24 too many?

College Search & Selection
21

Not impossible, but a lot of work. I’d narrow down the list if possible.

I’m saying this as someone who just finished helping her surrogate daughter do 21 schools! It was a huge undertaking. I wouldn’t recommend it, even using the common app.

Also, don’t think you’re getting away with writing only one essay by doing the common app. Most of the schools my daughter applied to required additional essays on top of the one submitted for the common app. Most of her schools required two or three essays each. We definitely ended up rushing some, and those weren’t the best which is not what you want to do. We were basically only able to reuse the Tell Me Something Unique About You prompt that many schools had as an optional extra essay.

There are also extra sections you have to fill out for each school on the common app., so it really felt like we were still doing individual applications for each school. I’m sure it did save some time, but it was still a very long process. We started in September and just barely made the Nov. 1 deadline we were shooting for, and that was with her spending all her free time working on applications and skipping a few extra curriculars as well to get it all done.

On top of the huge amount of time needed, it’s expensive to apply to so many schools. Even if they waive the application fee, you’ve got to pay to send your ACT/SAT scores to the schools ($13/school) and then make sure all your transcripts and recommendation letters are sent out as well. Also, it can be difficult to get some schools to send out everything you need. Definitely check with your school as some have a limit on how many schools they’ll send your transcripts to and such.

Then there are admission counselors to check in with, logins and portals to keep tack of, not to mention visits and scholarships. If you do try to do this, you’ll need to be very organized and stay on top of everything. We’ve only managed because we are really only paying close attention to about 6 schools. The others are state safeties that are fairly low maintenance or Tuition Exchange schools we aren’t concerned with right now as her export school has her wait-listed. If it wasn’t for TE, we’d only have applied to 10 total.

If you do try to apply to all 24, I’d make a priority list. That way if you burn out before the end or don’t do as well on those last essays, it won’t matter as much. Also, make some type of chart to track everything to help you keep up with who has what and what is still missing. Remember an application isn’t considered complete until everything is received (app, fee, transcripts, scores, letters, etc).

22

@Patsyclarkstown thank you, I’m attempting to cut down the list :slight_smile:

23

@Lindagaf I have been selective about which schools I’d be happy to attend, currently I think I could be happy at all of them

24

@NicoleGreen Thank you for your detailed post, I’m really glad to hear your first-hand experience applying to so many! I am thinking to shorten my list. I hope to create an optimal balance where I can apply to as many colleges (mostly ones with merit aid) and keep the quality of the essays up to par :slight_smile:
Thanks for your insight

25

@happymomof1 I think that’s really good advice, but my safety is my state school & honors college. It is relatively good quality and I would be happy to attend, however, my main goal is also to get out of the state, to hopefully develop greater independence and sense of self away from home. The reason I’m applying to so many (the list is now at 19 and will probably stay), is because its a combination of schools that will hopefully give generous merit aid that I am competitve for, and some reach schools that my parents are encouraging (forcing) me to apply to. Therefore, I would contend that I would chose any other school over my true safety haha,

as a NMSF and very possible NMF, I feel that I’ll have a few true safeties. I’m hoping to attend a smaller LAC, hence, applying to so many

26

Something else to think about that I forgot to mention. I’m not sure if any of the schools you’re applying to have scholarship competitions to attend or not. We’ve found that a fairly common thing with most of the schools she’s applied to, and there’s just no way to go to them all.

If your main reason for applying to so many is merit aid, and you’ll have to attend a competition at the school to get that aid, you may want to look into that more first. We’ve found we are really having to pick and choose which competitions she attends. There just isn’t enough time to do them all. If multiple schools offer a competition on the same day, you’ll have to choose. There’s also the cost to go to the school to consider, especially if you’ve already visited before. Again, with multiple schools, it adds up fast. You’ve also got to get permission from your high school to miss school. That’s been our biggest hurdle. She only gets two excused college days total, so every time we need to go to a school, we have to get special permission from the principal to do so.

Out of the 21 schools, she only plans on attending competitions at 4 of the schools. We’ve already turned down 4 other school’s competitions so far. It’s just too much. Between planning for those trips, plus overnight and admitted student visits at her top choices, we are really struggling to fit it all in, and keep her from missing too much high school. This is us planning ahead for the days she’ll be out in the spring to do all this.

Also, something else I’ll throw out there. Read the fine print on the merit and academic scholarships. We would have applied to one less school if I had done that before. We applied to a school in a town where we had friends she could live with which would save us on room and board and make the school affordable. Fine print states if you receive a merit scholarship, you must live on campus, so it’s not actually affordable at all. We wouldn’t have applied to that school at all if we’d realised her using an academic scholarship was tied to her living on campus.

27

Apply to the state U early so that you can get yourself in line for any goodies that might be on offer (early dorm selection, early course registration, etc.) in addition to the honors college. With that locked down your energy will be freed up for the rest of the applications.

