Applying to EVERYTHING - good or bad strategy?

Applying to College
1

<p>Alright, not.. "everything." But everything that's worth applying to. :P</p>

<p>So, this list for example:</p>

<p>University of Chicago
Johns Hopkins
Cornell
Columbia
Dartmouth
Brown
Harvard
Yale
University of Penn
Princeton
Stanford
Cambridge/Oxford
CalTech
MIT
Duke
Georgetown
Notre Dame
Berkeley
University of Virginia
Wake Forest
NYU</p>

<p>If I apply to all of these plus a few more... they logically can't ALL reject me, can they? I thereby eliminate the need for a safety school (although I suppose you might consider a few of these "safety schools" compared to the rest). Ivy League acceptance alone was almost 25K ; I should hope I am at least in the top 25K students in America based on the below criteria...</p>

<p>I know that I will go insane with essays (which are the same as last year for Common App so I will start very soon) and apps (and fees) but I think it's all worth it and I don't mind losing a little hair beginning of senior year if I can reap the benefits for the next four. </p>

<p>Grade 9
English Honors: A-
Spanish Honors: A-
Geometry: A
Biology Honors: A-
World History Honors: A-
Business: A-
Graphic Design: A
Gym: A</p>

<p>Grade 10 (different school; no honors classes offered)
English: A
Spanish: A-
US History: A-
Algebra 2: A
Ceramics: A
Physical Science: A
Gym: no grade</p>

<p>Grade 11 (same school as 9)
English Honors: A-
Spanish Honors: A-
AP USH: B+
AP Gov: B+
Physics Honors: B
Precalc Honors: B+
Gym: A
Health: A-</p>

<p>Grade 12 (*right now I'm a junior but say I get these grades for first semester...)
AP Lit: A
AP Bio: A-
AP Spanish: A-
AP AB: A-
AP Art History: A
AP Euro: A
Gym: A
Health: A</p>

<p>SAT: 2400
SAT 2 Math 2: 800
SAT 2 US History: 800</p>

<p>Gov and APUSH: both 5's (hopefully but I have little doubt)</p>

<p>EC's: pretty weak - FBLA club, stock investment club (won in grade 10), 200+ hours as "lead volunteer" at community center (might still have time to do something "leadery" there over this summer), maybe a summer program at Columbia or something, might try to get elected president of FBLA but unlikely (will hopefully become club office) - also garden club and political discussion club at school</p>

<p>So... I do think at least several of the top schools and hopefully at least 1 Ivy will accept me. I know everyone on here will tell me it is a terrible strategy to apply to this many (25+) schools - but, other than stress which doesn't bother me, is there any logical reason why I should not go ahead and do this?</p>

2

<p>the schools you have listed have vastly different vibes, most people who would be happy at wake forest, wouldn’t necessarily be happy at Brown or NYU. You need to think more about fit, cull that list according to your particular interests, personality and hopes for a college experience, and then STILL add some safety schools based on your personal ‘fit’ criteria.</p>

<p>Nice job on your SATs!</p>

3

<p>Bad strategy. Logically, not sound either, as, statistically speaking, they can all reject you quite easily. The low acceptance rates don’t even out, but are completely independent from another. Not to mention the 21 different supplemental essays needed for schools with vastly different vibes. Simply changing the school’s name in an essay also tends to be a “bad strategy” because of the vagueness of the resulting essays. Find out what schools fit you and add some safety schools!</p>

4

<p>Yes, they can logically all reject you. Plus, each application has its own supplemental portions (usually essays). Some of them have more than one (additional optional items that aren’t really “optional”). Your essay quality would likely be lousy if you apply to so many schools. In addition you have to pay application fees for almost all of these. Say an average of $60/school. That is $1,500 just in application fees. Plus you have to pay to send your test scores, and pay to submit the CSS Profile if you apply for need based aid. So say another $25/school, that is an additional $625.</p>

<p>Oh, and if you are applying for need based aid, your parents will have to submit financial information to 25 schools. And there are many variations on how schools want that data (mailed? faxed? via iDoc? Do they want small business returns or not? If you apply early, your parents probably have to submit documents twice for two different years.) They will be ready to kill you for this reason alone, it is a huge headache.</p>

<p>You seem to have no criteria at all for your school except “name brand”. All schools are not created equal, and at some point you have to consider strength of major, location, campus vibe, how you feel about any core requirements, etc. You are better off considering it before hand so you don’t have to write 25+ application essays and pay all those application fees. It just seems really lazy to me to not take the time to try to understand what is different about each school and what fits you the best, and silly to sign up for such a huge pile of work to do all those applications.</p>

5

<p>"I should hope I am at least in the top 25K students in America based on the below criteria…</p>

