<p>Schools you applied to: (9), UCD, UCSD, UCLA, UCB, Stanford, Harvey Mudd, Caltech, Princeton, MIT
Schools that accepted you: (5), UCD, UCSD, UCLA, UCB, Princeton
“Contenders”: (3), Princeton, UCLA, UCB
Final Choice: Princeton
Why did you choose to apply to that number of schools?: Applying to the 4 UCs was obvious to me, one absolute safety, one moderate safety and two matches. I decided to apply to a large number of reaches because I knew that my chance of getting in to any of them was very low, and I ended up being right because I only got accepted by Princeton (I was also waitlisted by Caltech and Harvey Mudd). The only change I would make were I to redo the process would be to not apply to Caltech - I only applied because of its ranking and I don’t think I would have liked it there.</p>
<p>APPLIED TO 10: UC Irvine, UC Berkeley, UIUC, Stanford, MIT, Princeton, Rose-Hulman, Purdue, Rice, Columbia SEAS</p>
<p>ACCEPTED @ 5: UC Irvine, Rose-Hulman, Purdue, UIUC, Rice</p>
<p>CONTENDERS: Rice (money)</p>
<p>FINAL: see contenders</p>
<p>WHY: UCI - automatic admit, UCB - should have been a match (major surprise here), UIUC - good engineering, Rose-Hulman - free application, good engineering, I know an alum, Purdue - good engineering, Rice - dream school, CPSM - I have no idea.</p>
<p>Applied as an EE/EECS/ECE major @: (8) UCI, UCD, UCSB, UCSD, UCLA, UIUC, UCB, Cal Poly</p>
<p>Accepted @: (8) UCI, UCD, UCSB, UCSD, UCLA, UIUC, UCB, Cal Poly</p>
<p>Contenders: UCB, UIUC (scholarships allowed me to pay in-state tuition), Cal Poly</p>
<p>Final Choice: UCB</p>
<p>Why did you choose to apply to that number of schools?: I heavily doubted myself to the point that I almost didn’t even apply to UCB and UCLA. my guidance counselor honestly believed UCSD was my reach school, although my weighted GPA was above 4.6 and I had above average extracurriculars (president of a tech club, internship at a company, 150+ community service hours, etc…). hence I applied to only the UC’s. in retrospect, I should’ve made an attempt at Rice, Cornell, Columbia, UT Austin, Northwestern, Harvey Mudd, Stanford, and MIT. </p>
<p>=/ now there’s a lesson for all you smart yet pessimistic juniors; apply to your dream schools no matter what! or you’ll end up like me, going to the #1 public university in the nation =P.</p>
<p>Planned to apply to: (10) Yale, Stanford, Rice, MIT, Cornell, Brown, Wisconsin Madison, Minnesota TC, Michigan Ann Arbor, Virginia Tech</p>
<p>Actually applied to: (4) MIT (EA), UMinnesota, UWisconsin, UMichigan</p>
<p>Schools that accepted you: all 4</p>
<p>Contenders: MIT</p>
<p>Final Choice: MIT</p>
<p>Why did you choose to apply to that number of schools?: I figured that from my original list, I’d apply to all of my safeties (which happened to all be rolling admissions) and MIT early, and go from there when I found out. After getting into MIT, I thought about still putting in applications to Stanford and Rice if only for financial aid reasons, but I was pretty sure that MIT would be my first choice (and lost all motivation to rush applications in), so I decided against it. Fortunately, financial aid worked out in the end.</p>
<p>Message to '10ers and beyond: early applications and rolling admissions are a godsend! Do them!!!</p>
<p>I plan to go premed, with interest in a neuroscience major.</p>
<p>Applied to 5 (ranked in order of preference at time of application): Harvard, Duke, Washington U St. Louis, Emory, Johns Hopkins, U of Florida</p>
<p>Accepted to 4: Duke, Wash U, Emory, UF (waitlisted at Harvard and Hopkins)</p>
<p>3 Contenders: Emory (full ride), Duke (full tuition FA), Wash U (~80% tuition FA)</p>
<p>Chose: Duke (well, unless Harvard decides to hand out miracles)</p>
<p>UF was my safety school, and I considered Emory to be a match; the others, I thought, were reaches. Looking back, I would have applied to Stanford or Yale instead of Johns Hopkins; I really only applied to JHU for the premed reputation (it showed in my supplement essays), and perhaps a waitlist at Harvard could have been an acceptance at YPSM. I still think my app process worked out though, and Duke’s not a bad choice at all.</p>
<p>Back to the OP, the fact that people can send in a Common App online, with modifications, to almost all schools at once certainly helps push up app quantity.</p>
<p>Applied to (10): University of Washington, Lewis and Clark College, Reed College, Tulane University, Northwestern University, George Washington University, Fordham University, Bard College, Skidmore College, Hampshire College</p>
<p>Accepted to (4): Lewis and Clark, Bard, Hampshire, Fordham (waitlisted at UW, Reed, Tulane)</p>
<p>Contenders: Bard College and Hampshire College, with Bard by far the top choice</p>
<p>Choice: Bard</p>
<p>Why?: I knew I wanted to go to Bard; I also didn’t think I’d get into it. So I first of all put on the list a couple of similar schools, which I knew I’d be relatively happy at. Then I added some matches and safeties (or what seemed them at the time!). Then I added a handful of schools that seemed unlikely but would have been nice too, because I was told throughout the process to be bold.</p>
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<p>I just looked at the stated policies of each school before I applied to get a general sense of how much aid I would receive. I didn’t compare against any real offers; what I meant was that I was maximizing my opportunity to receive the most generous offers possible.</p>
<p>Schools you applied to: (9), UCSD, UCD, UCLA, UCB Cornell, Stanford, Harvard, Yale, MIT
Schools that accepted you: (6), UCSD, UCD, UCLA, UCB, Cornell, Harvard (WL - Yale)
“Contenders”: (2), UCB, Harvard
Final Choice: Harvard
Why did you choose to apply to that number of schools?: All UC’s are on one application, got rejected from Stanford EA and felt insecure, and wanted to maximize chances of getting into top private for better financial aid haggling. If I were to do it over again, I would cut out UCLA and Cornell. In my opinion people should apply to between 3-10 schools. More than that is pretty ridiculous.</p>