I’ve seen numerous pictures on social media outlets where it lists these outrageous accomplishments of a recent high school graduate e.g Valedictorian, 4.0 GPA, accepted to over 40 colleges and sometimes more or less. How?? The Common App only allows 20 colleges and its usually not advised to apply to so many. I mean, I would love to apply to a lot because i really like a lot of schools so is it recommend? I’m also an international student.
You will never keep track of 40 applications. Can you afford to be full pay? if not aim for elite schools that support internationals or look in your home country.
The application fees etc. to 40 schools alone would cost you $5000.
Why would you want to do that even if you could ?
Do you have no preferences ?
Ok. The first thing I thought when I saw this blog post was STOP. SLOW DOWN. DO NOT PASS GO.
Alright, you should not ever be applying to as many schools as 40! THAT IS CRAZY! Not even crazy, that is downright insane!!!
In order to find the right college for you you need to know yourself and your priorities when it comes to the next four years of your life. What community do you want to be in? Do you like studying? Do you want a party atmosphere? What majors are you looking for? Liberal arts or pre-professional? Dual degree programs? What type of people do you want to be around? Where do you want to be geographically?
Answering all these questions (and more) will easily help narrow your list. IMO, you should not apply to more than 15 schools (and even that is a lot).
I’ve never seen any article about someone getting into 40 schools. That’s crazy; most kids wouldn’t dare apply to more than 20 schools (and that’s stretching it really REALLY thin). Most students do 10-15:
3-5 Reach
3-5 Target
3-5 Safeties
Maybe if they are in California and appliedapplied to all the UC’s and cal states. But that’s crazy.
There was a kid (maybe siblings?) last year that made the news doing something like that. But I think when you dug in, they had applied to tons of low ranking schools with simple applications, and at least one of them picked a school that was really unaffordable to attend! So applying for a lot didn’t get them anything In the end except a news article – at least nothing that a more targeted search couldn’t have also achieved – in fact, they probably would have done better with a more targeted search. Ready, fire, aim is not a good application strategy.
Viego, 18, the valedictorian of Skaneateles High School, has her beat. He applied to 22 universities, including the Ivies, and got into them all.
Forget the “dream school” or the “safety school” that guidance counselors talk to students about, Viego applied to all the schools that interested him.
“I felt there was safety in numbers,” he said.
Maybe 40 was exaggerating but I’ve posts on Twitter for over 30 colleges and such.
http://wishtv.com/2016/05/21/valedictorian-gets-backlash-on-social-media-for-her-accomplishments/
This ^ is the exact article I was talking about . It says 4.56 GPA, acceptance into thirty-nine colleges with millions of dollars in scholarships". She was accepted to 39!!!
If you got accepted to 30-40 colleges, would you do anything differently than if you got accepted to 3-4 thoughtfully selected colleges?
40+ is way too much. The “shotgun” method of applying to many schools is a bit misguided unless your aim is simply to get into a prestigious school - in which case there is more safety in numbers.
Rational people apply as @DaedricSaiyan says:
3-5 Reach
3-5 Target
3-5 Safeties
Not more than 15.
I don’t know how you could apply to more and write a sincere ‘why ____’ essay.
D1 applied to 1 school ED…got in
S1 applied to 1 school ED and 1 other early app school…got into the ED
S2 applied to 1 reach Ivy ED…rejected. So for RD he applied to 4 reach, 5 target, and 3 safety…got into one of the reaches (will attend) and 4 of the targets. I think this was a good plan and outcome.
For our family, we found it best to apply to 1 ED/EA that you absolutely love, and be prepared to apply to 9-15 more colleges RD that you have researched/visited and can prepare a compelling app for. More than that is foolish, IMO.