How many colleges should a student apply to?

Take the writing portion of the ACT. Enough schools require it that it’s better to be safe than sorry.

Many of your match schools are reached - Rice, Colgate, Case, and if you are planning CS or Engineering, even more. IMO you need to wait for your test scores to make your list.

As another poster noted, there is no correct answer. As you look at schools, you will decide what seems like a good mix of reach, match and safety schools.

And your plan may change along the way based on early action and early decision acceptances and rejections. Either you will get in ED somewhere and be done, get into some places EA and be able to eliminate additional safeties, or get rejected from everywhere in the ED/EA round and switch to more safeties.

In our house, I originally suggested S plan on applying to 12 colleges, but he ended up choosing 20 he was planning to apply to… but then he got into his early decision school so did not complete the other non-early applications. 20 was his limit because the common application allows only 20. If he had not gotten into his ED school, and he truly had had to write all those supplemental essays, I always thought that the two semi-safeties he was least fond of would have fallen off his list in the end.

At a minimum: 5:
Two safeties, at least one of which is a super-safety
Three matches
Add additional matches or reaches as you please.

Thank you all for the advice! It’s greatly appreciated! I will update you guys when I get my ACT score back. fingers crossed

If I were doing it all over again, I might try for 10 – four or five reaches, three or four matches, and two safeties.

Really, though, your limits could reasonably be dictated by:

  • The number of schools you like and that fit you well and which you can afford. At least one must be a safety.
  • Time, and…
  • Money

If you love 25 schools, and you have enough tine and money to apply to them all, then do so.

The only rule – or at least the most important one – is that you must apply to a safety. Because there is a chance you won’t get into any reaches or matches, even low matches.

Applying to colleges can be more than just time-consuming - application fees add up quick. Unless you have a high budget, or qualify for fee waivers, this could definitely impact how many someone applies to.

I chose ten, narrowed my list down to eight, and applied to all of them. I used fee waivers and for two collegesI emailed admissions and asked to waive the application fee (with a picture of my SAT waiver to verify financial need). I wish I had applied to the two reaches I took off my list, and I still regret it, but all the work on my applications was taking a toll on my schoolwork.

If you can handle multitudes of well-written and thought out essays than more power to you. If you’re working your senior year (I was working two jobs) it can be stressful.

Make a balanced list with a budget in mind and focus on the quality of your applications, not just the quantity.

Taking the ACT on Saturday! Really nervous! Not really scoring where I want to on practice tests. I’m having a lot of trouble with math (as I expected). I keep running out of time and having trouble understanding a lot of the questions. I’ve been looking at the explanations after the tests and understanding them. But, when I do more math problems, I seem to struggle still. I’m thinking maybe looking at a bunch of youtube videos and doing individual problems may help me a lot more. Writing, I keep scoring 60-62 out of 75. I’m not running out of time or anything. Not sure what’s going on there. The reading questions are really easy for me, but I’m kinda a slow reader so can’t get to the final passage on time. Any tips on time management? And the science isn’t too bad. Although, the last practice test I took, the science seemed harder than usual. A lot of the questions seemed to stem around physics (quarks and stuff), and I had no idea. A few of those were easy because you could just infer from the text. But, others, not so much. I keep getting 24-26 on practice tests. Might have to take the SAT in October and just deal with my final scores. Any tips?

I ended up not taking the July ACT. Going to take it in September instead. Might take it in October again to improve upon the September score. I am planning on applying to Pitt main and Virginia Tech as my safeties, Rensselaer as a match school, but still haven’t fully decided on my reach schools yet. I am trying to narrow down my overall list to 8-10. I am applying to Johns Hopkins and Vanderbilt for sure. Other schools on my undecided reach list are: University of Rochester, University of Virginia, Boston College, UNC-Chapel Hill, Bucknell University, Yale, Harvard, Colgate University, and Northeastern University.

If you don’t score above a 32 on the ACT, you have way too many reaches. Choose 2. Focus on safeties and matches you love and can afford. Forget Harvard and Yale, don’t waste your time or money.

If I score at least a 32 or 33, would it be reasonable to expect to at least to get into 2-3 of my reach schools I listed above? I have good extracurriculars and leadership, along with a job this year. And I am volunteering at a place that cares and advocates for animals. And I have unique academic aspects that separate me from everyone else at my school. For example, I am only one of two students in my class this past year who took more than one AP science class at once. And, by the time I graduate, I will have more than double the amount of science credits needed to graduate. Most people take only 3 science classes at my school. I will have taken 7 by the time of graduation. And, I will be a first-generation college student. Will these hooks help me out at least a little?

“Other schools on my undecided reach list are: University of Rochester, University of Virginia, Boston College, UNC-Chapel Hill, Bucknell University, Yale, Harvard, Colgate University, and Northeastern University.”

To answer your question if you score a 32 and 33 on ACT can you “expect” to get into 2 or 3 of these schools.

No one here knows your whole profile so this is at best a guesstimate . But 32 and 3.6 may 3.7 is an excellent profile. Congratulations.
With a 32 there is one set of options

With a 33 a few more doors open for you.

Bucknell. Strong match
Rochester. Match.
UVA and UNC. Expect denial or WL
Colgate perhaps but more likely a denial
BC expect a wl or denial
Harvard and Yale would be not be attainable

So I would suggest with a 32 or 33 plus your good profile would make bucknell and Rochester a real option. Colgate a potential if something about you connects with one of their AOs in your review.

I don’t see the others, besides Harvard and Yale, as definately rejections or WL. But as you asked about expectations these would be more likely than acceptance.

A few comments (which I admit might be late or might be on time):

You have quite a few out of state public universities on your list. You should run the NPC on these and make sure that they are going to be worth the cost of attendance. I would run the NPC on pretty much everything except your in-state public schools unless you are fine with being full pay.

I see Colby on your list of match schools. I think that this might be a reach. The NPC showed Bowdoin and Colby as potentially very expensive for us, whether this will be true for you also I can’t know.

You have a very long list of safeties. The point of a safety is that you know that you will be accepted, you know you can afford it, and you are willing to go there. If any of these is not true then it is not a safety. If all of these are true for all of your safeties, then you don’t need so many of them.

I very much agree with the discussion to apply to Pitt early. Getting into a very good solid safety early will take a LOT of the stress out of the process. Also, seeing an acceptance early to a good university which is affordable will allow you to reconsider whether you really want such a long list of other schools to apply to.

I took Colby and Bowdoin off my list. I keep changing around my list a little. See my recent post and you’ll get the most updated list of where I am applying. I will be applying to Pitt and Temple as soon as I get my September ACT score back. Just so I am in at least a couple places for sure.

I just found out that my weighted gpa is around 4.25. So, hoping that’s good.

It is good. Congrats.

8

Your list remains reach-heavy.
Apply to the Honors college at your safeties (and probably at your matches, too).
Based on the LACs you listed, I’d add Allegheny and Ohio Wesleyan. Dickinson and Denison as matches (apply test optional at these two if your scores don’t improve).

Most colleges will do their own calculation of your GPA based on your transcript so your weighted GPA doesn’t really matter (except for comparing yourself to your peers in Naviance if you have that option). Every college is different in terms of how they do the calc – some weight AP and advanced courses like your school does, some don’t. Many will exclude non-academic classes from the calc altogether, etc.

I just took the ACT today. Hoping for at least a 29 or 30. Already planning on taking it again on the october date.