How many apps is too many?

Applying to College
1

<p>Sat down and wrote down the lists of colleges will genuinely like to apply to, and the number came to 15!</p>

<p>Is this too many?</p>

<p>Son wants to go to one school, but it is very far away, and we have a lot of family dynamics going on, so it's possible he will not be able to travel far from home like he wants. </p>

<p>Some of the choices are local or schools in neighboring states, that would probably cost less than his first choice. Others are far away, but haven't had the time to visit yet, but would be worth the visit if accepted and given good aid. </p>

<p>A couple are "no chance to get in" but son wants to apply. Will want to go if he gets accepted, but we will not be able to afford. No chance at aid at those schools. Would be bottom of the barrel on stats compared to other students, and no hook to get any other aid. </p>

<p>Son will be applying to engineering, which is very selective, and has indicated that if his top choice does not admit him under engineering, but does under arts and sciences, he would rather go to a lesser choice if accepted to engineering at that school. </p>

<p>This is surprising to me. I would think he likes the school so much, that he'd be happy to get his foot in the door. However, he wants to major in engineering, so doesn't want to take the chance on not getting in as a sophomore, but would rather "settle" on another school so he could major in engineering from the getgo. </p>

<p>This is the reason for so many applications. Hoping to get in engineering school at one of them, hopefully more, and then weigh the cost, location, other factors in final decision.</p>

<p>I'm actually thinking of adding a couple more schools, schools that don't have his major, BME, but have excellent engineering programs, and he could probably get good aid. So the list could actually get closer to 20. </p>

<p>The guidance counselors are going to have a fit. </p>

<p>Any advice on pairing down this list?</p>

2

<p>“Sat down and wrote down the lists of colleges will genuinely like to apply to, and the number came to 15!”</p>

<p>Just to clarify, is this the list of colleges that your son would genuinely like to apply to, or that you would genuinely like your son to apply to?</p>

3

<p>“A couple are “no chance to get in” but son wants to apply. Will want to go if he gets accepted, but we will not be able to afford. No chance at aid at those schools. Would be bottom of the barrel on stats compared to other students, and no hook to get any other aid.”</p>

<p>If you KNOW for a fact that you wouldn’t be able to afford these schools, don’t apply.</p>

4

<p>i was adviced to apply to 2 colleges that will prolly accept me and i will love. a reasonable college. pick 2 colleges that are safeties. u will get in no matter what. and pick to dream colleges to apply for the heck of it.</p>

5

<p>More than you can afford to pay for or to write out all of the applications for.</p>

6

<p>If our kids had unlimited time, energy and focus, they could apply to an unlimited number of schools, anything that struck their fancy for any reason at all. Given that this is not the case, they need to put some thought into making some hard decisions at this point. </p>

<p>Fifteen to twenty is far too many; he can’t possibly submit that many quality applications, and he’d probably concentrate his efforts on the “impossibles” at the expense of the “great-fits.” He needs prioritize what is really important to him, and pare down accordingly.</p>

<p>The formula I always heard at the college seminars was :</p>

<p>1-2 safeties (which must also be financial safeties; your S could still go even if you don’t get a dime in aid)
4 matches or best-fits (curriculum, location, possibility of aid, student life, etc etc – all within acceptable parameters)
1-2 reaches (probably won’t get in, but what the heck)</p>

<p>Another great piece of advice I’ve read here: Build from the bottom up. Kids can get stars in their eyes about Prestige U, but they need to first get their safeties in place (they might end up going there), and then select the matches where they could have a happy and productive 4 years. Only then should they think about the candy of an unattainable dream school.</p>

7

<p>In the minority on CC here, but i think 6 is more than enough apps</p>

8

<p>DS and I just went thru his “consider” list. Ended up eliminating 3 and adding 1. In the end, he will probably apply to </p>

<p>2 reaches - 1 is a reach only because it’s UT-Austin and DS is not in the top 10%
5 matches - should have no problem getting in…but ya never know!
3 safeties - 1 he isn’t really interested in, but it’s the same application as UT, so he’ll do it</p>

<p>Of course, that’s today. Who knows what the list will be tomorrow! :)</p>

9

<p>I applied to 10 and I regret it</p>

10

<p>The only limiting factor that I can see is teacher recommendations. How many letters are your teachers willing to write? I’m thinking that maybe 8-10 would be the max, although you don’t need any letters at all for UCs, so that helps.</p>

11

<p>A good number of the applications are state schools, both instate and oos, that only require a 30 dollar app fee and simple application and send the transcript. No letters or essays. A few of those are sure things he’ll get in, based on past admittances, and would be good schools if family dynamics don’t allow him to go where he wants. Some don’t have his major, but are excellent schools, where he can do undergrad in a similar major, then probably get into a good grad school from. </p>

<p>As for shirking dream school to apply to reaches, I agree. If son would be required to spend hours on essays and tracking down teachers for recs when we really will not be able to send him, why waste that time. </p>

<p>On the other hand, I would feel guilty if I didn’t give him the chance to apply to those schools. I’d always ask myself, would he have gotten in if he’d only applied. </p>

<p>And Steven-why do you regret applying to 10? Curious as to your reason.</p>

<p>Another question. If many of the schools take the common application, aren’t you just changing the address of where it’s being sent to? Or am I simplifying it too much?</p>

<p>Thanks for all your advice. I will try to pair it down to six, but I may want to just leave out the reaches if not affordable. As to how I know they won’t be, they say things like, We only give out need based aid. So, there are no merit scholarships. And we’re not rich by any means, but we would not likely qualify for any need based aid. And we can’t afford to pay 50K a year out of pocket, and not willing to take out that amount of loan.</p>

