<p>How many colleges did you apply to? If you don't mind, around how much did you pay in total for applying? Thanks!</p>
<p>My sons both applied to 11 schools. Each had 1 free application and I paid for the rest. Total came to $600 each.</p>
<p>One.</p>
<p>My daughter intended on applying to 10 total – 2 likelies (safeties), 3 targets, and 4 reaches. She felt comfortable because she loved all 10 of her schools and would have been happy at even her safeties. Most of the app fees were around $60 although two were free if online. (She applied ED and submitted 4 others before finding out the positive ED answer.)</p>
<p>9</p>
<p>I’m applying to 12, schools, all on the East Coast. 3 safeties, 5 matches, 4 reaches.</p>
<p>Very similar to what I’m doing @Ibad96. I’m applying to a few safeties or very low targets (mostly out-of-state honors programs and one state school), about 4-5 matches, and then three or four reaches. A total of around 13 schools.</p>
<p>I think that the right number of colleges to apply to is around 8-12. Any more than that gets overwhelming. The only reason that I’m applying to more than that number is because I got a fee waiver for one school that I’m not really considering and another two schools either waived my fee or are free to apply. Almost done with all of my supplements</p>
<p>@CLC261 May I suggest you re-frame your question? “how many colleges did you apply to” will get a bunch of posts with positive integers. What can you learn from that?</p>
<p>I suspect your real questions are: Am I apply to too many? Am I applying to too few? Is my strategy and no. of colleges targeted valid? </p>
<p>Why not research previous posts on that or make a new post with some of those instead?</p>
<p>I applied to 3 schools. I got accepted to all 3. I think I spent about $160 total for all 3 apps. All of them were either match or safety schools.</p>
<p>I applied to 26 schools. Offers from 12. $2300 app fees + $1300 consultant (essays) fees</p>
<p>My kids each applied to one.</p>
<p>26 schools?!! Yowzer. </p>
<p>My kid is doing 12 (maybe 11)…beyond the two safeties, she’s doing this because 1) she likes them all and 2) the college game is skewed now that you need to apply to 10 (creditable) reaches to be assured of being able to choose among 1-3. </p>
<p>Last year, D was going to apply to 10 before getting deferred from her ED1 school, so she panicked and went to 15 before getting in her ED2 school, which was not a slam dunk, otherwise she wouldn’t have panicked. So in a sense, a whole lot of wasted money, but you don’t know that going in.</p>
<p>I’d advise anyone that if you can find some EA/Rolling schools that you’d be perfectly happy with, you can often cut off the bottom of your list if you get in those. It’s when shooting for the high level schools you start racking up the application fees. But what’s $1000 when you’re shelling out $60k the next year?</p>
<p>For the record, the highest I know of is a classmate of D’s who applied to 24 or 25 theater programs just to get one offer.</p>
<p>My kid has 11 on the list now, but if she gets into an EA school she will drop 7 off the list.</p>
<p>I know someone who applied to 22. Idk his whole results, but he got into Harvard and Wharton (RD!) and rejected from mit I think.</p>
<p>Although DS is applying to 11, it is considerably easier than it sounds, as 2 did not require essays for admission, 3 were under a common application, 4 were under a different common application,and 2 were stand alone applications but for which a common essay was used. I would categorize 2 as safeties (he has been admitted to one), 3 as matches, 4 as high matches/low reaches, and 2 as reaches. Also, he submitted 1 Early Decision, 1 Early Action, and the rest by the priority admission deadline, if applicable and/or available.</p>
<p>Right now my son is planning to apply to 8. 2 safeties, 5 match, 1 low reach. He has a fee waiver to his favorite school (one of his matches), and I think the others will be $60-$75 each, so we are looking at ~$500 in application fees. I’d like him to add one or two reaches, but we’ll see. I happen to think 8-10 schools is too many, but parents and kids are panicked about not getting in, and it’s hard not to buy into that.</p>
<p>@ivyleaguefan where did you end up?</p>
<p>My daughter planned on applying to 12. She submitted her ED and 5 others by the first week of December; when she learned that she was accepted to her ED she didn’t finish the others. Honestly, the last 6 would have been HELL because she would have to have finished them all in 4 weeks during the holidays when she was already burnt out. Definitely recommend that you stagger your applications. Make sure that you include at least one safety and two targets in your first group of 4-5 that you finish.</p>
<p>I applied early decision to the college I attend, and that was the only application I sent in or even started. I had 5 other colleges on my list, however.</p>
<p>I was pretty burnt out from high school, and I just couldn’t find motivation to work on my supplemental essays. I regret not being more on top of the process, but I’m happy where I am now.</p>
<p>It’s definitely not a good idea to put yourself into a position where you would be so pressed for time if rejected.</p>