<p>My mom said I can apply up to 15.
I'm more of a rigorous student, so should I lean more towards applying to reach schools? Any opinions?</p>
<p>For background, I’m applying to 1 safety, 2 matches, and 7 reaches</p>
<p>15? I was planning on applying to 9 or 10, and I thought that was a lot.</p>
<p>So far my list is 2 safeties, 4 matches, and 2 reaches. I’m planning on adding another couple reaches to see if I can beat the odds.</p>
<p>Anyways, don’t apply anywhere that you can’t afford. That’s just a waste of money. And a reach school is a reach for a reason; make sure you apply to 4-5 schools that you feel you should get into in case you don’t make it into any reach school which is easily a possibility.</p>
<p>I encourage at least 2 safeties. This way, worst scenario, come spring you still have a choice. This is especially important if you need FA so that you can compare packages.</p>
<p>If you aren’t shopping for financial aid/merit then I recommend cutting your list down to 10-12 total with 2 safeties, 2 match and the rest reaches. If your list is large and reach heavy that usually means there are private schools in the mix. Most probably have supplemental essays. Stretching yourself too thin could result in the essays not receiving enough attention.</p>
<p>Of course, if you are a CA resident and applying to many state schools my advice doesn’t apply since one app covers most without additional work on the student’s part.</p>
<p>Unless you’re looking to get into a direct-med type of program, there’s no reason to apply to 15.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t recommend more than 10 when you’re looking for purely undergraduate programs. I generally recommend having two safeties (at least one of them also a financial safety) unless your matches are essentially safeties as well (i.e. you’re an extremely strong applicant).</p>
<p>The rest of your applications should be to either matches or reaches. The stronger your application, the more reaches you should include relative to matches, as you can then expect to pick up at least one of your reaches.</p>
<p>If you are applying to the top 25 schools, my recomendation is 15.</p>
<p>The reason I say this is that the acceptance rates at the tip top schools are so low.</p>
<p>If you just apply to 5 or 6, you could well be rejected at all 6.</p>
<p>If you apply to 15, you will probably get into 1 or 2.</p>
<p>And if you need financial aid, that also mitigates in favor of applying to a lot of schools.</p>
<p>Yes I do need financial aid guys. My mom only makes around 15-20k at most, supporting two kids and a single parent. I have really good grades (4.2-4.3 weighted, ~3.8 UW) havent taken SAT’s or ACT yet. I feel like I could easily get into some of the match, and safety schools that I like (Arizona state, San Diego state, LSU, south Carolina, Florida state, etc.) but not a very good chance of getting into some of my reach schools (USC, UMiami, UFlorida, UCLA, UCSB, UGeorgia, etc.)
That’s why I felt applying to a bunch would help give me options but idk.</p>
<p>If you’re going to need a lot of aid, you might want to shift your focus somewhat from reach schools to schools where you’re near the top of the applicant pool. In all likelihood, some of these colleges and universities will try to buy your love. You are going to need money. Let them make you an offer!</p>
<p>The down side of this approach is that you don’t get the brand-name prestige that you’d get from USC or UCLA. But the up side is that when you go to one of these other universities, not only will you pay very little, but they may also treat you like some kind of academic VIP.</p>
<p>Just a suggestion.</p>