<p>At my school, it must be at least six.</p>
<p>Any whole number above zero is the correct answer - this question is so student specific that there can be no one correct answer. For some students, the answer is one. For students searching out highly selective programs like theater or searching for the maximum FA package, the answer could be 20 or even higher.</p>
<p>Actually, I would like to correct that number. For some students, the correct number is zero. Some kids just shouldn’t go to college.</p>
<p>killer answer, mrmom.</p>
<p>I think at the end, the student must only apply to schools he or she is willing to attend. I’m guessing far too many people throw out applications casually these days–maybe to add another feather in their cap? This practice is screwing up the entire system.</p>
<p>I applied to 4 schools in total.</p>
<p>I applied to 14 (almost all ED/EA), and that was way too stressful, especially considering I only want to go to 5 or 6 of the ones I applied to. I wanted options both location-wise and financially, but it’s a waste of time and application fees to apply to more than you want to go to. You have to pick what feels right for you.</p>
<p>I agree with MrMom – the answer can be all over the map. Some apply to one school ED, get in and they are done while others apply all over looking for scholarships or some specialized difficult to get into program. I’d say a typical number of applications is in the range of 7 - 10 schools with a few safety schools (at least one or two that are both financial and academic safeties), a number of match schools and a couple of reach schools.</p>
<p>I don’t understand why they always tell you to put reach schools on the list. That should be an afterthought. Why. Is a reach better than a real fit? I don’t think so.</p>
<p>Some schools are reach schools for everyone. If you want to go there, it’s a reach. But you are correct, no reaches is the correct approach for many if not most students. </p>
<p>CC is overpopulated by the reach crowd, which is not surprising. You don’t need advice on how to apply and get into most state schools, except for California.</p>
<p>I’d say 2, unless you apply ED.
Everyone needs 2 safeties - schools they like, are 100% sure they can get into, and can afford. This way you can still compare financial aid packages (no two schools will offer the same).
The more selective the schools and/or the more financial aid you need, the more schools you should apply to.
Outside the 2 safeties everyone should have, 3-5 match schools depending on selectivity then as many reaches as you wish or can afford.
If many schools you consider “matches” have admission rates below 30%, you need some schools with an admission rate 30-50%</p>
<p>The math might be informative: If by your numeric stats you could pick five schools where you have a 50% chance of admission at each (note that this precision is not possible), then you’d have a 1/(2^5) or 3% chance of being rejected by all of them. Applying to ten such schools it drops to 0.1% chance of rejection by all.</p>
<p>Except you are assuming that the chances of being accepted by one are independent of being accepted by another, when they are clearly not independent. They aren’t completely interdependent either, but if you’re accepted by one, your odds increase at the others because clearly you have what they’re looking for.</p>
<p>But I do appreciate what you’re trying to say and have used that argument. I’m just not sure how to mathematically incorporate the increased/decreased odds, especially with limited info, but I know the odds do shift.</p>
<p>If it’s (unrealistically) 50% at each, it doesn’t matter if they’re dependent or independent.</p>
<p>It’s meant as an illustration of the power of applying to match schools; the chances of being accepted somewhere go up quickly the more schools you apply to.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It does matter. For example, if you take an extreme case, where you apply to several colleges that have identical admissions methodology and thresholds, you will either be admitted to all or admitted to none.</p>
<p>Of course, this is a contrived situation*, but be careful of assuming that different colleges’ admissions are too independent of each other, since many of the same applicant characteristics are important to many colleges.</p>
<p>*But such an example can be found in real life – consider applying to a non-impacted major at several non-impacted CSU campuses, where the threshold for admission is identical at all of them in this case.</p>
<p>The point of applying to a good number of match schools is so quickly lost! ;)</p>
<p>I am indeed assuming that most schools are not looking for the same cookie cutter students, and that schools are not all alike.</p>
<p>We’d all like that to be true, but I think we know it’s not.</p>
<p>Someone better than me at statistics could probably figure this out, but if we just looked at Ivies and students who made multiple applications to them and then saw how many got multiple acceptances, when the pure chance model says there should be few, then we could probably come up with a “commonality factor”.</p>
<p>I have an algorithm that we used successfully to calculate the optimal number of schools. </p>
<ol>
<li>Identify schools that you would be happy going to</li>
<li>Assess the probability that you will get into a school based on grades and test scores. Naviance is ideal for this.</li>
<li>Assess the probability that you can afford the school if you get in. CC groups are good for this.</li>
<li>Rank the schools in order of preference as best you can.</li>
<li>Assuming independence, calculate the probability that you will ATTEND that school. That is the probability that you either didn’t get in or can’t afford all of the schools higher in your list, AND will get in and can afford the schools for which you are calculating probability of attendance.</li>
<li>Choose a theshold, say 5%, and eliminate any school that fall below that threshold unless that school has the potential to be your top choice. Schools like this are not worth the time to apply.</li>
<li>Make sure that you have two safety schools, where the probability of you being able to get in and afford is close to 100%.</li>
</ol>
<p>If you do this in a spreadsheet, it will also provide a recipe for you to research schools so that you can tweak your preferences.</p>
<p>Keep in mind that in fact the decisions are NOT independent, so just ranking in order of difficulty of getting in is not a good idea because the chances that you get rejected by all of them is higher than the product of the rejection probabilities.</p>
<p>If your list includes reaches, matches and safeties, this algorithm should produce a list with the right number of schools. For most people it’s between 5 and 10 depending on how high up the list you put match schools.</p>
<p>I define
reach < 40% chance of getting in
match <40-90% chance of getting in
safety - almost sure. It’s nice to include one that has rolling admissions and notifies you in October.</p>
<p>I applied to 4, all of which I have researched extensively and have visited at least once. I only applied to colleges I knew I would enjoy going to 
Originally, my college list was over 20 colleges. But after researching their school’s stats and matching my financial conditions, I narrowed my list down to colleges I know I would academically and financially be successful at and then visited those colleges.</p>
<p>How many schools to apply to can vary so much from student to student, depending on their credentials and goals, that it makes no sense to try to find a “best” number. I know kids who applied to over 20, and kids who applied to 1. </p>
<p>My D applied to 5 and should have applied to only 4, since she never even bothered to visit or seriously consider one of the schools on her list. She was looking solely at large state flagships, applied to 3 safeties and 2 matches and had no interest in any reach schools. A good friend of hers who had similar stats applied to 15, the majority of which were reaches. These were schools where the girl had stats in line with what the school typically admitted, but where acceptance rates were very low. D’s friend spent a heck of a lot more time writing essays and keeping track of applications than my D did. But she wanted a prestigious, reach-y school as much as my D wanted to avoid them, so it made sense for her to apply to all those schools. Both girls ended up at schools they love.</p>
<p>Here’s an article explaining how selective schools choose their students:</p>
<p>[Admissions</a> Messages vs. Admissions Realities](<a href=“http://www.reed.edu/apply/news_and_articles/admission_messages.html]Admissions”>http://www.reed.edu/apply/news_and_articles/admission_messages.html)</p>