How many colleges should I apply to?

So I’ve heard from seniors I know that anywhere from 1-15 is a decent range in terms of number of schools to apply to but the general consensus from counselors I’ve heard is something like 8 schools (3 reaches; 3 target; 2 safety).

So what do you think? I was figuring something ~15 or 20 schools. Something like 5-8 reaches. 10-8 target schools and 4 or 5 safety schools.

Any feedback is appreciated, thank you!

I had absolutely no idea what school I wanted to go to and never really fell in love with any, so I thought it would be best to apply to a ton of schools. Do NOT apply to as many as I did. I applied to 17 schools and wound up only seriously considering 3 of them after being accepted to 15. Applying to colleges costs a lot of money, on top of that sending scores costs a lot. Apply to no more than three safeties. If you’re truly undecided, I would say 10-12 is a good amount to apply to. Don’t over do it! It was extremely tiring and I wasted so much time and money on applications for schools that I never would’ve gone to. Only apply to schools where you truly see yourself at. Good luck! I promise it will work out.

I think 15-20 is on the heavy side. Really go through the colleges you want to apply to and look at the course options for fields of interest, extracurriculars, location, size, etc. I would recommend keeping it to 10 and under.

For me, when I was applying to colleges, I kinda just applied to a bunch of top LACs, not really thinking about the individual fit for myself. Looking back, I would not have been a great fit at a lot of the schools I applied to. Do not underestimate fit for a school.

8-10. Most schools require supplemental essays. My daughter applied to 8 schools and wrote 19 essays. You want to make each application as perfect as possible and spend the time to tailor them to each school.

How much can your family afford to pay? What are your grades and test scores? What do you want to study? Those are parameters that determine how big your list needs to be. My nephew applied to only his home-state public U. His stats guaranteed admission, it was affordable, his major was offered, and he didn’t want to have to write any essays. One-and-done before Thanksgiving. He loved his time there. His sister was chasing merit money and didn’t mind writing essays. She applied to about ten places, received multiple offers, chose the cheapest, and loved her time there.

Truly, provided your list includes at least one True Safety where your stats flat-out guarantee you admission, that you know for dead certain you can afford with no aid other than federal (FAFSA) aid and/or guaranteed state aid and/or guaranteed aid from the place itself, that offers your major, and that you would be happy to attend, you will be fine.

Start by reaching high and reaching low: One reach/dream school app, and one safety school app that will offer you an early notice of acceptance by Nov 1 to keep in your back pocket. Then you can fret over how you want to keep going with more applications knowing, no matter what, you have a home for fall 2019 (and an iron in the fire for a long shot at a full-ride dream school).

At this point, you should have made some college visits and completing the rounds by end of summer. You will need to write from the heart if the school you are applying to has a "why us’ essay requirement.

As long as you have done your homework, 4 or 5 applications is all you’ll need. Save the time and money of accumulating acceptance letters. Focus on schools where you find your fit, what you can realistically afford, and where you will likely be accepted.

Why would you apply to 5 safety schools? Spend a lot of time on that search, and find 2 safety schools where you would be genuinely happy to attend. That way you have a guaranteed choice. Ideally one of these schools will have early admission and you’ll know by Christmas that you are definitely going to college somewhere.

Spend the next chunk of time on your matches. If you need financial aid, go for 4 or 5 matches, but if you can afford full pay then 3 is a good number. Again, research those schools enough to find something that would make you genuinely happy to attend.

Then you can do your reaches. A lot of kids ‘shotgun’ their reaches, applying to all of the top 10 without looking to see if they would actually be happy at any of those schools. If you send in the same application to Columbia and Brown, you’re a fool. For each reach (you should have noticed a pattern) identify several things that would make you genuinely happy to attend and that makes them unique.

I’m not sure why anyone would need 5-8 reaches. The truth is you don’t actually NEED any reaches. You need schools you can get into, that you can afford, that offer what you want to study and that you would be happy to attend. Start with the safeties and find ones that make you happy. Remember, there are many kids who only get into their safety schools. But most kids don’t pay much attention to selecting them. After you identify a couple of really good safeties, then worry about the rest. If you fall in love with your safeties and matches, you don’t need a reach at all. If you fall in love with some reaches, go for it. If you need a highly selective school for some future goal, fine. But don’t apply to schools merely for prestige. Its a waste.

The more time you put in ahead of time researching, the less applications you need. My daughter sent in 12 apps, but two OOS flagships gave zero merit or aid and two or three schools were just too small to suit her (figured that out after a few visits to smallish schools). Woulda coulda shoulda skipped those and all the work and $ involved.

Too bad she’s an only child–no learning curve for this family!

I think that this definitely depends upon the circumstances.

You should start with safeties. You need to find at least two universities where you know you will get in, you know that you can afford it, and you would be happy there. For many students these might be in-state public universities.

After that how many more schools you add is going to depend. If your safeties are sufficiently good fits, then you only need to add matches and reaches if you can find matches and reaches that you would actually prefer to your safeties. Frankly my youngest could have stopped after her first three applications, since all three were great schools and a great fit and safe (in every sense of the word). She only added more because everyone she knew was applying to a lot more than three schools.

