Am I applying to too many schools (12)?

College Search & Selection
1

<p>Here's my list...I know deadlines are in like one week. Do you think i should take Rice or Duke off my list because 12 is too many?
Oh and my parents are making me apply to the Ivy leagues haha I know I have no chance.</p>

<p>Safety:
USC-Columbia (already accepted here)</p>

<p>Low Reach
NYU
GA Tech (already applied)</p>

<p>Reaches
Emory (already applied)
CMU (applying to Tepper, Dietrich, then IS)
Georgetown (already paid for/did interview)
Cornell (CALS)
Rice (free app!)
Duke
WUSTL (already applied)
UPenn (Wharton-parents are making me!)
Princeton</p>

<p>My stats:
Gender: F
Ethnicity: Asian/Chinese :P
Income Bracket: ~100k
Location: SC
College Class Year: 2018
High School: Public
High School Type: sends some grads to top schools
Will apply for financial aid: Yes</p>

<p>Academics:
GPA - Unweighted: 3.9
Class Rank: top 3%
Class Size: 380 students</p>

<p>Junior Courseload:
English IV H, AP Stat (5) , APUSH (4) , AP Chem (4), AP Calc AB (5), Band
Senior Courseload: AP Lang, AP Calc BC, AP Physics, AP Bio, Band, Gov/Econ</p>

<p>Scores:
SAT I CR 680 (it's the best I could do!!!) - M 770- W - 780 w/11 essay
SAT II Chemistry: 760, (waiting on Math II and USH scores)</p>

<p>Extracurriculars:
ATLAS Club for Cultural Awareness (9-12, Historian 12) Marching Band (9-12 Section Leader 11, 12), GCYO (10-12), Jazz Band (11), SHS (Secretary, 11-12) Speech and Debate and YIG (9-10), Beta Club, tutor for HSAP</p>

<p>Volunteer/Service Work:
GHS Hospital Volunteer (60 hours)
Volunteer-Meels on Wheels, music hours, etc (40 hours)</p>

<p>Honors and Awards:
NHS, Spanish Honors Society, Tri-M Music Honors
High score regionally Chemistry Olympiad
All-State Band (once), All-Region Band (twice)
Al-County (3 times), Superiors in Solo/Ensemble</p>

<p>College Summer programs: USC-Columbia Wells Fargo Business Camp at Moore
Economics for Leaders camp at College of William and Mary</p>

2

<p>No, that’s a perfectly reasonable number. And given Asian parents obsession with Ivies, even if the applications are a waste of time, if a few hours keeps them off your back, it might be time well spent. You’d likely spend an equal or greater amount of time arguing about it, doing the applications is the path of least resistance.</p>

3

<p>Your parents have assured you that USC is definitely affordable, right? If not, find an affordable safety, possibly from the <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-20.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships-20.html&lt;/a&gt; .</p>

<p>Also, have you run the net price calculators on all of the schools in your list and shown the results to your parents? You can eliminate any which they say are not affordable.</p>

4

<p>I don’t think one can apply to too many schools as each offers opportunities some may not. Given your qualifications, I feel that you’ll be accepted to most. Best of luck for you!</p>

5

<p>@ucbalumnus My parents are willing to pay to any of the reach schools except for NYU/GA Tech, and yes USC is definitely affordable for me. </p>

<p>Ah thanksss guys i was worried because people are surprised if I tell them I’m applying to twelve places…haha I’m still writing essays :)</p>

6

<p>I don’t think it’s an unreasonable number. </p>

<p>I think that your chances for NYU and GaTech are about 90%, but the chances of being able to afford them are much less. </p>

<p>I think your chance at Tepper is about 60% and they provide aid. </p>

<p>After that, you have reach schools. I think that you should rank order them, estimate the probability of admission to the nearest 10%, and then calculate the probability of attending each school. The probability of attending a school is the probability of of getting in times the probability of getting rejected for each of the more preferable schools. </p>

<p>Once you get down to schools with like a 3% chance of attending, I think it’s safe to drop them. </p>

<p>For example, if your reaches are ordered by preference, I would guess your chances of admission (use Naviance if your school has it) are</p>

<p>Emory 20%
CMU 60%
Georgetown 20%
Cornell 10%
Rice 20%
Duke 20%
WUSTL 30%
UPenn 10%
Princeton 10%</p>

<p>Then your probability of attendance are
Emory 20%
CMU 48%
Georgetown 6.4%
Cornell 2.6%
Rice 4.6%
Duke 3.7%
WUSTL 4.4%
Penn 1%
Princeton 0.9%</p>

<p>So you can see what’s worth spending time on. Perhaps you can skip Duke, etc. </p>

<p>YMMV</p>

7

<p>If they won’t pay for NYU or GT, drop them from your list.</p>

8

<p>Well I decided to drop Duke…
My parents might pay for nyu if i’m rejected everywhere else and i already applied to GT</p>

