A friend of mine said she went to a college presentation (at VT) and the admissions rep specifically said that they do not look favorably in the admission process on applicants that are applying to a lot of colleges.
Are colleges able to see the numbers or colleges you are are applying to in the Common app?!
How would they get this information? Naviance?
No they don’t have any idea. Unless you tell them.
No, they can’t see the other colleges you apply to in common app. A given college can see when you add them to your My Colleges list on common app.
Colleges have no way to know whether you are applying to other colleges, unless you tell them.
However, you might give the impression that you are applying to a lot of colleges, if you don’t have the time and energy to write sufficiently customized supplemental essays (for those colleges that have them), and/or time and energy to demonstrate sufficient interest (for those colleges that track it). Plan to apply to a manageable number of schools, so that you are able to do a good job for each one.