<p>My sister applied to 17 schools. A bunch of safeties because the matches and reaches will be really hard and there is a very high chance she’ll be going to a safety. So she wanted options, especially because she’s going to have to worry about financial aid.</p>
<p>A higher number of applications isn’t too high if there aren’t supplemental essays to write. Esp if you get waivers. Otherwise it’s crazy.</p>
<p>Just looked online at Wake Forest. Not sure how we missed that one. It’s expensive and offers a few merit based scholarships. Will definitely put it on the list to investigate further. Thanks everyone.</p>
<p>gluckie - my son applied ED to Duke a few years back and was deferred. He was accepted at both William & Mary and Wake Forest with generous FA - so you might want to look into both. He is a very happy sophomore at Wake.</p>
<p>rockvillemom-thanks, I will. What made your son choose WF over W&M? Just curious. What are the schools looking for in the essays that go along with the apps? Sounds like its so competitive. The only thing said in any of the visits about the essays were that they wanted to learn who they were (to not regurgite the student’s stats) and not to make typos or leave in the name of another school if you are using the basic essay for more than one school. I can see where that would be off-putting.</p>
<p>We felt that William & Mary and Wake Forest were very comparable academically - so it came down more to an issue of “fit”. Wake is better for kids who loves sports - want to be part of the crowd at a football or basketball game. I think it would also be more appealing to kids who are ok with Greek life playing an important role on campus. W & M - a little quirkier - kids who are more artistic/independent thinkers. For example - being a Screamin Demon is big at Wake - this is a club you can join when you start at Wake - you go to all the games wearing the same t-shirt and cheer on the teams. W & M - has a lot of a capella groups. Not to say that Wake does not have a great arts center - and not to say that W & M does not have an active sports presence - again - we thought they were quite comparable - but Wake seemed “sportsier” to my son and that was the tipping point. I was happy with either one - loved them both.</p>
<p>Seven. Four out of state public universities, one private u which is now top 50 (not sure if it was back then–perhaps top 60 or so?), a smaller private u, and a regional LAC. All were safeties, although the top now-50 school might have been a safe-match. Two (both OOS state public universities) were probably a mistake in hindsight–they didn’t offer big merit aid to OOS students (one is better now, I think) and so I threw out them out as possibilities almost as soon as I received the acceptances.</p>
<p>All of these responses have really helped. She has enlarged her list to 8 schools to visit and dropped Lander after “chatting” with a few people on here. Duke (still her top pick), Wake Forest, UNC-CH, Furman, Clemson, Davidson, UGA (although way bigger than she would like) and Emory. If anyone has any first-hand knowledge of these colleges from a parent or student’s POV, I would love to hear it - good, bad or ugly.</p>
<p>My S applied 12. Mainly focused on state flagship schools and a few reach schools like U Chicago, Columbia, Dartmouth, Wash U, Duke, etc. Already accepted at three state flagship schools and got deferred at Chicago. He is happy and waiting for his reach schools.
Duke, UNC are great ones. I went to UNC as a graduate student. I heard great things about Davidson. Had a friend sent her D to Emory: Expensive. But got a job at a large Investment Bank during the third year in college. 30K/yr cost will be paid off soon.</p>
<p>kxc…looks like your son isn’t afraid of doing a little travel to get back home. I think my daughter’s reluctance to go too far from home is based on her experience when she went on a 3 week trip to Europe with P2P when she was in 7th grade and got extremely homesick. We were all surprised that she got so homesick because of how she is at home. Who knew! 
We are going to visit Davidson next week. We’ve already visited 3 of the listed schools (saw 4, but one-Wofford-didn’t make her list). Visiting really does make all the difference.</p>
<p>gluckie, if I’ve missed your D’s test scores, I apologize. I did a search and couldn’t find them. So, I’ll assume that her scores match up (or will match up) with her rank (#1) and GPA (5.0, and I assuming that’s weighted on a 4.0 scale).</p>
<p>We’ve done this big merit hunt. </p>
<p>To be competitive based on academics (and many times academics alone are not enough) for the limited big merit scholarships at Davidson, Duke, Furman, and Wake, she’ll need a top 1% showing on the SAT or ACT (for approximate numbers think 2100+ or 32+ to even get a look, more to be competitive). Furman has better and broader merit aid than the other three.</p>
<p>She needs to look at schools with more generous merit aid possibilities, too. I understand her desire for a truly great UG experience at a school with a great reputation among the best grad schools. Keeping the geography at least similar to what she is considering, and keeping the quality standards very high, I’d suggest looking at: </p>
<p>Washington and Lee</p>
<p>Sewanee</p>
<p>Richmond</p>
<p>Centre</p>
<p>Rhodes</p>
<p>Agnes Scott</p>
<p>All are exceptional LAC’s (or small uni’s in the case of Richmond) and all can be generous. (Richmond is less generous, more like Wake.)</p>
<p>I also like Clemson National Scholars <a href=“http://www.clemson.edu/academics/programs/national-scholars/[/url]”>http://www.clemson.edu/academics/programs/national-scholars/</a> , dislike William and Mary’s stingy merit aid, think Duke and Davidson are unpredictable on admissions for even the highest stat kids and merit aid is almost non-existent, and Furman and Emory are great choices assuming top test scores. </p>
<p>I have about a dozen more that she could consider that are approximately at the level of a Presbyterian or Wofford but I’m speculating that she really wants to stay at the high end of selectivity and reputation. </p>
<p>You didn’t ask but that’s never stopped me before ;), but if the test scores are there, my picks would be, in no particular order:</p>
<p>Duke (Why not? Just know the odds.)
