Over the past decade, admission to the top US colleges and universities has become increasingly competitive. And when we say competitive, we mean a little bit crazy. In the year 1980, Yale admitted 20% of its applicants, and in 2024 that number has plummeted to 6.5%. In 1981, Brown received 13,250 applications. In 2023, that number ballooned to 51,316.

While the Ivy League has always been relatively selective, other top schools have also seen their admit rates drop. Johns Hopkins admitted 27% of applicants in 2006, and in 2024 that number cascaded down to 8.8%.

What is going on?

There are many theories about why admission rates are dropping so dramatically, among them an increase in population, an increase in students interested in attending college, an increase in students interested in leaving their home town to attend college, an increase in access to college preparatory courses, a generational emphasis on higher education.

However, what may have had the largest impact on the sheer number of applications is the advent of The Common Application. In the old days, students would have to fill out applications for each school by hand, on paper, and mail them in. Now, the process has been streamlined. Students prepare a main body of data, answer some specific questions for each school they are considering, and submit it all with the click of a button.

The Shotgun Method

This brings us to what is known amongst Generation Z as “The Shotgun Method.” Students of all abilities and backgrounds look at the diminishing acceptance rates of top schools and feel a sense of hopelessness. They consider the college admissions process a “lottery” or a “gamble,” and treat it as such.

The Shotgun Method is when a student applies to a large number – 10, 20, or even 30 – top schools, simply adding all the highly ranked schools to their dashboards, and applying to them whether the schools have their major of interest or not. Sometimes, students will apply to prestigious schools with (what they think is) a less-selective major, such as General Education, or more obscure ones, such as Russian Literature, with the intention to then transfer into a more selective major, such as Computer Science.

Students do this in the hopes that they will get lucky, and at least one prestigious school will admit them. It is a way for students to throw their hands up, roll the dice, and back away from the game board. In Zoomer math, if 20 schools have a 5% admit rate, that adds up to 100%, right?

A Very Bad Idea, Indeed

We’re here to tell you this is very, very wrong. Any counselor worth their salt would discourage a student from applying to every single Ivy League school, let alone the top 20 schools across the board. There are a variety of reasons why The Shotgun Method is a terrible idea, but we’ll give you the highlights:

1. You’ll get rejections – and a lot of them. Possibly all of them.

While every student is unique, top schools are looking for top students, and that means they are looking for specific student profiles. If you have a C average and are trying to shotgun the top 20 schools with no safeties, you’ll be in for a rude awakening. Schools with a less than 10% admit rate are reaches for everyone. Having a school list that is all or overbearingly made of reach schools is deeply unwise.

2. Even if you include a safety school, there is no guarantee you’ll be admitted.

Students with top scores, grades, and extra curricular activities are often wait listed at schools they consider to be safeties. Lower tier schools know when students of a high calibre won’t attend – they aren’t stupid. Yield protection is important to all schools – not just the top 20. In short, if you shotgun 20 top universities with one or two safety schools, you might end up with nowhere to go come fall.

3. If you do get into a top school, you may not be happy there.

If you do get lucky, and The Shotgun Method “works” for you, the one school you are admitted to might be the antithesis of what you want from a college experience. If you’re focused on prestige and not what you want to accomplish or learn during your time at college, you might end up stuck in a major that you don’t like or won’t use in your desired career. In addition, campus culture should be a carefully considered aspect of a student’s decision when selecting a school. It’s four years of your life – don’t you want to be happy, make friends, and build a life for yourself outside of academics? There is so much more to the college experience than a school’s rank on a list.

4. It’s not that easy to switch majors.

Some schools don’t accept internal major transfers to highly selective programs at all. Some require students to apply, with essays and letters of recommendations from professors. If a student is disingenuous or deeply unserious about their current studies, it is unlikely that they will be successful in an internal transfer.

Also? Admissions officers know what you’re doing. If your extracurriculars are filled with robotics club, Math Olympiads, and a summer course in Engineering, they know you don’t really want to study Archaeology.

5. It can be expensive – in more ways than one.

Application fees range from $50 to $90 per application. Shotgunning 10 to 30 schools can cost anywhere between $500 to $2,700; knowing you are unlikely to be admitted to a majority of these schools is like throwing money out the window.

Not only this, but the worse you are matched to a school, the less likely you are to be qualified for merit scholarships and competitive tuition packages. Paying full tuition for a school you don’t even like, for a major you don’t want, and then paying to apply to transfer out to a better-fit school, and then paying for more credits because not all of your credits will transfer…you get the idea.

Be serious.

College applications can be stressful. We get it. But that doesn’t mean you should put your nose up at the application process. While you may think you’re getting one over on the higher ed machine, the only person you’ll really be hurting is yourself. Colleges will build their classes successfully. They know what they are looking for. By participating in The Shotgun Method as a trend, all you are doing is increasing the number of applications top schools receive, therefore contributing to decreased admit rates, and the cycle continues. Your future is too important to gamble on it with such poor odds.

Where you will attend college is a serious decision, one that requires time, research, effort, and – usually – a fair bit of guidance from an expert. Aristotle Circle is here to help. Our NACAC-certified college admissions counselors know the ins and outs of the application process, and they know how to find perfect-fit schools for all different types of students. The top 20 aren’t for everyone, and everyone isn’t for the top 20. Otherwise, we’d have thousands of cookie-cutter institutions that offer the same rote instruction styles, the same clubs, and the same research.

Ask for help.

Reach out to us at info@aristotlecircle.com or 212-360-2301 to see how we can help you with the college admissions process. Let us take the stress out of the situation, and help you get excited again about higher education. Our College Admissions Counseling package is comprehensive, from building the school list to monitoring applications after they’ve been sent, and we work with students as early as 8th grade. Call today (212-360-2301) for a quote.

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