Hi all, I’m just curious how many colleges your kids have applied to. My son has applied to nine and is doing one more. His guidance counselor commented that he had applied to ‘so many.’ Is that very unusual? Just curious. He wants to be in a big city, but not sure which one and merit aid will definitely be a factor in the final choice.
Both my son’s applied to 10 schools (paid application fees) and 2 other schools that offered to waive the application fees. 9+ is fine as long as it doesn’t break the bank or require an excessive amount of essays and supplements.
D has applied to 8 and will add a 9th this weekend. There are 3 more, one with a Dec. due date and two in-state safeties that she won’t apply to unless none of the other 10 come through for her with enough merit, but that shouldn’t be a problem. Some of the above either have free apps or waive the fees for out of staters, of the rest, all but one were between $20-35 each. Only a few have essays, and those are around 250 words. There are no supplements except for those which ask for an extra essay for honors programs. She has 3 acceptances so far.
Last year D applied to seven and held back two in state applications in case the OOS ones didn’t come through. She was accepted to all with merit and only one was unaffordable. But her older cousins were all one and done, so it seemed to the rest of the family she was applying to a lot of schools. It’s all in how you look at things.
More than 10. But we also had financial variables we couldn’t control or predict. Just do what’s right for your family and ignore people who think you did too many or too few or the wrong ones or whatever.
My S applied to 7. He got into a couple of schools rolling admissions so that eliminated the need for him to apply to safety schools he liked less than the ones he got into. My D applied to two EA and one ED and when she got into her ED school she was happily done with the process.
More than 10 is alot. And you have to submit FAFSA then go back and remove some colleges and resubmit to get more than 10.
I believe it was 8, 7 and 7.
Thanks all! I should’ve thought to delay the two in state. He already got into one rolling with a good scholarship, so unless something drastically changes, he will not go in state. However, now that I think of it, I don’t think either of those had app fees, nor supplemental essays, so it isn’t a big deal.
One applied to 8, the other to 7.
Each kid had 2 safeties on the original list. Older also applied to 6 reaches. (He had HYP stats and there weren’t really any matches - both safeties were excellent schools with good offerings in his likely major, both offered him merit scholarships.) Younger son dropped one of his safeties after he got into a reach EA. (He didn’t visit it till April.) So he applied to his other schools all reaches. So he ended up with 6 reaches and a safety. The safety had a nice merit package.
My kids were also 8 & 7 ( but the 7 kid had planned 8, but knew the school she was admitted to EA with merit was preferable to the last app on her list, so she just didn’t apply). 10 seems fine, but if you are applying for FA, get your tracking spreadsheet ready and set aside some time to deal with it, as there is quite a bit of variety in due dates, what exact info the want, and how they want it sent.
D14 applied to five. D16’s list is 10–two in-state safeties and 8 others. Only the two state U’s and one of the others had application fees.
My daughter applied to 5 (she should have applied to 4, as she never visited or really considered one of them). I’d say 3 were safeties, 2 were matches. Her GC told her she needed reaches, but she had no interest in any reach schools and we didn’t think they were necessary at all. She was at the low end at her high school; most kids applied to more. I would say 8-12 was the typical range at her school. The high school provided 8 free transcripts and charged for every one beyond that, which I guess is some indication of what they thought was a reasonable number of college applications.
D is applying to more colleges than pretty much all of her classmates and friends. Her school is very small and there is no charge for transcripts. She is spreading out her recommendations so that no one teacher is over-burdened. Still, I’m sure they’ll be glad when she’s done!
I don’t understand the recommendation comment. Generally a student has two teachers write recommendations, and they do not mention specific colleges by name. Then those same recommendations are provided to all colleges that request them. There is no reason for recommendations tailored to a college. Colleges don’t expect the, and HS teachers don’t usually write them that way.
DS has applied to 6. Only 3 with application fees. 1 reach, 3 matches, 2 likelies. Many of the kids at his school do more. 10 does not seem unreasonable to me if you are searching for merit or unsure about location.
Unless the HS counselor is willing to pay the college tuition for you, you should ignore their worthless advice about how you should only apply to ___ schools. It totally depends on the particular situation, especially the financial situation.
If you don’t apply, you’ll never find out (i) if you can get in and (ii) where you will get offered the best financial deal.
Also, the incremental cost and effort involved in doing the Nth application is pretty minimal these days. School number 11 might be the one where you get the awesome deal.
2 EA (done), to be followed by 3 RD. Possibly 1 more, but only if neither EA is an accept (one’s a safety).
My son had two teachers do the Common App recs and one used that same letter to mail in to another school. Strangely, you actually did have to mail it in. There was one tailored letter, for the Honors program, but thank goodness that was it!
D goes to a very small school. She is not applying to Common App schools. There is no central file from which to print out multiple recommendations and send them to X number of colleges. She is asking teachers she feels will give her recommendations that will be most beneficial for specific colleges. For a couple the teacher just made a copy of a previous rec., but not all. Not all even want teacher recs, but all require counselor letters. THOSE are boilerplate and sent to all from a single copy.