<p>I've been looking through past threads, but all of the answers vary. I'm just trying to see what most people see as the ideal number.</p>
<p>I think the ideal number is one. Unfortunately, we don’t all have ideal circumstances. Here are some of the reasons to add more: competitive admissions, non-guaranteed merit aid, inability to visit prior to applying, and inconsistent wants.</p>
<p>For the record, I’m applying to between six and nine schools.</p>
<p>My own personal philosophy is to apply to all the schools you like for one reason or another. If you are interested in a school and could see yourself going there, apply. After that, I’d say apply to one school that would be safe financially and you would easily be able to get in. </p>
<p>For me, I only applied to two schools, UF and UW-Madison, because I knew where I wanted to go (Madison) and UF is very cheap considering I was living in Florida at the time. Your list may be longer.</p>
<p>I’m sure others will disagree with me, but that’s my two cents.</p>
<p>The majority of students apply to fewer than 3 colleges, and the vast majority apply to fewer than 5. With good reason! 90% of students get into and attend their first or second choice, and 70% attend their first choice.</p>
<p>Unless you have special circumstances – say, you’re looking for merit aid and don’t qualify for financial aid – there is rarely a reason to apply to more than 8.</p>
<p>
Self-reported after the fact? I couldn’t see many students responding, “Yeah, I didn’t want to be here, I got rejected everywhere else,” even if it is true.</p>
<p>
Oh, I don’t know about that. The survey is done by HERI/CIRP, not the universities themselves. More significantly, students don’t really have an incentive to be dishonest. </p>
<p>As a gauge of the survey, look at Emory, which publishes its survey data. Roughly 54% of Emory freshmen noted that it was their first choice – reasonably accurate, when one considers that ED admits make up about 38% of each class.</p>
<p>Also remember that the US has about 2200 four-year colleges. Of these, only a very small percentage (1 in 20 at most) reject more students than they admit. It’s perfectly reasonable that many students are admitted to their top choices.</p>
<p>My point was that it may hurt their pride to say that. But I see your point now, thank you for elaborating.</p>
<p>*90% of students get into and attend their first or second choice, and 70% attend their first choice. *</p>
<p>I don’t know how true that is unless it includes a bunch of kids who only apply to their local state school. </p>
<p>There are many factors for determining how many schools to apply to.</p>
<p>for those applying to super reaches, more apps might be needed.</p>
<p>for those who need a lot of FA, more apps may be needed.</p>
<p>for those who applying to a few schools with competitive merit, more apps may be needed.</p>
<p>For those who need big merit to afford college, more apps may be needed.</p>
<p>On the other hand…a student who just wants to go to his fav school and its a safety or match with no money concerns…that student may only apply to 1 -2 schools.</p>
<p>it just depends…</p>
<p>Thank you, M2CK. I have my own idea of colleges I plan to apply to (5-7), I’m just curious how many other people typically do. It really does depends on the person.</p>
<p>one, early decision. avoid the frenzy. save money. If you are lucky, thank god that you live in virginia</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Are you sure about this? I’m almost positive that my high school GC told us that the average high school student applies to 5 schools. I’m not questioning your reasoning, just curious since it would seem contradictory to a lot of my college application experience.</p>
<p>I would suggest focusing on 3 reach and maybe 2 safer, bearing in mind that you can always apply as a transfer student.</p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>
Of course you are, and I resent it. Unlike most, I tend to have more than anecdotal evidence before posting.</p>
<p>According to the latest survey, only ~29% of all students apply to 6+ schools. It does, however, vary by ethnic/racial background. The percentage of students applying to 6+ schools is as follows:</p>
<p>Asian-American 52%
Latino 37%
African-American 32%
White 24%
Native American 17%</p>
<p>A not inconsiderable percentage of students (18%) apply to only one school.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that this is for ALL students. Students applying to more selective colleges typically apply to more colleges than average, and they are also more likely to travel more than 500 miles away for college (which is also highly unusual for the average student). People on CC tend to dismiss average applicants or think of elite admissions as the norm, when that is far from the case. Without knowing a student’s stats and background, it’s difficult to recommend a good number of schools.</p>
<p>^Unless you have a source for that, its only marginally better than anecdotal evidence. </p>
<p>Nothing against you, but you could be pulling numbers out of a hat or the survey may have been taken at all low income, inner-city schools. =/</p>
<p>10 to 15</p>
<p>4 reaches to super reaches
4 matches
2 safeties</p>
<p>5 international schools (optional)</p>
<p>There is the law of diminishing returns with the application process-- </p>
<p>Some private school guidance counselors will limit the # of schools simply because they do not have the time to follow up on 12-15 applications … they would prefer to actually get involved with the adcoms, especially at highly selective colleges, and don’t have unlimited bandwidth. There is a limit to how many letters they will write for a student.</p>
<p>Then there are the teacher/other recommendations. How many letters of rec can you ask your APUSH teacher to write on your behalf? Generic letters don’t do as well as letters targeted to a specific university. “Shining Student will thrive at XXX because of XXX’s unique approach to YYYY, etc.”</p>
<p>Now, if a student wants to apply to 20 schools that do not require teacher/counselor/other personal letters of recommendation, I guess there’s no harm in that… other than whether applying to 20 reduces the quality of the application to the 3-4 the applicant REALLY wants to attend. For example, applying to UCLA and applying to UCLA+UCSB+UCB+UCSD+UCD+UCI+UCSC+UCM+UCR takes the same single application and single SAT report, with $60 additional for each campus. None accepts letters of rec anyway, so that’s not an issue.</p>
<p>
I don’t understand why “international schools” is a separate category. lolz. A foreign university can be a “reach”, “match”, or “safety” and I can’t think of a compelling reason not to group a foreign university into one of those categories while one is considering university applications.</p>
<p>I am a proponent of applying to 6 schools: 2 reaches, 2 matches, 2 safeties. If you want you can always add more reaches. Make sure you are willing to attend the safeties (otherwise they are not safeties but a waste of your app money).</p>
<p>
Nonsense. I clearly stated in post #6 that the numbers come from the HERI/CIRP survey. If you want to verify my data, then take the effort to do so. The data I have is on an excel spreadsheet I acquired from Duke, but your own university should have a copy available. Failing that, much of the data is readily available online to the public, as a simple Google search would have revealed. An example:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.heri.ucla.edu/PDFs/pubs/briefs/brief-20080512-Applications.pdf[/url]”>http://www.heri.ucla.edu/PDFs/pubs/briefs/brief-20080512-Applications.pdf</a></p>
<p>It is the most comprehensive and well-known study of college freshmen and has data about everything from how important they consider rankings to what degrees their parents earned to how they feel about social issues. If you have not heard of it, which is apparently the case, I suggest investigating it. It is regrettable – though hardly surprising – that it gets less press than Princeton Review and other self-reported hogwash.</p>
<p>Warblersrule, you’re taking what I said too seriously. I honestly wasn’t questioning you, I was just genuinely curious. No offense was intended. I just think the information was interesting.</p>