<p>It is an issue with the "Why School X" essays though, which is a nice check on application whoredom. If you can complete all those 50 "Why School X" essays with fantastic, unique responses, then I say you are blameless.</p>
<p>By the way, I applied to ten schools on fee waiver, and I only got accepted to 2.</p>
<p>I think the way to put together a "high-quality application" is to make sure you have high-quality interest in the school.</p>
<p>So I think the answer to how many schools you should apply to is the same as how many schools you are legitimately interested in. This interest in the school should be as separate from its perceived prestige as possible and should focus on the school itself and what it might have to offer the student. As other posters said, it's easy to tell who wants to be a part of the school because of the school and who wants it because of prestige; like who's applying to a job to work at that company and who just wants to make money.</p>
<p>Anyway, my own list was like the following:
3 unrealistic reaches, the "yeah right" schools.
5 match/high matches (one of them was my EA and my first choice, so I actually never executed this list, but I was excited about all of them in one way or another)
1 safety I was really excited about.</p>
<p>So in all, I had 9 schools, and I believe I would have been very, very happy attending any of those 9.</p>
<p>I actually got a sense of my enthusiasm for the school as I wrote the college essays. I was lucky enough to visit all of the schools I decided to apply to, so I had a clear image of the school and how it would cater to me in my head as I wrote, and as a result, my college essays were clean and enthusiastic. I wasn't just copy-pasting "Johns Hopkins" for "Tufts"-- I was really thinking each school through, looking at their websites, course catalogs, clubs, dorms, etc. etc.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Anyway, my own list was like the following:
3 unrealistic reaches, the "yeah right" schools.
5 match/high matches (one of them was my EA and my first choice, so I actually never executed this list, but I was excited about all of them in one way or another)
1 safety I was really excited about.</p>
<p>So in all, I had 9 schools, and I believe I would have been very, very happy attending any of those 9
[/quote]
</p>
<p>the trick isn't finding 9 schools that the applicant will like ... it's finding 1 school among the 5 reaches with acceptance rates that will accept the applicant. I know the applications are not independent events ... but the typical qualified applicant to top 20 type schools has only got about a 50-60% chance of getting accepted to one of five reach applications ... more reach applications and the odds go up. (I know they are not independent applications ... I assuming this appicant has solid academics, good ECs, and good recs ... a good solid candidate; not an automatic in ... and no red flag that makes them an automatic refjuect either)</p>
<p>
[quote]
I think the way to put together a "high-quality application" is to make sure you have high-quality interest in the school.
[/quote]
Most highly selective colleges do not care about demonstrated interest in the school. They just try to put together the best possible student body. We never found that "sucking up" to the school by tailoring the essay to the school offered any benefit. If you follow that approach you are doomed. It is already hard enough to come up with one or two great essays that truly reflect the applicant's personality. If you start throwing in how the architecture of the buildings inspired you to apply, you are heading straight to the reject pile. </p>
<p>It is true that many schools have a small paragraph on "Why X?" but that is a far cry from a customized essay. Just be careful that if you mention your interest in studying engineering that the school actually has an engineering department. </p>
<p>Our D visited every school with one exception and would have been happy at every one. She would have had a number of HS friends at any of the school she applied to. The concept of fit is vastly overplayed. Within a geographic region, the differences in student body profiles between equally selective schools are nominal. Throw the students all together and reshuffle them at random and you would have very little change.</p>
<p>I don't think interest equates with visiting or sucking up. Your interest in the school must show in your essays. Many college admissions officers indicate that they look very closely at the short essays ( the ones the specific school requires in their supplements), rather than the long "personal statement" essay since they feel the long essay has been heavily edited. So, even if the school does not require a "Why us" essay, you will need to write those short essays with originality and spark. My S's experience was rejection by the two schools on his list in which he was not that interested. It showed in his short essays and the result matched his effort. He applied to 10 and was burnt out by the last two. So why did we waste the application fee, the SAT fee and the CSS profile fee? Definitely hedge your bets but a bird shot approach is a waste of time and money. To me, 21 applications is bird shot. The 8 Ivies are vastly different schools with vastly different "personalities". Stanford is as far as you can get from Cornell and not just geographically. Stanford is known for having the happiest students and Cornell, well...it's not. So why apply to both?</p>
<p>
[quote]
It is true that many schools have a small paragraph on "Why X?" but that is a far cry from a customized essay.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Huh? Many schools have full essays -- that are linked to the student's goals.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Many schools have full essays -- that are linked to the student's goals.
