Lots of Potential Applicants: How should I accept applications?

[Tomas Calvino]

Hello BiggerPockets,

I'm having an open house this weekend and I've had over 50 people contact me about seeing the property. I'm wondering what the best way to accept applications is when you have a lot of applicants. 

Here is what I was thinking of doing...Doing the 4 hour open house and collecting all applications during that time. Then pre-screen all applications and discard the ones that do not meet minimum requirements. Then processing the the "passing" applications in the order they came in. After finding the first qualified applicant, letting the others know that an application has been accepted.

Here are my questions:

• Should I collect applications with the application fee or wait until I "pre-qualify" the applications first and then request the application fee from the applicants I will actually process?
• When I process the applications, should I do them all and then choose or run them first come first serve and accept the first qualified tenant?
• If I run them first come first serve, and I accept the first one (hypothetically speaking), I would need to return the application fee to the applicants I did not process. That is why I'm wondering about collecting application fees until I pre-screen all application. I don't want to go through the hassle of having to return money to a bunch of people. 

What do you guys do when you have a lot of people putting applications in? I want to be ready if that happens. 

Thanks,