<p>Ds applied to 11. He was accepted to nine, with a no and a WL from two of his reaches. We needed to compare financial and merit aid offers, or he wouldn’t have applied to so manym though most of the app fees were waived. I’m hoping to keep ds2 to eight.</p>
<p>
Close, sybbie. 
You got most of it right. </p>
<p>My D applied to 17 schools with Yale and Amherst being 2 of the 3 need-only schools. She was accepted RD to both, not ED (we would have never considered ED with our tax return and financial statement :eek:). Neither package was very appealing. (Colgate was the third and they were very generous.)</p>
<p>She, too, was hoping for one of the rare big scholarships at Duke…and (drumroll, please) …was waitlisted instead. lol. (She stayed on it for a nano-second as merit aid wasn’t happening off the wait-list.)</p>
<p>Big merit aid is a crapshoot . If big to your family means half-tuition or more, lots of targeted apps are the only way to play the game. Research, research, research. Then cast a very wide net. My guess is y’all will have to enlarge your search area. My D’s was nation-wide. The only other way to do it is to drop down another notch in quality. </p>
<p>Oh, and sybbie. I’d say she and the MCAT ended their bout in a draw. With one semester of med school in the books, she is very pleased with her undergraduate preparation for med school. Rhodes served her very well, indeed.</p>
<p>S1 had ten apps ready to roll: 3 EA, our flagship, an OOS flagship and five RDs. Got acceptances at two of the three EAs (which were two of his top three choices) and dropped three other schools from the list, so he actually applied to seven. Probably should have dropped everything after EA results except one RD and the flagship (likely admit and good chance for merit $$), but we were also looking for good FA.</p>
<p>S2 had eleven schools, fairly equal mix of mid-size and LACs: two EA schools, our flagship, the rest were RD. Got into one of the EAs in December (UChicago, which was one of his top two choices) and dropped three of the schools from his list, leaving the rest of it pretty reachy. He wound up getting into four schools, two waitlists and two rejections – no real surprises. </p>
<p>Both my kids took the very targeted approach to the schools they really wanted to attend and were VERY successful with this strategy. They wrote the essays for those schools first and spent lots of time and love on them. I suspect some of the other schools that got these essays may have read them, realized “he belongs at X” and decided not to accept them – but that’s OK. </p>
<p>Their apps to the flagship were well-written, respectful of the process and they both felt they could be happy there. No dissing the “likely” schools, esp. since both were good candidates for merit $$.</p>
<p>They both went into the process with a full list of schools and the hope that they could drop some after good EA results. We did not want to be in a boat where either kid suddenly had to come up with new schools to consider in mid-December and then having to plead with the GC to get transcript packages out by 1/1 (they required three-four weeks lead time).</p>
<p>Both know kids who applied to 20+ schools. Results were not what they hoped – there is a real danger in spreading oneself too thin on that many apps.</p>
<p>Two kids, one app each. DS applied in September to first choice and had an athletic likely letter in October. DD applied ED to first choice, accepted mid-December. Very little anxiety in our house.</p>
<p>My son has no idea where he wants to go. I insisted on one EA and he is in an honors program so I am relieved because I think it’s a great option for him. He isn’t sure and applied to a total of 13 colleges so far and wants to do more. I am glad the Jan. 1 deadline has passed so he is basically “done”. We had many discussions, and visited schools but he still can’t figure things out and wants options in April. So we shall see.</p>
<p>My son has applied to 14 schools. It is a mixture of reaches (5), most likely (4) and safeties (5). The rationale for so many safeties is to compare merit options. There is also a potential he might play a sport in college, so he applie to (2) schools last minute that are listed in the reach category.</p>
<p>So far, he has been accepted to 6 colleges with a few merit options. We will until April and make final decisions on where he will go based on final packages/acceptances. Luckily almost all of the colleges he has expressed an interest to attend so it should be an interesting decision.</p>
<p>For my daughter, we will probably keep the list down to ten when she does it in two years. I do think you should keep options open especially if you are applying to the top schools with unpredictable acceptances.</p>
<p>D1 applied ED to the school she’d loved for 2 years, and got in. She had 4 other schools, including the state flagship safety, that she promised to apply to immediately if she had gotten rejected. She’s going to graduate this year, has had a really wonderful experience. She does say that she knows that she would have gotten a great education at our flagship (we’re fortunate to live in a state where it’s highly ranked) if it had come to that.</p>
<p>D2 is in performing arts, and she has applied to 11 schools, with 2 more going in this month. Half of these schools require an audition, and she has a good chance of being rejected by all of them, kind of like applying to all Ivies. The other half include safeties, matches and reaches, all with great non-auditioned programs. She decided not to have just one or two non-auditioned options, because she wanted lots of good choices in the spring. We’ve spent more on application fees than I would have liked, but I figure $200-300 in the long run will be forgotten, and she will always be proud of the hard work she put in on these apps, and grateful for the nice bouquet of options in the spring, including a wide spread financially. We are prepared to pay for any of them that she gets into.</p>
<p>She would be happy to go to any of these schools; getting rejected by the auditioned programs and the reaches will sting, but she made a thoughtful, confident list and will feel good about her results no matter what. She already has an acceptance to one safety, and should get a couple more bits of good news in the next few weeks. I’m guessing she’ll go about 50-50 when it’s all over. We’ll be hanging on to the very end, as the hardest schools to get into will tell her last.</p>
<p>I can’t imagine what our post on the “How did you decide among acceptances?” thread will be. That will be a very dramatic chapter in this story.</p>
<p>I can see several good reasons for counselors to limit applications to a mere 20.
