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kareni Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 You are quite welcome. Another possible idea for saving money is to see if your child qualifies for testing waivers. I know that the SAT and AP have these; I'd imagine that the ACT might also. And, if you qualify for these, you might find college application fees to be waived as well. The problem we found is that one needs to go through one's high school guidance counselor to obtain these. We had no luck; however, others might be more successful. Regards, Kareni Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
creekland Posted July 20, 2009 Share Posted July 20, 2009 I know that when I applied to college, none of my applications were free. Now that my rising senior is checking out schools, most of them have said his application will be free (except the local CC where he's taking one class this fall). We're seriously considering whether we want to apply to any of the colleges that haven't offered a free application... BUT, in the end, we will send in applications to places that we feel will be a best fit. We've already rejected quite a few free offers as he has no intent on going to those places. I don't care to waste their time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RegGuheert Posted July 20, 2009 Author Share Posted July 20, 2009 Just one more data point here: DD16 just got a call back from the recruiting officer at her #1 choice. At my instruction, one of the questions that she asked the recruiter was whether they would be willing to waive the application fee. Without hesitation she replied "Certainly! It's always nice to save $40.00, isn't it!" (It's a near quote, since I wasn't on the call...) In any case, MomsintheGarden and DD16 were a little hesitant when I first suggested that she ask this question. At this point, with BOTH of DD16's prospective colleges agreeing to accept her application without a fee, they now see this a just part of doing business with colleges. Sign me: I just saved $40.00! ;) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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