I think that if you apply to more than about 8 schools, then you are likely to have trouble both (i) carefully and thoughtfully tailoring your essays for each school; and (ii) picking one after you get your acceptances.

One of my daughter’s friends applied to 25 schools, but she had specific reasons to be nervous about acceptances (inconsistent grades plus a need for significant financial aid). She did get into most of them, liked several that she got into, and in retrospect did not really need to apply to that many.

12
5 reach schools (acceptance rate around 10%)
4 target schools (acceptance rate above 30%)
3 safety schools (acceptance rate above 50%)

I think what state you are in makes a difference. For example, as a CA resident with great state schools I could see D20 applying to 6 UCs, 2 or 3 CSUs and a few OOS schools with good merit and/or reach schools.

You can get to 12-15 colleges pretty easily and most do not care about demonstrated interest so visiting some colleges might not be a problem.

Also agree that applying to a safety EA for an early acceptance might take some of the stress and pressure off of waiting for RD admission decisions.

  1. Make sure any college you apply to you would be delighted to attend
  2. So find 2 safeties that you would be delighted to attend…one that has rolling admissions so you know you are going somewhere and another one
  3. Look next for matches…what fits you academically and socially/
  4. Finally pick 2-3 reaches. Realize these will require extra essays. Better to pick less reaches and do a better job on their applications.

And please be clear that there is a difference between what can be termed a True Safety (auto admit, guaranteed to be affordable) and places that are reasonably safe (no applicant with your stats from your high school has ever been rejected). Once human beings participate in the decision-making for admissions, last year’s reasonably safety can suddenly become a match happy to reject you.

8-10 max. Takes time to do a good application, costs money to apply, costs money to send test scores, costs money to send CSS profile. Every school has different deadlines & many request different things for FA — that will make you and your parents crazy right there.

If you have a carefully and thoughtfully selected list, that is plenty. 2 safeties (you want to have choices no matter what), 4-5 matches (where you are most likely to get in and attend), and 3-4 reaches if you want.

“Takes time to do a good application, costs money to apply, costs money to send test scores, costs money to send CSS profile.”

IMO, costs of applying to colleges should not be a significant factor in how many you should apply to. These kids have been studying and working hard for many, many years and a 4-year degree can cost between 150-280K over 4 years and some colleges might give you thousands of additional dollars in merit over another college. Paying an extra $70 for an application is a drop in the bucket compared to many other financial and fit concerns. This is not the time to pinch pennies when such an important decision is to be made.

You should also factor in what type of school you are applying to. My kid’s CC recommended a list of 12-15. Some were safer (no auto admit), some were high matches, none were real reaches. But all were small LACs, and her point was that if they wanted half the class to be boys, that was 250 students. And if a bunch - let’s say 70 were recruited athletes and if a # were legacies, there weren’t going to be a ton of spots left for unhooked male. applicants. Which in turn meant that there would be some serendipity involved as to whether what he offered was what they wanted. This made sense to me.

I would have thought 10-12 would have been okay - it was a lot of work - but the outcomes suggested that it was less about being qualified and more about where he “fit” some piece of their class puzzle.

If you are looking for merit, that could change things a bit, especially if the process isn’t completely transparent.

Personally, I’m a big proponent of applying to more schools. I applied to 20 colleges this year, and for me it seemed to work out quite well. I ended up getting into a few of my reaches, which was unexpected but really awesome.

So I’d say, if you can, apply to more schools. You never know what kind of scholarships you can get and what financial aid you will be offered. If you have some college credits (from AP, CLEP, and especially Dual Enrollment), you also can’t be certain which credits will be accepted. If you apply to 20 schools, I’d say 5 or so can be reaches. Most importantly, make sure that every school you apply to, you actually like. There are plenty of amazing safety schools. Oftentimes, higher ranking is not that important. Choose colleges that will make you happy.

Oh, @socaldad2002, most of us aim to NOT have school cost $150-280k because we just don’t have it. $70 here or there might not be a big deal for you, but to us it was. Sending in an app to Harvard and paying for the scores to be sent would have been a waste of time and money, making only the CB happy to get our money. One of my kids spent $0 on applications, the other $40. Each applied to only one school. They knew what they wanted.

Do the work up front. Figure out if you really have a shot at a school and if you can afford it if you get FA or merit awards. I don’t agree with @lemonlulu because every student doesn’t have a 10% chance of getting into a reach school or a 50% chance of getting into a school with an average 50% admit rate. You have to figure out what YOUR chances are for that school. You might actually have a 100% chance at a school because you have better than average stats and happen to be the daughter of the president of the United States. You might have a less than 1% at HYPS if you aren’t even close to the stats needed.

@twoinanddone We will agree to disagree as I think the stakes are too high and the cost of college too great to worry about a $70 application fee for a college that might actually be a better fit and/or save you money (e.g. more merit aid) in the long run. In addition, many colleges will waive the fee for 1st generation families and the poor. But let’s get back to the OP.