Prospective college students are applying to more colleges than ever before, according to a new report from UCLA's Higher Education Research Institute.

The average number of college applications a high school student sends out increased from two to four from 1967 to 2006, according to the report. The number of students sending out just one application decreased from 43.1 to 17.7 percent, and the number of students sending out four or more applications has increased by 36.6 percent in the same time period. At State College Area High School, the average number of college applications a student sends out is six or seven, said Karen Wolanski, senior counseling secretary.

Some students apply to 16 or 17 schools, she said. These students tend to be top students who are applying to several Ivy League schools, she said.

"The trend now is that it's been highly publicized ... that the competition is so strong that students are told they should apply to many schools," she said. "I think it's backfiring."

Negative effects are resulting because there is an enormous number of rejection letters coming out this year, she said, so she warns parents to prepare their kids for rejection.

Tiffany Iriana (senior-political science) said she thinks she applied to eight schools, but most of her friends applied to more. One of her friends applied to 20 schools, she added.

"Most of my friends are over-achievers and they wanted to keep as many options open as possible," she said.

Michael Young (senior-media studies) said he applied only to Penn State. He visited once and knew he wanted to attend the university, he said.

"I applied early," he said. "When I got accepted, I knew I was going to go here, so I didn't feel like paying all the other [application] fees."

Iriana said her first choice was George Washington University, but she decided to attend Penn State even though she was accepted to the other university because of George Washington's higher tuition.

The greatest change in attitudes since 1976 involves money, the report said. Making more money is essential or very important to 69 percent of college freshmen today, compared to 49.9 percent in 1976, the report said.

The survey, done by the Cooperative Institutional Research Program (CIRP) at UCLA, is based on the responses of more than 8.3 million incoming college freshmen at 1,201 different colleges and universities over the last 40 years. According to the CIRP, the survey documents the changing nature of students' characteristics, values, attitudes and behaviors.

The report also said fewer college freshmen are attending their first-choice school than in the past. In 2006, 67.3 percent of students went to their first-choice school, while 77.3 percent did 30 years earlier, the survey found. Students are choosing to attend institutions other than their first choice more often than in the past, even though they are accepted into their favorite school.

Despite these changes over time, some things have stayed nearly the same over the past 30 years, the surveys found. Most students reported that the number one reason for higher education in both 1976 and 2006 was "to learn things that interest me," followed by "to get a better job."

"You can't get a good job anymore without a degree," Iriana said.