<p>How many schools do you think students should be applying to? Is 10 too many? 12? 14? Facts or opinions are helpful.</p>
<p>Personally, I think that for students without mitigating circumstances*, 10-13 should be the max. I personally applied to 9, which could have been 8 had I visited the 9th school beforehand--it turned out to be totally wrong for me. I have trouble imagining that--again, no mitigating circumstances--any one student could really be a good fit for 15 or 20 schools. There are always exceptions, but those are just that--not the rule. </p>
<p>At the high end, 13 schools allows someone with very high sights to apply to 1-2 safeties, 3-4 matches, and 7-9 reaches--a lot of schools, bordering on a bit excessive, no offense to anyone here :). I applied to one safety, 4 matches (2 safer matches and 2 tougher matches), and 4 reaches (10% or less acceptance rate). I was rejected from my two toughest schools, waitlisted by the next two almost as tough schools, and accepted to the rest--one with a large ($27,000/yr) scholarship, one into the honors program, and one with a $10,000/yr scholarship AND the honors program. I feel that I chose my list very well, and even though I didn't get into any of my reach schools, I still had a very tough choice between 3 schools that I could have been happy at. </p>
<p>*Mitigating circumstances include:
-Extreme need for finaid--finaid packages are very shaky and unpredictable
-Special programs (theatre, music, combined med/pharm programs)
-An unpredictable applicant (applicants with something--an illness or death maybe--that affected grades, international applicants (especially those with finaid), applicants with an unusual secondary school education (special school, homeschooled, etc.))</p>
<p>These applicants may need to apply to a lot (20+) schools to ensure admission to a highly competitive program, appropriate financial aid, and/or to hedge bets because of an extremely unpredictable application. These are all the exceptions that I could think of, but may not be an exhaustive list.</p>
<p>I applied to 10. 4 reaches. 3 matches. 3 safeties. Accepted at all matches, all safeties, 2 reaches, waitlisted at one, rejected by another. It seemed to work fine for me. At the time, I thought I was more likely to receive acceptances from 5 or 6 of the schools. Thankfully, things turned out differently.</p>
<p>DD applied to 5 schools; three matches and two safeties. If you're happy attending where you apply, you shouldn't need more.</p>
<p>To add: it depends on just how reachy your reaches are....if you have your sights set on <20% acceptance rate schools (especially <10% schools), you should probably apply to more than other sources suggest (admissions guidebooks often say 2 safeties-2 matches-2 reaches, but that's not enough reaches or matches for a high-reaching applicant, imo.</p>
<p>Of course, you should be happy to attend ANY school on your list (including and especially your safety(ies))--it's the only way to insure a happy outcome.</p>
<p>But if colleges see that you applied to, say, 17 schools, will they be less likely to accept you? My English teacher said that colleges don't like to see more than 8 or 9.</p>