<p>Although I did say “every tippy-top student needs to apply to ALL the top colleges,” what I neglected to say – but I felt was understood, and I guess I was wrong – was that an applicant must narrow down their college list to include reach, target and safety schools. Obviously, you can’t apply to every top college. Both my kids applied to 11 colleges – one being their flagship state school. My son was admitted to 10 out of 11 colleges, my daughter 9 out of 11 colleges. As we needed financial aid, we were then able to compare offers from a wide range of schools, that went beyond HYP and included such schools as Dartmouth, Brown, Boston College, Georgetown, Williams, Middlebury, Pomona, and Vanderbilt. </p>
<p>And FWIW both my kids didn’t want to write a lot of essays, so any college that asked for essays written on a specific topic were thrown off their list. Ultimately, each applied to all the schools on their list with 3 essays – the Common App Personal Statement, an open ended supplemental essay which was sent to all the colleges that asked for one, and the essay about an extracurricular activity.</p>
<p>Colleges understand that students are applying to many schools and I personally think when a student effectively communicates ‘fit’ in an application, Admissions Officers take it with a grain of salt, especially at many top schools that do not take “interest” into account in an application.</p>