Time to Break the Piggy Bank

With less than 8 months left of my current school I am beginning my search for a university to attend. Well, I didn’t just begin my search. I’ve been researching on the down low for a few months now. But now that I have a bit of direction and I’ve narrowed down what I’d like to be doing in school I have a better idea of which schools I’d like to apply to.

I half-jokingly and half-seriously contemplated applying to Harvard, just so I could hang up my rejection letter. When people commented on it, I could say at least I applied jerk!! But, I don’t know if I could actually handle the rejection. And to be quite honest…um…have you seen the application for that place?! It’s like 11 pages long! Eff that!

(Mom, don’t freak out….she reads this) But many of my choices are in Boston. There are a couple in Chicago so no worries.  But for the purpose of this blog, I’m going to focus on the schools in Boston because I believe they’re trying to a. steal my soul or b. rob me. I’m going with the latter.

I printed out some applications and lists of required items for applying to the following schools:  Boston University, Northeastern University, Salem State College, Simmons College, Tufts University and University of Massachusetts (Boston).

I figured that’d be a good group to begin with, especially since Tufts is like a crazy good medical university and Northeastern has a really awesome Physiology program that I’d probably kill a person to get into. UMass is cheap and Salem State College is fairly reasonably priced as well. They’d be good schools to spend a year or two at and then kill someone to get into either Tufts or Northeastern. But I figured I’d apply to them all because really, you never know. I could surprise myself and get accepted to Tufts (unlikely.)

But because I am not a resident of the fantabulous state of Massachusetts (I live in Chicago if you already haven’t figured that out) the application fees are ridiculously expensive. $60 for UMass, $40 for Salem State, $75 for Boston University, $65-75 (depending if you submit it online or through the mail) for Northeastern, and $35 for Simmons. That’s a total of $285 on application fees alone! Not even including the fees for transcripts and having been to three schools, that’s three fees per school!

When I applied for colleges back in high school the fees were about $15, maybe $25 at the most. But $75? For what?! And why can’t I get that back if I’m not accepted. I love that a school who rejects me still manages to keep my money. And if I ever decide to apply again, will I have to pay it again? It’s ridiculous!!!

After seeing those costs, I’m thinking about cutting down my options. I feel bad letting an application fee deter me away from going to a really good school…BUT…if I can’t afford $75 I can’t afford it. I’d rather apply to two schools for the price of one.

I would still like to know why colleges feel the need to charge this much money for people to apply? Don’t they make enough money with their already-too-high-tuition? What are the “lab fees” for? How about the crazy prices of books? Applying should be the least of my worries. What if I got in and actually had to pay that outrageous tuition? Yikes.