<p>That may be, but there are also THOUSANDS MORE International students who will ALSO applying to these same colleges.
There is no safety in applying to only top colleges. If you were to buy 25 lottery tickets- 1 in each state- do you actually think that by buying those tickets you would increase the odds of your winning ANY ONE states’ lottery ? That’s not how lottery tickets or college admissions works.
Your odds of being accepted at any one college are NOT influenced by how many colleges you apply to. And with so many of the colleges on your list rejecting 80-90+% of applicants, you DO need to find some schools who DO accept 50% of applicant with your [ estimated] stats.
Every one needs safeties colleges that they would be HAPPY to go to. So its a good thing you still have time to do the research to find colleges that have the programs that you want.
Get going. …</p>

6

<p>So, do you guys think then that I stand little chance at the colleges I listed based on my criteria?</p>

7

<p>The strategy is beyond bad.</p>

<p>First off, can you financially afford these schools? Have you run the NPC’s for each school to get a sense as to what they cost? State schools have limited FA for OOS students. Many privates, like NYU, are not generous with aid.</p>

<p>Your list show no rhyme or season. The campus experience in Hanover is vastly different from the experience in Philadelphia. You can apply to Oxford or Cambridge, not both.</p>

<p>You should make your list based upon the criteria that is important to you. Urban/rural, large/small, whatever it is for you. You will need to sell the school on you as being a good fit for them. If a lack of focus is evident in you application list, I guarantee you that it will be evident in the quality of your essays.</p>

<p>They can all logically reject you, so add in some safety schools. There was a thread here a month ago about a kid with similar stats as you who got rejected from every Ivy and was incredulous. </p>

<p><a href=“Why do seemingly perfect students get rejected from Ivies? - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums”>http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1626413-why-do-seemingly-perfect-students-get-rejected-from-ivies-p1.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Good luck.</p>

8

<p>@Baloney1011‌ , you stand an average chance. Your great test scores are balanced by slightly weaker EC’s and the B’s on your transcript. Applying to more schools does not alter your chances of admission in any way especially as the acceptance rates of most of the colleges on your list are sub-10%.</p>

9

<p>“do you guys think then that I stand little chance at the colleges I listed based on my criteria?”</p>

<p>Any one Student stands little chance at those colleges statistically, including top students, simply because they EACH attract tens of thousands of students with stats just like yours, and can only accept a small number of them. EACH of those colleges accept a wide range of students with different talents and backgrounds- athletic, academic, artistic, musical, leadership, legacies, URM 's etc, etc</p>

10

<p>My D applied to 15 schools but 6 of those are UCs and 2 didn’t require writing supplement. So in reality she only applied to 7 schools that required W supplement plus a UC applicant. I can tell you after she was done writing the essays, she was drained. I agree to the post above me that the quality of your essays will show with that much essays to write. Also, it’s not just the applications that needs to be submitted but also FAFSA, CSS Profile, ACT (although I think you didn’t take ACT), SAT plus some schools have their own FA application (Princeton/Penn). You also went to 2 different HS, so that alone will create logistics issue as you probably have to submit your previous transcript outside of Common App. Also some schools on your list does not use CA (MIT, Berkeley), so that’s more work for you. If your school is on semester, the application season will probably at the very end of your 1st semester and/or will be taking finals. I helped my daughter submit her test scores, FAFSA and CSS Profile. If your parents will not help you at all it would be a very time consuming for you.</p>

<p>FYI, my D applied to 7 schools from your list. Admitted to 2, waitlisted to 2 and rejected to 3. She was also admitted to UCLA and USC.</p>

11

<p>Your grades don’t seem to match up to your test scores, and 4 B level grades junior year isn’t that impressive for top schools. How do expect to get such better grades as a senior when you’ll be busy writing essays for those 25 colleges? I think you are putting way too much stock in the 2400 and 800s. Also your EC’s aren’t going to stand out in those applicant pools.</p>

<p>You didn’t even say what you are interested in studying. Some of those schools have so little in common I have to wonder if your post is serious. If it is, please go research those schools and pick those which suit your interests best. Then go find some schools which you are likely to get into and can afford. </p>

12

<p>To play devil’s advocate: this is the scenario where I think it is not a horrible idea…</p>

<p>IF
-the kid has unlimited financial resources and sending all those apps are of trivial cost and effort
-he/she is able to make the essays sing uniquely for each school (this one I think is the greatest challenge)
-he/she truly has no preference between urban/rural, big school/little school, campus vibe, etc. They just want the best top notch overall undergraduate education (which I think all these schools deliver)</p>

<p>Even with all that checked off, I think OP should add 2 safeties.</p>

13

<p>Four B grades out of six classes junior year (forget Health and PE) - not impressive. Your senior year projection of straight A’s first semester doesn’t sound realistic based on this year’s grades. Your strategy is deeply flawed on several different levels.</p>