[/quote]
Most elite colleges use the common app and many don't even require a second essay. Of the 16 schools our D applied to, not a single supplementary essay was specific to the school. Our D's goals and personality did not change from one school to the next. Her well crafted essays pretty much fit every application. </p>
<p>Give me an example of a school using the common app. that requires a unique essay that can't be reused in other applications.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Stanford is as far as you can get from Cornell and not just geographically. Stanford is known for having the happiest students and Cornell, well...it's not. So why apply to both?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Our D applied to both and would have been very happy at either of them. She was interested in the sciences and both schools have top notch programs in her area of interest. As far as happy students, her best friend from HS went to Cornell and would not want to transfer for anything. Our D ended up going to MIT which many claimed would put a crimp in her social life, but she has had a fantastic first year. She joined a sorority, is involved in tons of extra-curricular activities, volunteers at a hospital and still gets all her work done. She can't wait to go back and no longer wants to consider spending junior year abroad.</p>
<p>There is common saying among admission officers that by thanksgiving freshman year, every student is enrolled at his or her favorite college. So much for fit.</p>
<p>My point is that different schools have different personalities. Why apply to a school that you either do not know about or do not have a desire to attend merely because of its ranking? Of course students attending Cornell are attending their "favorite" college. As are the students attending Stanford or X state U. This thread sought advice on the amount of applications. And the best advice is to apply to schools that you can envision as being your favorite.<br>
Here are Stanford's 3 short essay topics:
3 Short Essays (found in the Stanford Supplement to the Common Application): Candidates must respond to all 3 questions/topics. Responses must be at least 250 words but should not exceed the space provided in the Supplement).
• Stanford students are widely known to possess a sense of intellectual vitality. Tell us about an idea or an experience you have had that you find intellectually engaging.
• Virtually all of Stanford’s undergraduates live on campus. Write a note to your future roommate that reveals something about you or that will help your roommate – and us – know you better.
• Tell us what makes Stanford a good place for you?
I also know that Penn and Columbia have "Why us" essays.</p>
<p>Back to my earlier post...</p>
<p>I was not making advice based on a pragmatic, "let's get into the school that's ranked the highest" point of view, but rather one that I think is more psychologically reassuring to the applicant. </p>
<p>I agree that there are a lot of schools that have a lot in common. If you go to the store, you'll find a lot of jeans in your size. That doesn't mean you try on all of them before deciding to buy one-- it's just too much of a hassle. Instead, you let your eyes roam for ones that look like they might be right and they might be in your size. Yes, you might fear that you skip over the <em>perfect</em> pair of jeans. But experienced shoppers... umm... CC-ers... know that there is no such thing as a perfect pair of jeans, so why not go with the one that you think might be best for you.</p>
<p>Maybe I should fill in the names I left blank earlier to give you an idea of where I'm coming from as far as fit goes:</p>
<p>I wanted a medium-sized school that was in or near a non-New York City urban location, that de-emphasized drinking/partying/Greek life, that had a solid arts community, that was also a haven for geeks.</p>
<p>There were two schools I visited where I went "Ew, yuck." I used the qualities that I didn't like about those two schools to slice a lot of schools that I could have considered off my list.</p>
<p>Anyway, my reaches were Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. Big whoop. Out of the three, I didn't have a favorite or a least favorite, I was just a little amused by the idea that I could send out a resume that had one of those names on it, and that I could also post a wedding announcement in the New York Times.</p>
<p>My first choice was the University of Chicago. For those of you who read a lot of my posts, that's a duh.</p>
<p>My other high match/match schools were Johns Hopkins, Northwestern, Tufts, and Cornell. I liked that all of these schools have prestigious engineering arms, because I find I like engineers. Johns Hopkins has an amazing creative writing program that I was really interested in, and I liked how I walked around campus and saw that people didn't really put a lot of effort into the way they looked. I liked how Northwestern was near Chicago, and how it had some really awesome arts, performing arts, music, journalism, and creative writing programs. Tufts had Boston, a great campus, a nice size, a cool emphasis on world affairs and a hell of an admissions officer giving a presentation, and Cornell is just ridiculously awesome.</p>