<p>@ClassicrockerDad
That seems about right except Emory is my top choice.
And every year people get into Emory from my school. Emory as a school has an acceptance rate of 27% so I don’t think my chances would be 20%…</p>

<p>Thanks guys and good luck! :)</p>

9

<p>I’m applying to schools this year also! I’m applying to 9… I was originally only applying to 6 but it just creeps up on you. When I tell people I’m applying to 9 they get so judgmental and tell me they’re only applying to 3 or 4. But you just have to ignore people!
If you can honestly picture your self going to all of these schools then go for it and apply! It doesn’t hurt to have options! Especially since you’re applying to so many challenging schools, and those can be unpredictable.</p>

10

<p>Get deferred or rejected from your ED school, and more schools creep onto the list. Things you wouldn’t consider before suddenly become attractive…</p>

<p>Our GC issued a letter to all seniors begging them to add more lower schools to their lists over Xmas Break because of the logjam this year. More schools rejected or deferred more top kids than ever before, plus we’ve got two to three times the normal applicants to some top schools. Something like 15% of the class is applying to WashU and nearly 10% to Case, just for two examples. Let alone the Ivies, plus the usual suspects.</p>

<p>Case just issued a press release stating that the number of EA applicants was up 50% this year. Apparently their free app/no supplemental essay strategy worked.</p>

11

<p>geez, ucb, I thought you were encouraging OP to drop the parents from the list for not agreeing to pay for NYU or GT!</p>

<p>OP, when you have so many reaches and so few matches, you’d better get one or two more safeties on there unless after getting turned down by all these elites you really wanna spend the next four years at USC with your high school peers as “the bigshot who over-reached.” I’m suggesting a school outside of South Carolina. Nothing wrong with SC, but it’s going to be a safety for a lot weaker applicants than you. I hope you don’t have that disappointment, I don’t think you will, but maybe another safety could save you from four years of unhappiness.</p>

12

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<p>One would hope that students have already applied to their safeties, or have had the applications ready to go if the safeties have late enough deadlines for applications and scholarships to wait for ED or EA results. Some potential safeties and scholarships have had their application or scholarship deadlines pass already, and some have rolling admission or first-come-first-served automatic-for-stats scholarships that benefit from early application.</p>

13

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<p>Almost by definition, a student will be among the top students at a safety, meaning that a lot of relatively weaker students will be there. But a state flagship university like USC is not a bad place to be – even if it has a lot of relatively weaker students, it also picks up a lot of in-state top students who did not get into (or did not apply to) super-selective schools. With large size, it will be more likely to have some offerings (e.g. honors or other more rigorous courses) for those top students who will be present in sufficient numbers.</p>

14

<p>I don’t understand why you don’t have any “matches”. Seems like you are shooting for the top tier (at least in terms of selectivity) and if you don’t get in or can’t afford them, you go straight down to the safeties or two “low reaches”. Seems out of balance to me.</p>

15

<p>@BeanTownGirl haha it’s 'cause my parents aren’t going to pay for a ‘match’ school. Either I get into a top school or I got to USC. Yes I know USC is not too great but IF I get into thE Honors program, I believe I will fare pretty well there. USC apparently has the number one Public Honors school in the nation.</p>

<p>@MrMom62 OMG 15% to WashU? wow. Good luck to all of them :)</p>

<p>@Emily918 Yes someone understands! People think I’m crazy when I say I’m applying to around 11 schools.</p>

16

<p>Jumping in a little late I know but to answer the original question 12 is not to many. I think I am gonna be applying to around that many. </p>

<p>Some advice for you is don’t spend to much time on the Ivy League applications if you know you won’t get in.</p>

17

<p>@Swimmer576 Thankss for answering my question haha. Oh ya of course I was gonna just write whatever for those Ivy Leagues and spend more time on my CMU app.</p>

<p>Also USC is apparently number 1 in international business. Idk if that’s good or not?</p>

18

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<p>The problem we’re seeing is that what was once a safety/match for some students, may no longer be a safety/match due to the number of highly qualified students applying from our school. An example is Boston U. Historically, BU is usually a pretty safe bet (but not a safety) for kids from our HS in the 29-20 ACT range with a 3.9+ UGPA. But when you’ve all of a sudden got 10 kids applying in the 32-34 ACT range with the same grades, who missed on their ED/EA schools, the fear is those kids who used to be a pretty good match, no longer are.</p>

<p>The ripple effect is getting ugly, and panic is in the room.</p>

19

<p>Agreed everything is getting more competitive and test scores are getting higher and higher!
I got into USC Honors just now though! yayyy</p>

20

<p>I think Emory and CMU are matches. I think NYU is borderline safety, but their FinAid is not know to be good.</p>