<p>If an application asks which other colleges you are applying to, how important is it to list every other college? The app for one of my safety/match schools asks this, and I'm afraid that if I list some of the other places I'm applying to- Brown, Harvard, Yale, UVa- that the admissions office will think I'm not that serious about applying to the safety. In fact, I am very interested in attending the less competitive school. Would I ever get penalized for failing to list my reach schools?</p>
<p>b u m p …</p>
<p>Number one, I think it is a myth that if you put more prestigious schools down on your safety school application, the school will think that you are not taking it seriously. Schools ask that question to see what their ‘peer schools’ are - it’s for their own records and knowledge, and generally not used to evaluate you.</p>
<p>Number two, no, there is no legal/ethical way a school can find out what other colleges you are applying to. Educational privacy laws protect you from having that information shared. That doesn’t mean admissions officers don’t talk to one another, but unless you have any prominent identifying information about yourself that makes you immediately recognizable in pools of 20,000 students I doubt you have to worry.</p>
<p>Thanks- that helps a lot!</p>