Asthe new school year begins, high school seniors–and ambitious juniors too–are beginning what more than half agree is the most stressful experience of their academic lives: applying to college. Media buzz and college rankings add to the angst with their focus on a small group of name brand schools with impossibly low admissions rates—7% or below for eight of the ten top-ranked schools on Forbes’ new America’s Top Colleges list and all eight members of the Ivy League.

Factors ranging from the ease of submitting multiple applications online via the Common App to the growth of test-optional schools have caused application totals to soar, drastically reducing advertised admission rates at the most sought after schools. According to Arlington, Virginia-based Common App, first-year applicants applied to an average of 5.74 schools last year. But a 2022 study by the group found that 17% of applicants (up from 8% in 2015) apply to ten or more schools and that the most prolific applicants are usually chasing admission to the most selective private colleges—those with acceptance rates below 25%. The result is a vicious cycle: More applications drive down stated admission rates, which feeds anxiety among ambitious students (and their parents), leading them to submit still more applications.

“Somebody called me in a panic in April—the kid turned out to have applied to more than 30 [schools],” reports Chris Teare, an independent college admissions consultant who’s been in the field for 40-plus years. “The results weren’t what they wanted, and once I got a look at his Common App, it was no wonder—he had too many things going in too many different directions all at the same time. The people who do that to themselves create stress that leads to poor outcomes.”

But here’s the good news for teens and their parents: there are terrific schools, providing a great, rigorous education and strong career prospects, that admit 30%, 40% or even 50% or more of their applicants.

How do we know? Forbes’........

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