<p>There are other schools I could have considered more seriously-- maybe Wash U? Brown? Brandeis? Macalester? Pomona? But, like I said, I was happy with the schools that were on my list already so I didn't really feel I needed to fish more.</p>
<p>I should mention that after two years of college, I think there are other schools out there that would better cater to my interests, schools I had not considered in the initial college search. But the only way I would really know that was if I went to one of the other schools on my initial list and found that I wasunhappy for particular reasons, and then set out different criteria for choosing a school to transfer to. But again, I don't think it would have been a big deal, because I chose the schools I chose to apply to primarily because when I visited, I felt like I could easily merge with the student body. One of the reasons that the University of Chicago stood out to me was that it seemed that everybody I ran into had the potential to become my good friend.</p>
<p>And I loved my in-state safety, if only because I had a really good friend there who did all sorts of weird, interesting, and crazy things with his friends. I also was able to follow him around his dorm, and I ran into tons of people who just seemed to be very interesting and welcoming.</p>
<p>But also... the application questions! I thought they were so much fun and that they served as a way for me to communicate with the admissions office in a way that wasn't just my transcript or scores. That's why I imagine if you try to Henry Ford-ize the college applications, you miss a lot of the potential for thoughtful and careful one-on-one communication. For example, I wrote and rewrote and re-re-re-wrote my Hopkins 10 dollar essay.... I had so many things I wanted to tell the admissions office (because I wanted to go to Hopkins pretty badly if Chicago didn't work out) and I think I would have let the first decent draft pass by if I were applying to more than 10 schools or so.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Give me an example of a school using the common app. that requires a unique essay that can't be reused in other applications.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Penn.</p>
<p>Georgetown doesn't use the common app but requires a full essay.</p>
<p>Chicago will switch to the common application next year, as I recall.</p>
<p>I believe the OP's question was whether was any such thing as too many applications. More specifically, is there a threshold beyond which applying to more schools hurts your chances of admission as opposed to improves them. I just don't believe there is any empirical evidence to support that proposition. I actually believe the opposite. The unpredictability of admissions in an environment where the number of qualified applicants vastly exceeds the number of available slots drives students to hedge their bets by applying to more schools. It is somewhat similar to hedging your bets in the stock market in turbulent times by investing in mutual funds or broad market indices as opposed to individual stocks. Picking individual stocks can be very risky. The volatility of a mutual fund is always less than that of its individual components. By applying to a "portfolio" of schools with similar selectivity profiles you optimize your chances of being admitted to one of them. </p>
<p>The highly targeted approach is very risky. I have never found the most selective colleges to give any real importance to your expressed interest in them. They assume that if you applied to their school you are interested in attending. They may put different weights on different traits of character, intellectual or physical ability, but you either have the goods or you don't. They won't take your word for their own evaluation if you are a fit for their institution or not. It is also nearly impossible to pigeonhole a particular institution and second guess what an optimal profile may look like. So writing an essay that demonstrates you are the perfect fit for a particular college is essentially hopeless. If anything such a candidate does not exist, whether at Harvard, Stanford, MIT or any of the top LACs. More than anything they want a diverse student body. The well rounded student, good at everything but outstanding in nothing is actually the one with the longest odds. The slightly quirky or "angular" student often has a better shot. </p>
<p>What colleges want to know through the essays, is who you really are. It is very hard to write a single compelling essay about yourself, let alone trying to fashion multiple ones to show different personalities to different colleges. I believe your personal statement is by far the most important piece of the application over which you have any control. Good adcoms can readily tell if it has been ghostwritten or is insincere. They will crosscheck with the rest of the application, recommendations and transcript. A strong statement will go a long way in establishing who you are. They may or may think you are a fit but at least your image is clear in their mind. </p>