12

<p>Would he actually be happy attending all 15 of those schools? </p>

<p>Colleges often ask you what you like about the school you are applying to. This is a useful question, and answering it for each school makes it easier to see what schools he should be applying to, which schools he should be applying to that hes not, and which schools he just shouldnt be applying to.</p>

13

<p>We unfortunately know many kids who are attending colleges that they don’t want to be at, but are forced to go to because their parents simply couldn’t afford any other. Especially when grad school or med school is on the horizon. My godchild told me yesterday, go where the money is for undergrad, it’s where you do your grad work that’s important. Many schools offer free rides to NMS, but if son not an NMS, will have to weigh the best price and best program. If I knew he would get so much aid to each school, I could weed them out right off the bat. But since we don’t know that and won’t know that until he applies, we’ll have to see what we get. We are going to some driving distance visit days on weekends this fall, where we can come with application and transcript in hand, and know if he’s accepted. Scholarship offers will follow. This may be three or four colleges right there. We also have to apply instate to preserve our TOPS eligibility, a program that offers merit scholarships to instate kids to attend state schools. If you go away for one year, then decide to come home, you can still get TOPS, as long as you applied to a Louisiana school upon graduation. There are three Louisiana schools that would be candidates, but all are very different. One is a good engineering school, in a very rural area, Louisiana Tech, which does have BME, his intended major. The other is our local, commuter college, also good engineering school, but doesn’t have BME. Son is actually accepted there already as part of a dual enrollment program. The other is the local Catholic college, where son is attending this summer, and really loves. Does not have engineering, but could do undergrad there, and do a 3+2 program in conjunction with the local commuter college, and then go on to grad school for BME. These seem like great options, but son wants to go away from home, we’re anxious to send him away,and he really does not want to do a 3+2 program. These three would be good choices if finances and family dynamics prohibit him leaving. So I’ve got six or seven right there that are “safeties”, could work depending on where life takes us in the coming year. Then there’s the school he really wants to go to, which is far away, in a totally different climate, and another that is not as well known, would probably get in, and in another totally different part of the country than his other choice. But those schools may not be affordable for us, also. It would depend on how much aid they give us. So they’re kind of “reach” schools in that sense. May get in, may be able to afford. Not sure things.</p>

<p>Again, wondering, should we even apply to the “reach” school, where he quite probably wouldn’t get in, we couldn’t afford, and would be a difficult application, ie, Ivy League caliber. But son really wants to apply there. To us, it’s a “what the heck”. To him, it’s a “Wow, that would be amazing if I got in. Nobody who gets in this school should turn it down.”</p>

14

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<p>You don’t need 6-7 safety schools. </p>

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<p>Unless I’ve missed it somewhere, I don’t see what your FA situation is. These reach schools likely only give need based FA and if they did give merit, your S would only be in the running if he was in the very top of the applicant pool, which it doesn’t sound like. Have you run FA calculators to get some idea if you’re definitely not getting FA, in the FA nether land, or likely to get good FA if he’s admitted to a 100% of need, no loan school ??</p>

15

<p>I applied to 11, which was too many imo. Come to think of it, I should have just applied to 7</p>

16

<p>“Too many” is a subjective question. Do you think it’s too many? Can your family afford to pay for the 15 application fees plus the other fees (postage, transcripts, SAT score reports, etc.)?</p>

<p>If the answer to the first question is no and the answer to the second question is yes, then it’s not too many. You can apply to as many schools as you want. Your son could apply to 30 schools if he wanted to. In the end, you can only choose one.</p>

<p>Personally I didn’t see the point of applying to schools that I knew I couldn’t afford and at which I had no chance of getting any financial aid (need or merit-based), but some people enjoy the intellectual exercise of applying just to see if they could get in (had I more money I might have done this) and others do so on the off chance that they get a windfall of unexpected aid.</p>

<p>People will give you “formulae” for how many you should apply to (usually 6-8) but I think the formula will be different depending on your family circumstances. A kid who really wants to attend a very top school at any cost should shoot for the moon and apply to many top schools. A kid who just wants to attend their local regional university may only apply to that school. It depends on you, your family, your circumstances.</p>

<p>Teacher recommendations shouldn’t be too much of a limit. Most teachers write one letter and slightly alter it for further schools. Also, you can always ask more than three teachers. I had a different set of teachers write recommendations for different schools depending on what school it was, and I only applied to five.</p>

17

<p>I applied to 7, 3 of which were safeties, and I later realized that it was a waste since I wouldn’t go to two of them even though I got great scholarships. </p>

<p>15 is definitely too much.</p>

18

<p>Montegut,</p>

<p>Re applying to “reaches”: I think students should be entitled to apply to 1 or 2, just so they don’t always wonder if they could have gotten in. Pursuing dreams is a wonderful thing, so long as it’s not done at the expense of reality.</p>

<p>I told my D that she could apply to a couple of reaches, but that IF she were admitted, attendance would be contingent upon the FA offer. She thought about the heart-breaking scenario of being admitted to a dream school, and then not being able to attend because of money – and decided to not even go there. In the end, she applied only to safeties and matches, but that was her decision.</p>

19

<p>I think for undergrad 6 is more than fine and applying to more than 9 is crazy.</p>

20

<p><<DS and I just went thru his “consider” list. Ended up eliminating 3 and adding 1. In the end, he will probably apply to</p>

<p>2 reaches - 1 is a reach only because it’s UT-Austin and DS is not in the top 10%
5 matches - should have no problem getting in…but ya never know!
3 safeties - 1 he isn’t really interested in, but it’s the same application as UT, so he’ll do it</p>

<p>Of course, that’s today. Who knows what the list will be tomorrow! >></p>

<p>As predicted -
we are now down to
2 reaches
4 matches
2 safeties</p>

<p>Stay tuned…there are sure to be more changes!!!</p>