14

<p>You still need a safety, you don’t have one on this list. Maybe you have some matches with low admit rates. I think you are going to have a tougher time than you think. Your Jr year wasn’t all that strong. And what’s up with taking both US hist and apush? Your schedule is a bit repetitive. And where is your chemistry? Your scores are awesome, but you might think it gets you a lot of extra mileage but it really doesn’t much compared with 2200+ students who are the whole package. And you don’t have anything compelling like recruited athlete, national titles, a deep and committed EC, succeeding despite extreme disadvantaged background etc. You are just a plain vanilla applicant for these schools. So find more match and safeties and cut this list down to size by identifying the ones you’d really like the most.</p>

<p>Are you also in Sr year going to take another SAT II for Georgetown?</p>

<p>Also, very important, about the budget, are you full pay and your parents are okay to pay these prices?</p>

<p>Spend the summer putting together a really defining main CA essay.</p>

15

<p>UVA and NYU are the only ones that I might say are safety/match. NYU has been all over the place in the past few years, so I wouldn’t bank on anything. In the grand scheme of things this is a terrible strategy, for the reasons I list below ( I did something similar, so I speak from experience):</p>

<ol>
<li><p>The amount of time you will spend writing supplements is ridiculous. Most of those schools want more than one essay (I wrote 6 for Brown and MIT, there was minimal overlap). At some point, you WILL be cutting and pasting your essays because you’ll be running out of time. Essays are so important to schools like the ones you listed (they can help break or make an applicant) and if you’re copying and pasting, decisions day won’t blow over well for you.</p></li>
<li><p>GPA is super important and yours is lacking a bit. I understand that they’re in honors/AP classes, but there will be so many kids applying against you with A+'s in 5 APs or god knows whatever they’re taking.</p></li>
<li><p>It costs a fortune to apply to colleges these days. It costs about $100 (app fee+ test scores) to send an application these days, and you have ~25 schools on your list. That means that you’ll be spending $2500 on applying to schools.
Make sure you can afford that.</p></li>
<li><p>EC’s are also important, which is where I personally believe that your application is lacking the most. Part of the reason I was rejected from top-choice was because I was lacking in my ECs (more in number than in depth). </p></li>
<li><p>If you need to apply for FA, that’s also a nightmare. Many of these schools want more than the FAFSA and CSS Profile and applying after you know about admissions decisions isn’t smart because most of the funds will have been handed out. </p></li>
<li><p>Logically, they can all reject you. I applied to ~10 of the reach schools above, hoping that at least one would want me. I KNEW what I was getting myself into when I applied to so many reaches, but I was still shattered when I was handed so many rejections. The feeling of worthlessness was running really high for a few days afterwards. Make sure your self esteem is ready to handle that. </p></li>
</ol>

<p>Tips:
-Get rid of at least 6-7 of the extreme reaches (schools with app rates of < 15%). A good way to go about this would be by location. My list was at 30 schools at some point, but once I factored in location, many of them disappeared. --Add at least a couple of safeties. Your state flagship is usually a good option, unless you live in California. Schools like Northeastern or BU (as long as too many people from your school aren’t applying) might be good additions. </p>

<p>On a positive note, your testing game is looking very strong. That would help add to your application. </p>

<p>One more thing. I know that people on CC make a big deal about ‘fit’ (as in, how well do you fit in with the college’s scene), and while it is important, I don’t think it should ever be a primary reason to go to a school. If you get into Harvard and Low-Ranked university, you’d go to Harvard even if Low-Ranked University was the perfect fit, because the opportunities at a top-tier school are endless. The only reason it would be acceptable to say no would be because of finances, and many of these schools have such good endowment that if you really were needy, you’d get the aid. And let’s be real, the student bodies of these schools are so diverse that you will find some people to call your friends. </p>

<p>Good luck with this process! It’s crazy, but hopefully, you’ll wind up with some amazing options in the end =)</p>

16

<p>I think that applying to a high number of schools is a good idea, but I would visit them and trim the list some based on fit and majors you are interested in.</p>

<p>In general, it is important to apply to a higher number of schools when you are applying to highly selective schools, but focus your efforts on the ones that are a good fit because the essays are very time consuming to do well.</p>

<p>DD applied to 16 schools and had to write over 50 essays. She worked on them for a very long time. You have to put time and effort into each application or it is not worth doing. </p>

<p>UVA is not a safety for anyone if you are OOS. They will reject a 2400 OOS if they do not like something in the ap. If you are a VA resident, you will be accepted and can count it as a safety.</p>

<p>I would apply EA to UVA and Michigan to get a great safety in place. That way, if you don’t get in, you will know you need a safer safety for RD.</p>

17

<p>This is a good idea if you just want to get in, but realisitically, would you be happy at every single one of these schools?</p>

18

<p>lets step back and look at the OPs name
Baloney 1011
I think this is prank posting by some kid - nothing more. </p>

19

<p>You are going to be spending years on supplements.</p>

20

<p>You can’t rely on just test scores. Your transcript lacks rigor and is on a downward trajectory. Your senior year grade projections are unrealistic based on your junior year results. And you cannot possibly write decent essays for that many schools, let alone good essays, while carrying a full course load and doing well in it. As many others have said, figure out what you are interested in and what kind of college and focus.</p>