- Many, although not all , counselors do much more than just check a few boxes and submit a transcript. They may reach out to admissions offices. They may proof essays and applications. They may fine tune estimates of admissions chances. If you assume that they spend just 30 minutes on each admissions packet, 20 is already 10 hours.
- It’s a way to help students. Students applying to huge numbers of schools are unlikely to spend much time on each application. They may well not have researched each school well. They may do better if they focus on a smaller set of schools.
- Improving the process for everyone - one of the problems we have now is the upward spiraling of numbers of applications. We all know the problems this causes. Counselors can help put on the brakes.</p>
<p>With an EA acceptance and merit money in hand from a choice mid way down her list, D1 applied to an additional 6 schools. 5 reaches and 1 she liked for the ECs. She ended up with choices, which was what we wanted for her. She is now a freshman at one of the reaches.</p>
<p>Wow. Thanks for all the advice everyone. </p>
<p>ErinsDad - Before I got on this site, I was pretty sure she was competitive for Duke acceptance, but after reading so many threads with kids’ GPA’s, SAT scores, President of this, Merit Award for that, it looks a little harder. My daughter seems to be right up there with many of the other kids on here (5.0, #1, etc.), but whether or not she stands out enough remains to be seen. It was hard for her to find 5 schools she wanted to apply to, so finding any more than that will pose a problem. I will let her know what everyone on here said and perhaps revisit the distance restrictions she has. I’m not sure exactly what you were talking about with Lander, but I will re-read your post and figure it out…still not up on all the abbreviations. ;-)</p>
<p>Gluckie, PM me if you need help going through the info or my interpretation.</p>
<p>S has applied to 9 schools</p>
<p>2 reach
2 high match
3 match
2 safety</p>
<p>He gets one decision in 2 weeks and then the others in late March/April. Have no idea where the chips will fall. $$ will be important factor.</p>
<p>D, currently a Jr in college, applied to 2 rolling safeties, including our state flagship, along with her first choice ED. Accepted to ED in December (after acceptances came from the 2 rollings, which she declined), and was done.</p>
<p>S, current HS Senior, submitted ONE app, to an academic safety (rolling) with a very unique program that is perfect for him. Accepted…we are done!!! 
:D</p>
<p>S is currently a college freshman but last year applied RD to 13 schools (including 3 UC’s), He was rejected by his 3 reach schools, accepted by 5 with merit aid at each and waitlisted by the other 5. He treated the waitlists as rejections and narrowed it down to 2 at the end. He is extremely happy at his final choice but going into applications last year could not narrow it down.</p>
<p>Regarding Lander University, you and your daughter will want to spend time reading their “fact book;” at other schools, this information is typically called the common data set. Here you’ll find facts about the schools, such as Lander’s nearly 70% female population and the average SAT scores of students.
[Fact</a> Books](<a href=“http://www.lander.edu/ir/fact_book.html]Fact”>http://www.lander.edu/ir/fact_book.html)</p>
<p>45% graduation rate in four years.</p>
<p>Thanks. She knew about the stats at Lander (I think that’s what ErinsDad was talking about also (GPAs, SATs, etc of students they admit are kinda low). My daughter was considering that school only because of its proximity to Greenwood Genetics Center. After reconsidering their stats, I think she might decide to visit another school the day she had planned to go visit them. I’ll have to wait and see what she decides. I told her it doesn’t hurt to look, so if she has any interest in any school, we can go. As for having 10-15 schools to choose from, it was hard enough for her to find 5 she wanted to go visit just because of how far away they were from home. She was looking at a few other schools earlier this evening that are a little farther away than Duke (which was her farthest choice, but also her first choice). This college search is very confusing…made even harder with having to consider scholarship money. How do you know if a college is any good…if your child will be receiving the best education they can get? Do you want them to be in the median range with their grades for that school?</p>
<p>Oh, and I forgot to say…she said a girl who graduated from her school last year who was one of the top 3 in that class was accepted by Harvard, Yale and Princeton, but rejected by Duke. What’s up with that? I don’t get it.</p>
<p>S (HS06) - applied to 6. He knew where he wanted to go, the rest were icing.</p>
<p>D2 (HS08) - applied to 6, should have been more. List was too reachy. In retrospect, should have been a little pushier - she is a person who doesn’t like to commit to a course of action in advance and didn’t apply to a couple of schools where she could have done well.</p>
<p>D3 (HS10) - applied to 10 (a partial reaction to older sister’s experience, a partial decision based on her wavering between two very different majors). Good choice, gave her some options, but possibly too safety weighted.</p>
<p>What’s the difference between a safety and a match? What constitutes a low reach/high reach? Sorry if this has been covered a million times on her, but I really am not sure.</p>