<p>I agree. There is a lot of money out there. It just takes research, patience and hard work to find it. Never decide against applying for a school because of money.</p>
<p>applied to 31 schools.</p>
<p>what!!! that is crazy…well over $1000 in app fees is insanity, unless you got waivers</p>
<p>Hey, I’m also from MN! I applied to 13 schools and I stretched myself really, really thin with all those applications. Then I only got into 6 (so I should have been more realistic or worked harder on those essays), and if I hadn’t gotten into Amherst, I still have no idea what I would have chosen. (I’m now a happy Amherst student!)</p>
<p>But please, please don’t do what I did. Research schools first so you KNOW where you want to go, and don’t apply to a school just because you read something neat in the viewbook. Also, I think visiting as many schools as you can before you even apply is a good idea. Even if you can’t go far, at least check out the MN schools you’re interested in.</p>
<p>As far as numbers of matches, reaches and safeties, I don’t think there should be an exact formula - but as has been said, you should not only be willing to go to every school you go to, but LOVE the idea of being a student there. This is important for the safeties, of course, but the others as well. Ask yourself, “If this is the only school I got into, would I take a year off and apply again, transfer after a year, or go here without doubts?”</p>
<p>10 is a good number I’d say–give or take.
it’s up to you
I mean, do you really care about app fees at all? compared to tuition, they’re nothing.</p>
<p>I had a list of around 10 colleges to begin with junior year, but I narrowed it down to 5 after college visits in the summer/clarifying what I wanted to do in college. </p>
<p>I had about 2 safeties, one match, 2 “reaches”, but I got into all of them. Then I revisited and narrowed my list down to 1. The one I’m going to.</p>
<p>how should one apply for waivers? im currently on a gap year, doing my national service/ military service. should i get my superior to certify me poor?</p>
<p>i’m planning to apply to like 18 ;)</p>
<p>IMO, 10-12 is a reasonable number.</p>
<p>Well, if I don’t get the Questbridge Match, it will be UNC-Chapel Hill EA for me. Not going to put much work into it. ;)</p>
<p>(Although my mother will scream DUKE DUKE DUKE!)</p>
<p>I’m planning on 10:
4 Reaches
2 Matches
4 Safeties</p>
<p>Why four safeties? One safety is enough if it is genuinely a safety.</p>
<p>One safety is not always enough.
I applied to 5 safeties (with good merit scholarships) in the hopes that one or more would offer me a free or very inexpensive education. It worked… I got full rides (tuition+room+board+fees) at two and smaller scholarships at the other three.</p>
<p>As for the number of total schools, I applied to 12:
5 safeties (accepted 5/5)
1 match (accepted 1/1)
5 low reaches (accepted 2/5)
1 high reach (accepted 0/1)</p>
<p>I am glad that I applied to so many schools. If I had only applied to my <em>favorite</em> reach schools, I wouldn’t have been accepted at any reach schools and would have come out of March feeling fairly lousy about myself.</p>
<p>What I did was </p>
<p>6 UCs (3 safeties, 1 match, 2 reaches)
2 RD private reaches
1 EA private safety/high-match</p>
<p>Got into one private reach and one UC reach, all the safeties, but not the match. All the reaches were ones I had reasonable chances at, though - they weren’t HYPS. If you live in Calfornia, some schools that are relatively easy to get into (UCD, UCSB, UCI) are ranked very highly and are pretty affordable. It’s a pretty unique situation.</p>
<p>9 was a good number for me, but a higher or lower number may be appropriate for you. A kid who finished in the top 10% of his class in Texas and wants to go to UT doesn’t need to apply anywhere but UT.</p>
<p>In our household, 5-6 schools with balance of reaches, matches and safeties. Our kdis visited them all and would have been happy at all.</p>
<p>What is happening now is that students are applying to 15-20 schools, maybe because the common application has made it easier to do. There is sort of a crapshoot mentality, and then, when students get in, they go and visit.</p>
<p>I think this is contributing to the craziness and confusion in admissions right now. This amount of applications is expensive and stressful for the student, and the colleges cannot be sure of the intentions or interest level of thousands of applicants.</p>
<p>It is all very interesting. When you get right down to it, you will enjoy your senior year more if you keep it down.</p>
<p>Also, don’t sweat the essay. I know people do these early, and that’s certainly an option, but both my kids did them the week before deadline, and it worked out fine. The common application is online and you can probably check the questions, but there is also alway the option to “writer about a topic of your choice,” and that is what our kids have done.</p>
<p>While this is probably restating what everyone else has stated, if you do your homework well, you can probably narrow down your list to 6-8 schools. If you are looking for maximum financial aid, be sure to include schools that guarantee to meet 100% of need, and look at schools that are matches for you that will probably offer you merit money. Include 2-3 reaches, 2-3 matches and 1-2 safeties (agree with tokenadult-- not sure why one needs 4 safeties). The commonapp helps to reduce time demands, but many schools wil require additional esays, and that gets tiresome. Good luck</p>
<p>To two post above, 18 is not a good number to apply to, but I dont need to tell you that. It also means that you spent less time on each applications and you end up with the results that I had.<br>
one ED Deferred, then rejected
one EA Deferred, then rejected
in addition
6 reaches all rejected
6 matches, all waitlists
4 safeties 3 accepted, one waitlist(since i send my stuff in very late)</p>
<p>buffalowizard-
Five safeties is way more than enough. If I understand you correctly, you got into all, with merit money at all (two with full rides). This, IMO is overkill, especially if they were for sure safeties, and not schools high on your priority list.</p>
<p>** If you had only applied to 2 safeties, you’d have gotten into 5 of 9 schools. It is likely you’d have felt just as fine about yourself as you did by getting into 8 out of 12.</p>
<p>I say apply to as many places as you want, but try to apply early if you can</p>
<p>In case someone hasn’t said it yet, the issue of safety has become a real challenge. Do a search on “safety” and read some of the threads about picking a safety. </p>
<p>My d. applied to 10 - would have be 9, except she really liked the Claremont Consortium, so did an app that upped her chances of going there.</p>
<p>However, you have an interest in some of the more selective schools, which means the whole business of “reach”, “match” and “safety” gets very very tricky. In essence - if your statistics are the same as the average acceptee at a school, that doesn’t mean its a match, if it is a school with a low acceptance rate. </p>
<p>Tufts was very blunt about this in a presentation I heard - they said that about 80% of their applicants would do well at Tufts, but there were only slots for only 10%. So keep that in mind.</p>
<p>Since many of her friends applied to some of the colleges she did, we saw the “crap shoot” nature of the admissions process. One friend was very similar to her statistically, but far more politically active. My d. got into George Washington, the friend got waitlisted. We thought the politics would have been the tipping point. Another friend, also similar in statistics and activities got into Tufts, my d. did not. I know these kids, and I don’t know what the factors made one more attractive to a school than another. </p>
<p>Use Early Action or Rolling Admissions to get you in early - if that strategy succeeds, then you can reduce the number of apps you make.</p>