And you thought tuition was bad?By ALLAYNE THOMAS
$90. That is currently the highest price for a college application, belonging to Stanford University. The average was $41 in the spring of 2015. With acceptance rate decreases, the price usually increases. Schools such as UNC-CH, NC State, and Duke University, charge between $80 and $85. Deadlines and application fees are on the front of almost every seniors’ mind as we reach the final stages of the college application season. Applying to college will always be stressful, as it is a process that, despite the many hours of tips and preparation, is new and confusing. However, what prior senior classes never emphasized was the sheer cost of applying to college itself. Each student must take the ACT or the SAT, with certain selective schools even requiring or strongly recommending at least 2 SAT subject tests. The SAT costs $45, or $57 with the essay, and subject tests start at $46, depending on the amount you need to take. Not only are these tests stressful, but prior to Khan Academy the cost to prepare for them was also expensive. After you take all of your standardized tests, the process has only just begun. Each student is allowed four free score sends when you take the SAT, but after that it costs $12 to send scores to each university you apply to. Each application fee is suddenly expanded by $12 and it snowballs further. Certain schools require the CSS-profile, a profile of each student's financial situation to help schools determine their financial award, in addition to the FAFSA. This costs $25 for the first school and $16 for each school after that. At the end of it all, one of the local schools such as NC state or UNC-CH, the top choice for many at Enloe, can cost up to $230 to apply. Each school tends to cost over $100 without fee waivers or other supplementals. This limits the number of schools applicants consider applying to. Even with the significant amount of fee waivers that are offered to students in need, schools with the higher application fees still make at least over $1 million dollars on average. The question is always at the front of our minds: which school is the school? Unfortunately, throughout the process, the one you want might be that reach school--the one $100 over your college application budget. At the end of the day, we are paying for applications that might not woo the admissions officers. Completely overhauling all fees is impractical, but certain costs can be reduced. It should not take $12 to send scores to a university for a test that was already paid for. Universities shouldn’t charge above $50 for each fee,
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