<p>I'm just wondering if some of the %-age increases in college applications are due to the large number of schools that each kid applies to these days with the Common App, and nearly all of the process online.</p>
<p>My kid applied to 14, which I thought was about 6 too many. But there are 6 Way-Outta-Reach schools in there, some of which did not even require a Supplemental essay. It seems that most of her classmates applied to more than a dozen, the most I heard was a whopping 17!</p>
<p>My son was originally going to apply to 10, but with a little coaxing we narrowed it down to 8: 3 “safeties” (or “foundations” as his guidance counselor corrects me), 3 “fits”, and 2 “reaches”. The narrowing had to do mostly with costs of applying to so many (and, at the end of a long college hunting process, a little apathy on his part). Happily, he was accepted to the safeties and is now waiting to hear from the rest. Best of luck!</p>
<p>Originally only one reach and one safety. I prodded her to add another reach and a match.</p>
<p>Reach #1-deferred
Reach #2-accpeted, no $
Match- accepted with $
Safety-accepted, no $</p>
<p>Don’t know if you want data points from last season… if so, my son applied to four. Two rolling-deadline safeties, one ED, and one geographically desirable safe match. He was admitted to the two safeties, then received his ED admission and withdrew before the last one made a decision.</p>
<p>Most of his classmates applied to one or two colleges. CC would seem like a very strange world to them.</p>
<p>S2 applied to 11. He could have just as easily applied to one since the first school to accept him is the one he has (almost) decided he wants to attend.</p>
<p>My son planned to apply to 9, but ended up applying to 7 when one of his EA colleges (a reach) accepted him. (He dropped one safety that had a long supplement and a match that he didn’t think was a great fit.)</p>
<p>My D applied to 7. We’ve heard from 4, 3 to go and I can’t wait til she makes her decison.</p>
<p>My S has applied to 11, of which 4 are UC schools on a single UC application. Six were on the Common Application, all with supplements. One outlier with its own application.</p>
<p>Out of the 11:</p>
<p>One SCEA super duper reach (rejected)</p>
<p>Three mega reaches
Two reaches (likely letter for one so perhaps it was a match)
Three matches
Two safeties (UC campuses, in by virtue of ELC status)</p>
<p>S2 applied to 9
2 EA safeties (in with merit $)
3 match
4 reaches (each w 20% or lower admit rates)</p>
<p>Waiting to hear by April 1 from all match and reaches</p>
<p>Son Applied to 6 Schools</p>
<p>My D applied to three:</p>
<p>1 safety - accepted, no $ yet
1 match - accepted, $ + waiting on more
1 reach - waiting</p>
<p>Son applied to 13. I still can’t believe he submitted that many apps. </p>
<p>1 Safety
6 matches
6 reaches</p>
<p>8 apps. No acceptances or denies yet.</p>
<p>Deferred at ED school which remains clear first choice. </p>
<p>Of the rest, four look like probable admits based on naviance scattergrams. The other three come up as matches, but naviance makes them look more doubtful. His second choice school is one of the probable admits. </p>
<p>I am cranky he refused to apply to an EA or rolling safety. Stomach in knots actually.
Hoping that the additional materials sent to the ED school will tip the scales. Will be breathing much easier in April.</p>
<p>S applied to only four colleges!! He’s heard back from two (acceptances) and still waiting on the other two. One was early action and that acceptance was important because otherwise we’d be sweating bullets with only four applications and a kid that does not want to go to a community college. If the EA had been a rejection, I would have encouraged him to apply to more schools.</p>
<p>Safety, Early Action, Accepted with $ (Private)
Match-ish, Early Action, Accepted, no $ (very affordable state school)
Reach-ish, Highly Selective Private, ED, Accepted, No $, the Deposit has been paid</p>
<p>Very happy.</p>
<p>Original list for daughter was 14. Luckily she had one EA school which had a very early scholarship weekend and she was accepted EA and offered a full tuition scholarship. She ended up applying to 8</p>
<p>Still waiting to hear from some of the schools and financial aid offers from all.</p>
<p>One. ED. Phew.</p>
<p>Her non-ED high school (prep school) friends were told to apply to 9. Some applied to fewer (6), others applied to upto 12. But most of her friends were applying to many ivies, where the acceptance rates are very low, despite students’ brilliance, so more applications were objectively needed.</p>
<p>I applied to 12 total; rejected in first early round, accepted in second early round with my last-resort state flagship acceptance coming in between. Breakdown:</p>
<p>2 high reaches
2 reaches
6 matches of varying matchy-ness
1 high safety
1 low safety</p>
<p>And if the EDII hadn’t worked out, I was prepared to possibly add another low safety that I actually wanted to attend.</p>
<p>Students at my HS, depending on their level of competition, applied to anywhere from 4 to 18 colleges (the upper end was originally somewhere around 22, but a mid-desirability EA acceptance helped narrow it down).</p>
<p>It could have been 12, but three schools fell off the list late in the process. So we wound up with 9:</p>
<p>1 Hail Mary reach
1 high-but-not-hopeless reach
2 just plain reaches
1 reachy match
2 comfortable match/semi-safeties
1 private safety
1 public (i.e., both academic and financial) safety</p>
<p>D2:</p>
<p>10 in U.S. mostly reaches (4 added after SCEA deferral)
2 in Scotland --Just accepted! (financial safeties as EU citizen and resident)</p>