<p>Jasmaree- Who says we’re paying application fees for all these? I’ll be applying to somewhere around the 12 schools you cited, but will be paying a fee for only six or seven of them. It makes things more reasonable.</p>
<p>AnagramPanda, besides the application fees there are MANY more fees you will need to pay. I am not criticizing applying to a large amount of schools (I am apply to 12 myself) but just pointing something out. You may have realized this but many people do not.</p>
<p>3 reaches (qualified for all but very selective)
5 matches
4 safeties (two in-state (no supplements), two oos)
=12 schools.</p>
<p>No supplement for 3 of them, all accept CommonApp. I have 5 500+ word essays and 19 25-1000 character short responses. I’m not intimidated by the amount I have to write, and my parents are willing to pay the fees for apps, sending SAT scores, etc.</p>
<p>I can’t keep straight how many my S will apply to. last year, my middle son got into Northwestern ED, and it was sooo nice to have the whole college process over with by December 15th. He also heard from schools he had applied EA before we could tell them don’t bother (got into those too). But my S who is a senior tells me he can’t decide, so he’ll probably apply to about 10, mostly matches, high matches, and reaches. Then again, what’s a high-match these days? It’s all a big unknown.</p>
<p>i think its funny that essays are being viewed as a deciding factor
I will be applying to six schools, yet only have my
Common App Essay
and 3 other essays</p>
<p>not bad at all</p>
<p>I don’t appreciate the arguments against applying to 10+ colleges. Sure, there are application fees, but they are a drop in the bucket compared to the financial aid that the schools offer. If a student had an accurate sense of what their chances were at each college, then he ought to be able to whittle his list down. But let’s say that he applies to Cornell as his reach and gets in. Might he then regret that he didn’t apply to Columbia, Dartmouth, Duke, Chicago, or UPenn where he might have also had a chance? Likewise if a student gets into their state flagship, might they regret not taking a chance at one of the minor ivys?</p>
<p>Please forgive what is an ignorant question, but I don’t yet have a kid in college or applying for admission (my oldest is in grade 10). Question:
Does the Common App require only 1 essay no matter how many schools you are applying to with that app?
Thank you.</p>
<p>only 1 main essay, but 1. some schools don’t use common app and 2. some schools have supplementary essays.</p>
<p>and al6200</p>
<p>If you have 10 colleges, you’d better have some super reaches…</p>
<p>why would you have 10 safeties? Heck, you don’t even need 10 colleges to have super reaches.</p>
<p>I disagree with having so many. I think its part of the reason why admit rates are so low. If we gave everyone 4 applications, we would see a stablizing effect and also level the playing field for lower income kids.</p>
<p>I am applying to six schools and have one super reach. i’m putting it up into the air and hoping for the best…theres no reason to do this at 10 schools…it just seems silly…you can have one or two big dreams, but the rest should be REAL possibilities…just my two cents…you are free to do what you want</p>
<p>^Yes but seriously who would miss the chance to go to HYPSM if given the chance. That is just 5 schools there…</p>
<p>im thinking about 8 colleges (PYMS, Upenn, Cornell, Columbia, Duke) and then about 7 BS/MD programs…(RPI, UNion, Penn State etc…)</p>
<p>Think about chances…i have heard the crapshoot. so applying broadly increases chances does it not. Let’s say oyu have a 50% chance at all the Ivies. Applying to one would give u a 50% chance. Applying to all 8 would give u a much better chance…</p>
<p>As of right now:</p>
<p>Safety: Northeastern, SUNY Geneseo, Boston U (3)</p>
<p>Match: RPI, Carnegie Mellon, UCLA, UC Berkeley, Johns Hopkins (5)</p>
<p>Reach: MIT, Princeton, Yale, Cornell, Brown, Columbia, Northwestern (7)</p>
<p>15 total </p>
<p>I think its definitely worth it to apply to a lot of reaches as long as you would be happy with any of them. The more schools you apply to, the better your chances are of getting into at least one of them.</p>
<p>While its a good arguement that you have a better chance to get into an ivy if you apply to more of them, don’t fool people into thinking they can get into one of the ivies if they apply to all 8. If you’re not qualified, you’re not qualified. Assuming you have a good app, it is smart to apply to more reaches because you never know what the admissions commitee is going to be thinking when they get to your app. I’m apply to 13 myself:</p>
<p>Furman, UMiami, American (Match, hope for merit scholarships) 3 (Furman is free app too)
Duke, Wake, UVa, Vanderbilt, Emory (reach) 5
Elon, College of Charleston, Purdue, Xavier, St. Louis (safety) 5 (3 have free apps so…)</p>
<p>wow you’re applying to 5 safties just because they’re free?!</p>
<p>^^^why not, they might get good money</p>
<p>sorry, i’m not moved by this whole prestige bs…i will be applying to yale, but my first choice is, and will remain, smith…the only reason yale is on there is because of FA…i don’t need to try 2-6 others…one will do</p>
<p>11 schools.</p>
<p>4 early action/early notification.
7 regular action.</p>
<p>2 safeties, both of which I consider to be financial safeties as well.
2 matches, 3 higher matches
4 super reaches</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I agree. I’m applying to six total. My number one choice is one I won’t have a lot of trouble getting into, my number two is a low match at best. My reach is a school I like but mostly I like it because of FA.</p>
<p>^^^i’m glad to see someone else has some sense</p>
<p>If you are not qualified for an ivy league school, than you should by no means apply to all 8 just to try and get into one. What i’m suggesting is for people like me who are definitely qualified but dont have great chances to apply to multiple top tier schools that they would be equally happy with. I’m applying to 7 reaches, all of which I would love to attend. I am qualified, but the sheer competitiveness and luck of the whole process will most likely rule me out at 5-6 of these, but there is a great chance of getting into at least 1. And to everyone out there who is perfectly happy with a school without all the “prestige” of ivies, thats great, theres nothing wrong with that.</p>
<p>I applied to 15 schools back in the day – nearly half of them reaches. People who are arguing about app fees forget that there are fee waivers. Even if you pay for each application, you need to view it as an investment. Different schools will offer very different aid packages sometimes, and being able to maximize your range of choices is very advantageous. There are so many good colleges out there, and with competition the way that it is, it seems wise to shotgun your way into making things happen for yourself. </p>
<p>So what if you end up paying over $1000 in fees? If you had limited yourself to schools A, B, and C, you don’t have much choice. But say you pay the extra fees and wind up going to school J, which happens to have aid $10k-$20k better than whatever A, B, or C offered. You end up saving money!</p>
<p>When you get into more schools, you also have more leverage when it comes to finaid by pinning schools against each other: “This rival school offered me this much blahblah but I’d really like to go here if this can be matched etc.” It helped me knock several thousands off my options.</p>
<p>So I mean, if you think a few measly app fees are not worth the investment for a potentially better college choice, be my guest :P</p>
<p>I don’t support applying to 10-14 schools, but many people don’t realize that you can re-use an essay for multiple schools. A lot of schools have similar essay prompts so you can just rehash one essay and tweak it for each school.</p>
<p>I’m only applying to 3 schools (risky right? :D) and for those schools, I had to write 6 essays, but I was able to use one essay for 3 of the prompts. So essentially, I only wrote 4 different essays. And these weren’t common app schools. With the Common App, it’s probably even easier</p>