<p>I'm only a junior right now, however, this means that the time to apply to colleges is not that far away from me. Therefore, I have begun thinking and have put together a rough list of schools I might want to apply too. Now here is my question, How many is TOO many? I have quite a lot of schools on my list and I would love to include as many as possible. What is the ideal or average number of schools a student should apply to? how many safeties, how many reaches, how many matches should there be?</p>
<p>My list so far includes:</p>
<p>All UC's excluding, Merced, Santa Cruz,
CSU's: Sacramento, San Diego, San Francisco
USC
Duke
Brown
Oberlin
George Washington University
Reed
University of Chicago
Georgetown</p>
<p>That's a lot of schools! How should I go about narrowing down this list? Help?! Advice?!</p>
<p>As this point in the process there is no need to start cutting your list. I'd keep looking at schools on and off your list and start cutting this summer. And feel free to count your app to all the California publics as one school/app. </p>
<p>Here are two commonly accepted approaches for constructing a list:</p>
<p>(1) 3 reach/3 match/2 safety
(2) Apply to as many reaches and matches as you want, as long as you can spend enough time on each application to do a good job on all of them and you have a true safety school that you'd be happy to attend</p>
<p>If financial aid is a big issue, approach (1) could be bumped up to 4/5/3.</p>
<p>Fewer applications done more thoughtfully yield better results than a wider net cast with less particular care. Someone around here has referenced a study (or studies) to that effect and I believe it. For your non-CSU schools, you don't want your application to come out feeling "generic." I assume your CSU's are safeties/financial safeties. As a parent or counselor, I would want to hear a good story to account for so many UC's...hard to see "fit" applying to all of them. The rest of your list looks fairly coherent, which is rarer than one might think.</p>
<p>"I'm only a junior right now, however, this means that the time to apply to colleges is not that far away from me."</p>
<p>I'm glad somebody's not procrastinating. I was helping with essay edits until way too late on Saturday, and I know I was not alone. </p>
<p>What TheDad says about thoughful applications is true. It takes a number of editing passes to get these things right, and it you have too many, you start running out of time. </p>
<p>My suggestion is to visit as many types of schools as possible to see what you like. You may find LAC's too small, or big urban uni's too big. If you can manage a college visit trip during spring break that will give you an excellent start. If you can't go far, visit types of schools near you, even if they are not your list.</p>
<p>I totally agree with what ohio_mom and TheDad said. When we first started visiting colleges during junior year, my D's list had about a dozen schools on it. After the visits, she was able to eliminate schools and get the number down to seven. Also, you'll find that the fewer times you have to tweak your essays, the better the apps will look and you will feel. Good luck!</p>
<p>Notice no one said anything about what you are considering majoring in! If you are considering professional/technical field (not law or medicine, but engineering, nursing, computer science, horticulture, speech pathology, etc), be sure you include some schools with those programs - otherwise it doesn't matter too much what you plan to do, most students change their minds anyway!</p>
<p>To recap:
1) Have a serious talk with your parents about finances, all of you may have to educate yourselves about college financial aid, and the real story about "scholarships" and what need really is</p>
<p>2) Visit, if at all possible schools of different sizes and types, and in different locations - urban vs rural, etc.</p>
<p>3) Think about how you learn best - small discussion groups, large classes with notes and syllabi.</p>
<p>4) Think about if any of this really matters - for people truly passionate about one thing - physics, dance (look at the MT threads for what I'm talking about), Arabic - a program at particular schools may be very important.</p>
<p>I was about to add a note, but it was going to say what cangel said. So instead, I'll just second his points. If you have any idea what you'll think you'll major in, let that be the starting point for your research. If not, then the list is much harder to put together, and you'll have to rely on the type of environment you'd like to place yourself in (as well as financial needs). However, even those who know what they want now have a high probability of changing their minds later on. One of the things that I wanted for my son was a university with lots of choices just in case he did want to change majors. That led him to a larger school than he originally had in mind, but that larger school also had the program he wanted.</p>
<p>You may wish to consider common app schools if you plan to apply to many schools. It makes life much easier.</p>
<p>Remember each app is about $50.</p>
<p>You may want to find some schools somewhere between Cal State schools & UCS that are match/safetys for you and offer the basics that you want...</p>
<p>Thanks guys. Everyone has been so helpful! I love this board! </p>
<p>How do I find out if the schools I want to apply to accept the common app? And just to clarify, you only fill the common app out once and then it gets sent to all the schools you're applying too (who accept it?)</p>
<p>BTW, I want to major in political science or something along those lines. I would assume all those colleges would have fairly reputable departments and teachers in that field.</p>
<p>Masha, if you go to each college's web site and click on admissions, it will tell you if they use the common app. That said, beware of the "common app trap!" It sounds like a one click fits all kind of thing, but many colleges have supplements that have unique essays and they can take a LOT more time than you expect. So unless you love filling out applications and writing essays (not to mention paying application fees) , you should pick your colleges carefully.</p>
<p>commonapp.org has a list of this year's colleges (they seem to add more each year!) Click on "colleges and universities" then click on "college-specific info". You'll get a list of the schools where clicking on each name opens a small window with all the application requirements. It's a great time-saver.</p>
<p>Keep adding schools to your "possible" list throughout junior year, then take a hard look in the summer and start deleting them! You'll probably wind up with 6-10 schools.</p>
<p>I don't think your list is too long if money is an issue. It only takes 1 app to apply to the UCs. The CSU schools have very easy applications. No essays. If money isn't an issue, and you are really qualified for schools like Georgetown, and Chicago, you can drop the CSU schools. You have to realize that as a junior, your taste in schools and subject matter may change and your list in 10 months may look very different. That's ok.</p>