To update, S2 applied to only two more lottery schools, so six total, after being accepted to one of the EA colleges and deferred from the other. Two schools lower down on his list but still tough admits were skipped.
ETA: We need FA or else he would have been done. That letter comes in two weeks.
DS17 applied to 4 - all EA or rolling
1 in-state safety - Admitted, honors program and engineering
2 matches - Admitted to both, engineering
1 reach - deferred to RD
At this point, S18 plans to apply to 8. Three are academic and financial reaches. Two are academic matches but financial reaches. Three are academic and financial safeties. I’d like him to consider a couple more academic matches where he’s likely to get merit aid, but he’s pretty sure he’s done forming his list.
D1 applied to 16 colleges. She is a CS major at Penn. D2 applied to 12 colleges. She is an engineering major at Lehigh.
My nephew applied to 15 schools-two safeties (he’s already been accepted to those two, thank goodness) and the rest match/reaches and reaches. If he gets into two of the 13 non-safeties, I’ll be happy. I had a hard time telling which schools are really matches and which are match/reaches. He could have benefitted from a professional counselor but couldn’t afford it so I helped him. My daughter, on the other hand, only applied to two schools but she was an athlete with coaches supporting her application, so that’s a different situation.
I told our D we could visit three colleges of her choice during one week, which required overnight air travel from where we live. She also visited the local public university. She did her college research well and we used the Parchment and Cappex sites (which turned out to be quite accurate for us) to predict realistic chances of acceptance for her.
She applied to five colleges (which included three of the colleges we visited plus two we didn’t have a chance to visit) and was accepted by all five. Today she is a college sophomore at her top choice, where she applied to ED and she and we are very happy with her choice. She applied EA to the other colleges that offered EA.
My first kid applied to one school and got in and was done. My second applied to 15 schools and got into all 15. They wound up going to the school they applied to in EA
My S applied to 7. Three safety’s and four matches. Keep in mind that the major matters. Some schools seem like a good bet but when looking at the major and the applicants we realize its more like a 50/50 chance. If the school gets a lot of highly qualified applicants and takes a holistic approach then you just don’t know. We made sure he really liked his safety’s.
Son is narrowing it down to about 20 schools for us to visit by the end of next October. Although he will be the one to decide to which schools to apply, I will discourage more than 12 applications and suggest he aim for 8-10, with at least two to which he will most likely be admitted and at least two pretty likely. He may decide to apply to fewer colleges if he gets into some early action-- and obviously if he applies to one early decision and gets in, then he’s done! I think having a choice is important; even if he likes all the schools enough to apply to them, getting into only one non-ED by April would feel worse than getting into 2 or 3 and enjoying the process of deciding which to go to.
I think more than 12 is too much, drives down admission rates for all, and just postpones the decision making process. Some of the decisions can be made before applying.
And keep in mind if you plan on filing FAFSA for financial aid, more than ten and you have to submit 2x, once with ten than wait a few days, go in delete the ten and then the additional colleges 
and submit again…not a big deal but still…
@ARTCC We have found Parchment very accurate as well. May I ask you how the results turned out for your child if the prediction was in the 30-40% range? Were they deferred/denied? We are only waiting on 3 more answers and 2 are the reaches in this range. Just wondering whether to expect a deferral or a denial. Thanks!
@momofthreeboys Yes - the FAFSA juggle is a pain!
I’m definitely on the ‘under 10’ crew as mistakes happen with the FAFSA adding and subtracting, the cost, the extra documents or essays, the mail that keeps coming and coming.
My D is applying to 12:
3 Reach (although she’s in the top 25% for all of them, even the Ivy, but they are reaches for everyone)
7 Match
2 Safety
She’s already been accepted to 2 safeties and 1 match, all with the same amount of merit $$ for each. They are all private schools (she doesn’t want a big state school), and 4 of them are in the midwest (where we are from), but she’s really hoping to go OUTSIDE the midwest for college. She applied to so many to compare merit offers. Here’s hoping she gets some good ones!
@GAcollegemom6 Three of the colleges our D applied to had average acceptance rates in the 20-30 percent range. Parchment rated her chances as follows (her chance of admission/average acceptance rate): 67/27, 80/38, and 82/31. She was accepted to all three–the first two she applied to EA and the last one she applied ED.
Parchment is pretty accurate for schools outside the top 20 (and the top 10 LACs). Admissions odds are pretty darn predictable for most schools.
My daughter is waiting on 2 answers from schools in the top 20. (Her chance of admission/average acceptance rate) is ranked at 33/13% and 32/25%. We are 100% prepared for rejections from both, but I was wondering if anyone with this ranking has received a deferral instead of a flat out rejection?
Can you explain your ranking. Its hard to follow.
Yes, I apologize for the confusion. The “typical student’s” chance of acceptance at one school is 13%, and parchment says my D has a 33% chance of acceptance. The other school has a typical chance of acceptance of 25% and parchment gives my D 32% chance of acceptance.
I was wondering if anyone has seen similar rankings via their child’s parchment and what the end result was 1) rejection or 2) deferral? Or if anyone has ever seen an acceptance at those odds.
Just curious if parchment is updated to convert the old/new SAT scores (with the concordance tables perhaps) so it isnt calculating probability with old test scores when a student has taken the new test. Of course if a student took the ACT its not an issue, but I wondered. Ditto with Naviance.