<p>So I've pretty much finalized my college list with the help of my parents and I'm sitting at 14 schools. There are 4 safeties, 6 matches, and 4 reaches. Additionally, all but 1 of the schools I'm applying to requires additional essays. Is 14 schools too many to apply too?</p>
<p>You should try to keep the list to: 3 safeties, 3 matches, and 3 reaches</p>
<p>Doesnt each college require an essay?? So wouldnt 14 essays be crayyyyyy</p>
<p>Not every university requires a supplemental essay.</p>
<p>It depends on how much $$$ you have to spend on application fees and how badly you want to get into a reach.</p>
<p>However, your list should include at least ONE financial and academic safety.</p>
<p>@thegrant Yeah, but it’s more for a lot of the schools I added it up and it’s like an additional like 25 supplemental essays in all</p>
<p>@Ctesiphon One of my safeties is both academic and financial, and all but one of the schools I’m looking at requires at least one supplemental essay</p>
<p>@maymay5678 unless application costs arent an issue, i dont see why not lol. The more schools you apply to the better your options when time comes to decide which to enroll at. </p>
<p>If you have to do 13+ supplemental essays, I think you need to narrow down your list. You won’t be able to produce that many quality essays. It also depends on how much free time you have. Do you have a challenging senior course load? How much time will you be able to dedicate towards seriously improving your essays?</p>
<p>I only consider it a safety if it is both admission and financially highly possible.</p>
<p>If you apply to all those schools, better make sure you are really paying attention to your safeties. Many kids have been rejected from their safeties because it was abundantly clear to the safety that the kid did not give a hoot about them. Do interviews, take thought when writing the essays. It’s a fatal mistake to spend all your time and attention on the applications to your reaches – which are, by definition, a long shot – and act as though your safeties are bound to fall all over themselves as soon as they get a whiff of your grades and test scores.</p>
<p>There is a way to estimate the probability of attending each college (not getting in, attending). Think about it though, you will only attend one college. </p>
<p>If you can estimate your chances of getting into each using Naviance, you can get a good approximation of the probability of attending by treating the decisions as independent. If you do that, and you have a ranking in preference, then the probability of you attending a school is equal to the admission probability of that school times the rejection probabilities of more preferable schools. </p>
<p>If you have 14 schools, you are very likely spending a lot of time on applications for colleges that you have a very small chance of attending. If all of your schools were equally likely to get you, than the lowest probability would be 7%. Since some are clearly more likely to get you to attend, then some have probabilities that are much smaller. </p>
<p>Identify the schools that you are unlikely to attend and eliminate them. </p>
<p>If they are truly safeties, applying to 4 is pointless. People suggest applying to
2 Safeties
3 Matches
3 Reaches</p>
<p>However in the high achieving community of CC. I could see it being
2 Safeties
3 Matches
5 Reaches</p>
<p>Basically, anything over 10 is definitely to much. </p>