I don’t think 16 is unreasonable, but it is a lot more work than is ideal. I agree with Happy1’s strategy to apply early to a rolling admission school or two, which might eliminate the need for some of the other applications.
Yea, I am applying early to 7 or 8 schools so hopefully I will know whether or not to submit any more applications after I get my results back.
@happy1 While I agree with you regarding targets and reaches, I still think that 3-4 safeties is too many. If a student has two schools to which they are almost certain they will be accepted, any more is overkill. Just in case, though, applying EA to a couple safeties, and keeping two “in reserve” in case the “unthinkable” happens, and a student is rejected from their safeties, is also a possibility.
@MWolf Under normal circumstances I would agree but this particular poster seems to be in need of merit aid so applying to a higher than normal number of safety schools (which offer merit aid) could improve his chance of finding affordable options.
My D was chasing merit a couple years ago and she applied to 12 colleges. One was a last minute, no supplemental essay so she just clicked some boxes – so really it was 11.
That was a lot! I think the 2 factors are 1) application fees, as discussed and 2) quality of the apps. My D had pretty much finished her common app going into senior year, including the essay. Still, doing a good job on so many college specific essays is hard and time consuming.
My advice is to be realistic about how long each app takes and how much time you have. Better to knock 10 - 12 out of the park than 16 that are not as strong. For her, given a very busy Fall schedule with sports, etc. , doing 11 was hard and she submitted some up to the wire.
One approach is to tier them and focus on your top choices (in each category of safety, target and reach) first so that if you run out of time some of the others on the list can fall away w/o too much angst.
Good luck!
I think your list is reasonable given your need for merit and/or FA. Keep in mind that the process will be very, very time consuming. Some of these schools may require several essays.
If you can afford it, why not? How do you plan on choosing which schools you want to apply to?
If I apply to say, 15 schools, how many supplements do you think I will have to write and long does this typically take?
Most highly selective colleges have two supplemental essays – some have just one. (A handful of colleges are not on the common app and that’s a whole other kettle of fish.)
How long it takes is highly dependent. My D did find she could re-purpose some college specific essays and massage them to work for another college. But not always – some she had to do from scratch. If I had to estimate I’d say she spent 3 hours per essay total (not all in one sitting; she’d write, revise, etc.). So at 11 colleges * 2 essays per college * 3 is 36 hours. Plus there’s some other pieces of the app you have to fill out online.
I’d say 7 to 8 hours total per application is about right – this includes the essays, filling out the forms, proofing everything, etc. Of coruse, others may spend much less or more time.
Gotchu, thank you.
My daughter applied to 12 schools and had a total of 19 essays.
The good news is you have 3 or 4 months to spend on essays if you start now. Plenty of time to complete a dozen or so applications.
Yes, but they never do. They always end up using Thanksgiving weekend and Christmas break to cram it all.
@nickthekid it’s fine to apply to 10-15 schools. Our S19 didn’t have a favorite to do ED and we also wanted to see if he got any merit so we could compare costs. (We are full pay.) He only applied to one school EA and it was a safety that I thought matched him well but it was far away and we never visited. Thankfully, he got into eight of the twelve schools he applied to, was waitlisted at two and denied at two.
It was a ton of work. 20 + essays, eight interviews, seven visits to campuses. It was worth it. He started his essays in the summer and just had three left to do in the fall. It was practically a part time job for him that summer but he knew writing good essays in the fall when he was very busy with his ECs and a tough schedule was going to be hard. I suggest you start writing ASAP.
I do agree that it was a bit confusing after acceptances with eight options but only one of those was a school with acceptance rate over 30 percent. All of the rest had acceptance rates under 20 percent and one under 10 percent. My point is that we had no idea if he would get into these schools and we wanted him to have options in April. He could have gotten into three schools or twelve. We really didn’t know. He could have been flying all over the place in April but he was able to narrow it down to four schools before revisits, went back to three, and was able to decide.
So I say go for it and good luck!