<p>Please respond to this poll if you are applying to colleges this fall. If you are a parent of a student applying this fall, feel free to supply your estimate. If the numbers seem a bit precise, it's because we have asked similar questions in the past AFTER application season and it's interesting to compare.</p>
<p>My first son applied to two schools and was accepted ED at one. My second applied to 10 schools (accepted EA at three) and, in retrospect, would have attended only five or six of those. My third child will apply to 5-6 schools only, and these will ALL be places she’d attend if accepted. Lesson: don’t apply to schools just to have a big list, unless you’d really attend if accepted!</p>
<p>I never saw the cachet in having a “big list” of college apps. Big list of AP credits, yeah, but applying to a huge number of schools doesn’t impress me. IMO it just says you haven’t done your homework in whittling down the variables.</p>
<p>By huge I mean…more than 6 or 7. YMMV.</p>
<p>Mommusic, I don’t think your conclusion is valid for every student. A student with a 2400 SAT or an SAT below 2000 should apply to no more than 5 or 6 schools, but the vast majority of us who are applying to more than 10 schools scored between 2200 and 2300 on the SAT. We could get into a number of 2nd tier schools no problem, but we also have a shot at top tier schools as well. Because admissions is a crap shoot for us, it makes sense for us to apply to seven or eight reach schools, three or four match schools, and two safeties. That’s 12 to 14 schools.</p>
<p>But WHY do you like all 12 to 14 schools? Because they are prestigious reaches, or because they are fit schools? If you’re applying to all eight Ivies, you either haven’t done your research or you just want to go to a prestigious school. If you’re applying to 12 to 14 schools, I highly doubt that you really know what school fits you. Eight reaches?</p>
<p>14 schools
$60 each (say average) = $840
$9.50 for SAT scores = $133
$16 for the CSS/PROFILE (I’m assuming 2 are public) = $192
$9 one time CSS/PROFILE fee = $9
TOTAL = $1174</p>
<p>I think it’s a bad idea financially and a stupid idea in terms of college fit.</p>
<p>My son’s 10:</p>
<p>1 in-state safety
1 in-state match
1 in-state low reach</p>
<p>1 private safety</p>
<p>1 solid match</p>
<p>2 high-matches</p>
<p>1 reach</p>
<p>2 more high matches to round-out the ROTC app</p>
<p>I don’t see what’s wrong with applying to all 8 Ivies. Sure they are vastly different as far as environment, but I feel that it is possible to adjust to a variety of lifestyles and environments. Being far from the northeast, all of them were pretty far away from me and offer me something new to experience which is what I want out of college. How am I supposed to know if I like the city life of New York or a small New England town of Hanover if I have no experience with them? I’ll admit, it might seem indecisive to apply to as many schools as I did(16), but I’m glad I did because if I hadn’t then I’d be stuck at my state school rather than Dartmouth since it was not one of my top choices.</p>
<p>Merit aid is a pretty high priority for D which also tends to be somewhat of a crapshoot, especially at selective schools. She feels she’s hedging her bets by applying to more schools than she probably would if merit aid wasn’t such a big issue. I agree with her and I think it’s a reasonable strategy as long as the list doesn’t include any school she hasn’t researched or would not be seriously happy to attend. </p>
<p>The cumulative application fees aren’t much relative to the value of the scholarships she’ll likely receive.</p>
<p>My list for applying this fall looks like this:</p>
<p>Two safeties: in-state public, OOS privates
State flagship (match/fairly low reach)
Two schools where I will be a URG (underrepresented gender), which are matches
Two of the “Seven” Sisters (one reach, one match to high match)
One OOS public (high match/moderate reach)
Three reach co-ed LACs
One high reach private university (not HYPSM)</p>
<p>That’s a total of thirteen. Applications to five or six of those are free if I apply online, which I am. And I made sure that each of the colleges on my list are good fits for me, some more so than others, so I wouldn’t be unhappy at any of them.</p>
<p>Mine are all reaches and matches. If i wanted a safety, I can get a free ride to UBC or SFU without a problem. Probably gonna consist of schools like Northwestern, JHU, U of Chi (because i like Chicago lol), USC, and 2 more top schools.</p>
<p>I marked 8 for ds, but if all goes well with his first choice, the reality will be lower.</p>
<p>Kids in Questbridge tend to have reach-heavy lists with a few low safeties to top it off. (so that either way we end up in college fully paid for). </p>
<p>7 reaches: Stanford, Yale, Princeton, Wharton, Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke
1 high match: USC
2 safeties: ASU and Alabama (full-tuition guaranteed)</p>
<p>= 10</p>
<p>As it is right now, I have 10, if you count the UCs as one app (I’m applying to around 5 of them, and no, I’m not OOS).</p>
<p>I don’t like classifying my list into reaches/matches/safeties, but I have one rolling admissions app as a safety and the UCs as backup and I’m applying to a lot of reaches (but they are reaches for everyone!).</p>
<p>I’m a cautious guy, and if I didn’t have the UCs, I would probably apply to 13 or so schools.</p>
<p>1 reach
2 matches/high matches
3 low matches/financial safeties
1 public, financial safety</p>
<p>3 of my financial safeties do not require any supplemental essays or application fees beyond the Common App, so I figure I might as well apply. 
My top 3 are rather expensive and in today’s economy, financial aid is a crapshoot. </p>
<p>I would be okay with going to any of my 7 schools, though the top 3 are the ones that I’m really crossing my fingers for.</p>
<p>I have:</p>
<p>1 safety
1 low match
3 high matches
1 reach</p>
<p>Haha the data is skewed right. So many people are applying to 15+ colleges.</p>
<p>I’m applying to seven:</p>
<p>Safety: 3(University of Hawaii, CU Boulder, UCSC)</p>
<p>Match: 2(TUJ, Kingston University)</p>
<p>Reach:2(International Christian University, University of Kent)</p>
<p>most of mine are overseas though…</p>
<p>One reach, two matches, and two safeties. </p>
<p>I don’t care if you cured cancer or invented the invisible condom… applying to more than 15 colleges is a reckless choice.</p>
<p>OK this is ridiculous: more than 15 colleges???</p>
<p>When people ask me I normally say 8-12, because that’s the number that it will probably work out to, domestically, but I also have 5 in England (19 pounds for five schools, plus sending an overseas form to one, and it’s as easy, well actually easier, for me to apply to 4 additional schools as it is for me to apply to my main target).</p>
<p>So I voted for 10 on the list, since I feel UCAS is somewhat outside of this and in picking my British schools, I wasn’t thinking about my American schools.</p>