Davidson (I love the school …and why not have another flyer?)
Sewanee
Centre
Rhodes
Richmond
Wake
Emory
Wash and Lee
Clemson (National Scholars is outrageous)
Agnes Scott
UNC-CH</p>
<p>Then I’d have some safer bets, too (and one absolute lock financial safety) as big merit is not a lock at any of those schools, even if the test scores are there. Of course, the higher the test scores are, the better the chances are. 
Good luck.</p>
<p>p.s. Again. Although it has been a few years, I have traveled this road with my Valedictorian D with high test scores and big EC’s and we visited most of these schools and researched all of them. PM me and I’ll flesh out my D’s stats and results for you if you want to know.</p>
<p>Your D has had a great high school career. Now it’s time to be smart and play the big merit aid game the right way. ;)</p>
<p>curmudgeon - thanks for the list! I have not heard of any of those schools you mentioned adding. I will look into them. PMing you now.</p>
<p>S applied to 8 schools: 2 reach, 4 target and 2 safety. Funny because one of his safety schools is now his favorite! Toured TCU’s campus and FELL in love with the school, community, student body and spirt! Great scholarship offer and winning the Rose Bowl helped!</p>
<p>Had to look up what TCU was. I know now. I’m sure it will all work out for the best, but dang its gonna be a long, hard road to get there. Seems like we have a lot of work ahead of us to find the right fit.</p>
<p>@gluckie,</p>
<p>Every kid is different. Mine spent a few years overseas with grandparents. He is a world traveler since 2. He doesn’t mind to leave home and fly far away…so he says.</p>
<p>I think we may have over done it. We could have applied 4-5 schools. That is plenty for safety reasons. In terms of fit, I think they all seems to be OK. Notable differences are 1. Weather. 2. Cost. 3. How far away it is from home.
Good luck!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You might be making the mistake of thinking that students are somehow ranked top to bottom using identical criterion, so that a student who makes the cut at HYP would automatically make the cut at Duke. They are building a class. Who ever attracts them and intrigues them is who they’ll choose, as long as there is sufficient proof of academic ability. The flute player who does origami and wrote her essay on Archie comics may be really interesting to the random Harvard admin who reads her essay but wind up with a Duke admin who always hated Archie comics and just admitted four flute players the day before. There’s not a science to it – it’s people. How did you “pick” your best friend?</p>
<p>My Son applied to 5 schools. In at one thus far.</p>
<p>Last year, UNC rejected a guy who was accepted by Harvard. It is not surprising at that level.</p>
<p>My daughter applied to nine schools: eight SLACs (3 reach and 5 target) and one state university (financial and academic safety).</p>
<p>Now that we’ve done all the visits and she’s fallen in love with all these SLACs (which is definitely where she belongs), I’m worried that I’ve gotten her hopes up and that while she’ll probably be admitted to some (most?!) of them, they won’t come through with the financial aid. We’re in that area where we make too much to get decent aid but not enough to be able to afford these 40-50,000/yr schools. </p>
<p>She likes the state university, but I know it will be a big let-down. It’s seen by many around here as “high school plus” and most of her friends will be going off to far places. But not much to be done at this point I suppose.</p>
<p>I have to agree with snoozn. My D applied to 1 state U and 8 SLAC. I worry too that she won’t get accepted into any of the other schools. She was deferred by one school already. It is hard to know if D will receive any merit scholarships. We make to much $$ to receive any aid but also not enough to pay for the $50,000 per year. D would attend state U but she would not be thrilled about the prospect.</p>
<p>gluckie - I’m a little surprised that you have not heard of some of the schools that have been suggested - as they are fairly well known. But then again, maybe I had not heard of them 5 years ago either! Do you have one of the college guide books? I like both Princeton Review and Fiske. With both of my sons - I started the search process by simply flipping through both books with a pad of sticky notes in hand - very high-tech! - and marking those that met our parameters for size, location, stats, etc. Then I went to the website of each marked school to learn more. I still like flipping through those books whenever a school is mentioned that I am not that familiar with.</p>