<p>Our D spent many weeks refining her personal statement. She also provided a supplemental essay, supplemental samples of her artwork, supplemental recommendations from people who could talk intelligently and personally about her. Each application was extremely well prepared but except for very minor differences they were all the same. Same thing in the interviews. She presented herself the same way and did not have to pretend to be a different person to each school. It allowed her to be more genuine and relaxed. The consistency ensured there were no sloppy or last minute applications, no "what the heck" applications, no wasted fees, no odd silences during the interviews. I am certain the outcome would have been far worse had she tried to mold different applications for different colleges.</p>
<p>Well yes, do not do something as stupid as trying to dedicate your primary essay to your school if the school didn't request it.</p>
<p>But note that the Chicago main essay for option 4 last year (for enrollment in the 2008-2009 year) asked the essayist to write a comedic play for the theatre that mentioned UChicago (but outside the context of admissions!).</p>
<p>So on top of that other supplementary essay, Chicago had room for that in a very quirky way.</p>
<p>so basically it breaks down to whether or not you are able to write X number of great/sincere essays to X number of schools that you are applying to... so if the money is not a problem then apply to however many Colleges you feel you are capable of writing a good essay to...</p>
<p>Galoisien:</p>
<p>I agree Chicago has always had a very quirky application, which turned off a lot of applicants (including my D). It is in part why they are moving to the common app. </p>
<p>Penn's statement about the intended course of study is fairly basic and does not require much soul searching. If you can't tell a school what academic programs your are interested in, you should definitely not apply. If one visited the school it would be quite obvious. If not, the web sites are very detailed. With Chicago, just don't mention their great engineering program.</p>
<p>rsmattu:</p>
<p>The point is your main essay never needs to be specific to the school. (If the school accepts the common app). The supplemental portions are generally brief and straightforward.</p>
<p>For the inner workings of the admissions office at Penn (representative of most elite colleges).
Less than 2 minutes for the adcom to sell the application in committee.
I guess if you live in an outreach area it helps if you really, really want to go to Penn. </p>
<p>High</a> drama in the office of admissions | csmonitor.com</p>
<p>Since OP is from California, UC's can be considered to be just one application. Other than cost, he/she can apply to all UC's as just like applying to one school.</p>
<p>Personally, I applied to: </p>
<p>4 reaches
1 high match
1 match
2 safeties
1 SUPER safety (in state)</p>
<p>I was told on CC to apply to more "reaches" but to be honest, I was really happy with almost all of the schools I applied to- one was the University of Washington (not to be confused with WashU), which was a pretty big safety with my stats. However, I knew that I liked Seattle and that the UW's strongest areas were in the sciences, which is what I want to major in (as of now, I like to keep my options open though.) People downright told me to eliminate it, but the truth is, I wouldn't want to go to UChicago or MIT or Stanford any more than I would want to go to UW's honors program. The only colleges I would not have liked to attend was my super safety (the local state university) and one of my reaches that I didn't research thoroughly enough. </p>
<p>When I see college lists the one posted by ParentOfIvyHope's, I'm almost annoyed. His D isn't really thinking about where she will be happy; it's obviously more about the prestige (Duke could not be any more different from Dartmouth), and that kind of thinking is what's lowering admission rates. </p>
<p>You just have to apply to where you'll be happy and really research your schools. The only thing I would advise is not to over utilize the common app or the UC application (I saw some people apply to Riverside even though they would easily get into Irvine and be happier there.)</p>
<p>Cellard said:
[quote]
Considering most schools use the common app, it is actually fairly straightforward. For counselors and teachers, it is not much more work sending transcripts and recommendations to 20 rather than 10 schools. It's not that they write different letters for each school anyway.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Most schools I applied to used the CommonApp, but it's not as simple as you think. Each school also has "supplements" they require you to submit, where you have to write additional essays. Also, depending on the school, you have to cater to their interests. I found myself changing the application numerous time to sell myself as somebody interested in culture or art or music.</p>