Take a look at the threads on automatic scholarships and national merit scholarships in the Financial Aid Forum to track down merit money for your status. Have the money talk with your parents about those reaches of theirs. Do those places offer the kind of aid you would need? Students who have to chase merit money often do end up with bigger lists than students who aren’t chasing merit.

As for getting out of state, the truth is that if you have hovering parents they can hover over you electronically no matter where you end up. This is the 21st century after all. It also is true that you can go to college one block from your family home and only see your family on long school holidays if you and your family are too busy to be in each other’s faces. Independence is a state of mind, not a product of your geographical location. If in the end your only affordable option is the one next door, you can still make it work.

28

Have your parents read the suggestion in the link SkiEurope posted in #1 above. If they refuse to take some off their list, make your list in the order you’d really like to attend (best guess) and start applying in that order. I bet along about #15 (or Christmas) you’ll be very tired of applying to colleges and just stop applying.

29

If you are a senior and looking for merit you may have already missed some deadlines to apply for that.

30

Have you visited all 24 of these schools? If you want to make a visit after you are accepted and before you need to notify the school, that window may be pretty small–there is not likely to be time to check out all of them in person.

Let’s be optimistic and assume that you are accepted to all of them. How will you decide, other than $ reasons? Location? Program offerings? Size? Greek life or lack of it? Sports? If you get into all 24, are there some that you would definitely not seriously consider attending? Maybe those could come off the list now.

If you check the common data set and the website for each college, it will give you some insight into how likely a merit aid award will be and how much you might expect. (Some schools give very few awards that are very generous while some give many more awards of smaller amounts) Our DD dropped some schools off her list after checking this info–she cut out schools where it seemed unlikely she would receive an award.

Good luck to you, whatever you decide.

31

My son applied to ten got into four, waitlisted at two, and rejected at 4. It was a ton of work. I have two more kids and hope they won’t apply to more than that. Our public school recommends 6 to 10 I think. I met someone from a wealthier town and her school recommends 10-15. 24 seems like a ton of work to me but maybe you don’t have as many with supplemental essays?

32

My kid applied to 12. 6 was a push of a button with the UCs. Northeastern he applied mainly because his stepsister was there, didn’t even submit any essays. Same with Vanderbilt, I doubt if he was very interested but since he visited before and it didn’t require him to submit essays, he applied. USC he wasn’t really interested in but his friends were already there, and was convinced he could qualify for a full scholarship so he applied at the same time as the UCs.

So that really left CMU, Stanford, and Northwestern as the 3 he really was interested in, besides UC-Berkeley. And quite frankly I think the main reason he liked Northwestern was because of my Chicago roots and his cousin was prepping at Lake Forest Academy. If he had to do it all over again and not worry about safeties and where his friends and family were at, he would have only applied to Berkeley Stanford and CMU.

His end result, 3 wins, 4 draws (waitlisted), and 5 losses, with 2 of the draws turning into wins. As it turned out he really didn’t have any safeties on his list.

33

Early admissions can shrink your list, once you have acceptances you can take schools off the list that you know you wouldn’t choose over the ones where you have been accepted.

34

@suzy100 which ones in particular do you mean? I know some colleges have merit scholarships deadlines for RD in december.
Thank you in advance!

35

@iwantalltheinfo that’s a good idea-- to check the common data set. I will check out the distribution of merit aid to try to cut down the number of schools.

36

@twoinanddone I’m creating an ordered list, so if I get to a certain amount and decide that its definitely too much, then I will have already applied to my top ones.

37

@happymomof1 Yep, I’ve applied to my state honors college! Also for NMF I will be applying to a school that will guarantee full merit. You’re right about the list being long because I’m seeking merit, it’s very frustrating because I don’t really want to apply to so many either.

Helicopter parents can hover electronically, however, it’s much easier for them to visit if I’m geographically nearby and I wouldn’t put it past my parents to come visit me on every long weekend/holiday if I was in a 200 mi radius :confused:
Applying to a range so that I’ll have options too.

38

@frozenyyogurht about wanting to go out of state to gain independence. Not necessary to go to college far to build independence. Whether you are 10 hours of travel away from home or 1 hour. You’re going to build independence. My son is a junior and he loves to be able to easily come home over the weekend whenever he wants to. He’s living a very independent college life though.

39

And @frozenyyogurht my son’s list was initially 60+ colleges! Applied to only 11 of those. If we were able to scale down so can you! ? It takes plenty of work and reading but after more research you will notice you like one school better than 2 other schools similar than your favorite so you knock those 2 off the list. As you continue researching, a school knocked off before might make it back in… It’s a process that takes time. We had a huge spreadsheet that contained a lot of data about all schools we looked into. Majors, minors, student body, location, party scene, sat/act, all kinds of rankings…

40

@WilliamNYC so glad to another spreadsheeter here. It’s my guilty pleasure right now for D20 (she’s not as keen). Love coming up with new variables to add.