<p>1 safety:
(Your local state university, After all it's a safety. Why have more than 1?)
3 matches:
(You should be pretty sure you'll get into those. Apply to 3 so that you have more choices and so that you will be able to compare financial aid packages, etc.)
4 reaches:
(These are you're dream schools, unless it's already a match of safety. Most CCers only care about the reaches. The top fifty universities have acceptance rates ranging from 30% to 10%, so applying to four of those is a pretty safe bet. All of the top ten schools should be a reach for everyone because the admissions process is just so unpredictable.) </p>
<p>I feel this formula is a reasonable, but of course each individuals situation varies.</p>
<p>funny last year i was one of these ppl who thought i had to apply to 20 schools but once i started filling out apps, supplements, essays, sending transcript request, writing envelops, paying collegeboard to send my scores and the school, and the app fees, I noticed it was way to much work-and ended up applying to 7 school which ened up being too many since i got into my first choice......in the end your motivation decides for you.</p>
<p>I'm very indecisive, and I was looking for good merit aid, and I still only applied to ten. (And four were UCs, so it was just one application).</p>
<p>Put lots of thought into which schools are on your list. If you know right now that you would be unhappy at one of those schools, nix it even if it's a safety. I guarantee you if you look hard enough, you can find a few safeties that you wouldn't mind going to. Remember to choose both financial and academic safeties. However, you don't need A LOT of safeties, even if you are weak academically. Remember a safety is a school that you're pretty much guaranteed to get into, so a safety for you is different than a safety for other people on this board. And if you're guaranteed to get into it, why have more than just a couple?</p>
<p>I got prettty stressed when narrowing my list down. I don't recommend you stress, because it doesn't do any good, but still put a lot of thought into it. That way, once you find out your acceptanes, you can put more thought into the final choice instead of having to narrow it down so much then.</p>
<p>I'm pretty happy with the number of schools I applied to. It gave me a lot to choose from, since I got into them all (However, since I didn't end up getting big enough scholarships at several of them, they were immediately nixed off the list). Occassionally I wish I'd applied to an Ivy, just to see if I could have gotten in, since I got into all the other schools. However, that would have just meant more work, and I could never afford an Ivy, so it would have been pointless.</p>
<p>I don't know if anyone has brought this up yet, but here's a suggestion to cut down the number of schools:</p>
<p>Apply early to a couple match schools. Early Action, rolling, etc... you can be reasonably confident of getting into one of them, and then you will only need to apply to your "reach" school(s) in the regular cycle, cutting down your number of applications from 20 to a more reasonable number... like 5.</p>
<p>I was going to apply to 14, but time and the desire to finish the process led me to apply to 8 total. For me, it was the perfect number. I had 1 safety (both academically and financially), a match, and six reaches. By Christmas, I had already been accepted to my safety and likely-choice school, leaving the stress behind. The fact that I was very cogent throughout the process helped tremendously. I am the only one from a school with a 600+ graduating class to be completely unworried when April winds around.</p>
<p>I think 20 is perfect, if you dont mind the work or money. Because at the end you have more choice to chose from, if you didnt get into you top colleges. My friend did 20 and I did 21, and now he got accept to 16 of them and he just going to which give him the most money with the best education.</p>
<p>"In my opinion, unless you are applying to schools with low selectivity or have a good backup plan (like applying rolling to Michigan or Early Action), applying to 5 schools is ridiculous." Not so. If you do a good job of really researching where you want to go and how good a candidate you are, you can cut the number down drastically. D applied to 4 (is a freshman this year), was accepted at 4 and still had a difficult time deciding, but she removed many others that she thought she might want to apply to just by visiting the campuses. Prestige is not everything - a good fit is more important to consider. If one CCer dismisses a school because they consider it "beneath them", that in no way means it might not be a good school and better fit for another student. Some schools with lower selectivity are that way because they can afford to be; they are relatively "undiscovered" and haven't been hit yet with the hoards of applications the more "popular" schools have.</p>
<p>I think its dumb for people to suggest a number, since there are so many variables such as ...
-if you have the $ to actually pay all the admission fees/if you have a lot of waived fees
-if FA is an issue and you want to have different FA options
-the amount of time you have to write essays
-the difficulty of your apps -- if you're applying to a lot of state schools, for example, you might have many w/o essays so this wouldnt matter
-the number of reaches/far reaches (my eight favorite schools were reaches... and i really wanted to apply to these; so obviously i had to add targets and safeties, if some of my favorites were safeties instead i would have applied to fewer schools)
-whether you are applying anywhere rolling/ea (always a good idea to help you cut down, esp if theres a school you like rolling)</p>
<p>you have to balance wanting choices vs.going insane writing essays.<br>
depending on your situation applying to 1 school and applying to 21 schools can make sense.</p>
<p>If you're applying to top private schools, there's often more work than just an application (which can be hard enough). I applied to 10 privates, seven of which give interviews. I ended up interviewing with all seven. Just remember that deciding to apply to a school is a big commitment in time, money, and stress. Try to limit yourself to fewer than ten.</p>
<p>i applied to 17 schools, and 14 of them were private. I interviewed at less than half of these and the interviews were spread out from September - late february so that definitely wasn't a problem, though doing all those apps was a little tiring</p>
<p>When I sent out my application, I had an SAT of 1990, and as such my 10 schools were divided into the following:</p>
<p>6 reaches
3 matches
1 safety</p>
<p>But after sending them out, I took the SAT again, my score increased to 2140, and now it is as follows:</p>
<p>4 reaches
3 matches
3 safeties.</p>
<p>I was confident my score would go up, so that's why I did things the way I did. Had it not gone up, I think I would have been very disappointed with the colleges I applied to.</p>
<p>everybody is talking about application fees being a reason for a short list, but many colleges have free online applications. I applied to ten schools and spent a couple hundred bucks. A lot of money, but having the options was worth it. Also, the common app allows you to apply to more schools in less time, so you can have a longer list and still take care on each application. Twenty is a little excessive, but while 12-16 seems like a ton to most of us it's an OK number for some people to go with. I have seen kids apply to 6 schools who were then unhappy on April 1st because they only had one or two options that they realized they weren't that excited about. It's such an individual process that there is no magic number.</p>
<p>I applied to 10 schools and I found it stressful having to do that many applications. Of those, 2 were extreme safeties. 2 were regulat safeties, and the others were match/reach (5 Ivies, MIT).</p>
<p>20 is a LOT. You might not think it now, but talk to friends who are seniors--applications take up SO much time and effort-my friends and I spent all of our free time first quarter this year working on refining essays, and filling out not only applications for schools, but also the CSS/FAFSA information (for financial aid)--it wasn't fun.</p>
<p>My advice: visit schools starting now, because, believe it or not, you'll definately get a "feeling" when you're on campus as to whether or not the school is right for you. Before you put a school on your final app. list, make sure that they have everything you're looking for in a school (and more). Choose a few reaches, matches, and safties that you feel are right for you (don't let anyone else tell you what school is "sooo perfect omgz!" for you--only you can judge that), and apply to a max of 12 or so. you'll save yourself a lot of time, money, and stress-filled nights.</p>
<p>10 is a good number. If it's above that, it starts to be too much money and too many options. When I say too many I mean that if you've balanced your list (matches, reaches, safeties) and you've pared it down to schools you'd really, actually want to attend, then you don't need "options" at the end: as long as you get even 1 or 2 acceptances, you'll be set. That's my $0.02 anyway. </p>
<p>(Plus, if you are applying to a lot of prestigious schools, even 10 apps can be a lot of money = $70 per app isn't uncommon in the upper tier of colleges.</p>