Note: I was away all week, so this newsletter is arriving Saturday. It’ll be back to Friday next week! The Common Application got started in the 1970s and is now used by about 900 colleges and universities. It allows students to submit a single application to many different schools, with some variation for supplemental information requirements. (Students do have to pay each school’s application fee, unless they qualify for fee waivers). Even with some variation, that’s a huge time-saver for students.
I consistently LOVE your Newsletter Stephanie. Each time you do a story like this -- quite unexpected -- you demonstrate some neat concept where risk or system thinking applies! I must admit this is not a topic I have given much thought as my children are done with schooling. At first blush, it would seem that the Universities love it because it ARTIFICIALLY lowers perceived acceptance rates having little do to with school quality! In general, the very best innovations for consumers are those that provide them more options so they can ferret out quality and costs. It seems the relationship between prospective students and institutions is HIGHLY ASYMMETRIC. Almost any business with asymmetric access to information (pre-Google and pre-Amazon) abuse the relationship and price excessively.
I consistently LOVE your Newsletter Stephanie. Each time you do a story like this -- quite unexpected -- you demonstrate some neat concept where risk or system thinking applies! I must admit this is not a topic I have given much thought as my children are done with schooling. At first blush, it would seem that the Universities love it because it ARTIFICIALLY lowers perceived acceptance rates having little do to with school quality! In general, the very best innovations for consumers are those that provide them more options so they can ferret out quality and costs. It seems the relationship between prospective students and institutions is HIGHLY ASYMMETRIC. Almost any business with asymmetric access to information (pre-Google and pre-Amazon) abuse the relationship and price excessively.