<p>Topic says it all.</p>
<p>How many schools do you think it is appropriate to apply to and to what sort of schools should they be (i.e. reach/match/safety)</p>
<p>I kinda feel that 2 reaches, 3 matches, and 2 safeties is good, what do you think</p>
<p>How is the economy/job market during the time you are applying? How many people is each department taking? You may need to look at more schools based on the number of opeinings in each department.</p>
<p>depends on the program and the difficulty of acceptance. i can only speak for my area, but clinical psych phd applicants are recommended to apply to at bare minimum of 7 schools because the programs are so competitive. there isnt such thing as a safety school at this level because there are so many things that are considered beyond the basic stats.</p>
<p>get the best options avaiable..
apply to 15 minimum..</p>
<p>And I only ever applied to 2 universities max...</p>
<p>/gotta do more for post-doc</p>
<p>It really depends on the program and on what hazmat said about the amount of applicants each advisor/program are able to take on. That said, if it is a scientific field, I encourage emailing prospective advisors to get a feel of how many students they are taking on for the next academic year. I'm not as familiar with professional or liberal arts programs. </p>
<p>I personally applied to 4 universities for my MS (accepted to 2 with TA) and am applying to 5 for my PhD...I'm confident I'll get into at least 2 or 3 schools, but the competition for geology isn't that of many programs (not as many students apply, geology enrollment at pretty much an all-time low...).</p>
<p>What's funny is I applied to 3 school for undergrad...so each step I add one more :p</p>
<p>15 - which was an overkill because there are only 7 visiting weekends
depends on acceptance rate, of course
for my field acceptances are 10-25% in top programs, but this doesn't mean it is easy to get in ... when you go to their recruiting events you see same crowd of faces over and over again - which means that while many people got into every top program they applied to, many others did not get into a single one of them</p>
<p>some schools may have 5% admissions rate but their requirements are very diverse so they admit different kinds of people - schools in other fields accept the same group of people due to more narrow focus of requirements and it is a bummer if you're not in it</p>
<p>everyone i knew who applied to med schools went for more than 10 of course
one girl applied to only 5 dental schools and was very stress out over it but she got into one of them and ended up going there</p>
<p>Well...looks like I just needed to apply to one school :P</p>
<p>Got the notice I was admitted to my first choice over the weekend. Still need to check it out though since I've never been there before. ;)</p>
<p>I'm excited (but also waiting for the other replies...)!</p>
<p>wow, Congrats! What school was it? My dad was a geology major/Ph. D; I believe you're in for a grad school treat, or so he tells me =).</p>
<p>Thanks! Accepted to Wisconsin - Madison for my PhD. Completing my MS currently at UNC - CH. :D</p>
<p>awesome; that rocks!../ no pun intended, heh</p>
<p>Ophiolite - if the department isn't paying for your visit, you could stay at my apartment if you want. (it's nothing fancy, but only three blocks from the geology building and might beat paying for hotels)</p>
<p>Thanks for the offer Mary. Yes, the department is picking up my airfare and are in the process of finding a geology grad student for me to stay with.</p>
<p>my cousin applied to 25 schools. She got accepted to five, including two ivy league schools. she was going for a PhD in education.....i guess it all just depends. I will be applying to a lot because I fear not getting accepted. I will probably apply to AT LEAST 10 but probably more than that just to be sure.</p>
<p>I feel applying to too many schools, depending on the discipline is a recipe for danger.</p>
<p>With applying to so many different schools, you will not have time to cater your statement of purpose to each specific school and your recommenders will not be able to cater their recommendations to the specific school either. I personally believe if you have a few schools that really interest you, focus your interest on them to make sure you have the best application you can for those schools. Adding too many others to the mix will make your applications weaker imo.</p>
<p>wow, i'm glad i live in canada where university admissions is so much less intense. i applied to five schools, and i'm fairly confident that i'll get into all five. i feel so lucky that i don't have to do SATs, ACTs, interviews, essays etc.....here it's just marks.....and i had to fill out a supplementary form about ECs and a short essay question for one of my schools. good luck everyone, i'm sure that these past few/next few months are very stressful ones....</p>
<p>Well, katiebee, in fairness, college admissions in the US is intense only if we want it to be intense. The truth is, practically everybody in the US who has graduated from high school is practically guaranteed to get into some kind of college if they want it, even if we're only talking about community college. You do half-decently in community college, and you're practically guaranteed to be able to transfer into at least a low-level state university. </p>
<p>Here on this forum, we are really only looking at a subsection of the populace, specifically, those who tend to be gunning for the very best schools. Those schools are obviously very competitive. But the truth is, the overwhelming majority of American college students do not attend such schools. As long as you put in some reasonable effort, you are practically guaranteed to get in somewhere. But people here are not satisfied with just getting in somewhere. They want to get into the best schools.</p>
<p>again, it totally depends on your program of interest. generally, if the program has a very low acceptance rate, you should obviously apply to more schools. if its not that competitive, you could easily get away with applying to less than 5. although on paper i am a good candidate for my programs, i was advised to aim for at least 10 applications because the average school accepts 2-5% of applicants.</p>
<p>that's very true. one of the things i was commenting on when i called it "intense" however, is also the fact that you are required to write the SATs/ACTs as well as answer essay questions, have interviews etc. but my perception is probably off considering that i'm getting my information from a site like this, which, as you pointed out, consists of students more competitive than most. i'm also an american citizen, so i considered applying to some american schools but decided against it, since tuition is so much more expensive and since i may not even work in the US after university. maybe i'll do grad school in the states though...</p>
<p>I'd say it depends on field. For my MA, which I've already gotten into two top programs, I only decided to apply to six because even the top programs have relatively high admissions rates (and I knew I was competitive to all of them.)</p>
<p>However, it depends on the field. Med school is usually 10+. I can't imagine doing more than 10 PhD applications...</p>