<p>I know it depends on the student, but what is a generally good amount of colleges to apply to? Also of that number about how many should be safety, match and reach schools (not including financial safeties).</p>
<p>I’d generally say 8 is a good number, with a 3/3/2 (reach/match/safety) breakdown. It depends on the situation, however.</p>
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<p>Safeties must be financial safeties as well as admissions safeties. You don’t want to not get into any of your financial safeties while finding that the admissions safeties and other schools you got into are all unaffordable.</p>
<p>Of course, if you are willing to go to inexpensive community college and then transfer to an in-state state university that is transfer-friendly, that may be your financial and admissions safety.</p>
<p>I would agree with 7-10 (so about 8 does sound good with that breakdown). Perhaps I’d have one less safety school? All I can say is that if money is an issue and you’re going to NEED financial aid (and I don’t know your situation so I cannot say), don’t apply to anything more than 10. It may sound insane, but I know someone that is currently complaining that he can’t afford his top schools, but he applied to 19. I know someone else that was told by their GC to apply to that many, but I believe it unnecessary.</p>
<p>I’ve been told (although this is not my cup of tea) that if you visit a bit of a reach school and LOVE it, to apply ED. However, I’d only recommend it if you have your heart set on a school and it does not sound as though you do, so I’m sticking to the 7-10 advice with maybe one solid safety and an even number of reach and match schools.</p>
<p>Hopefully my ramblings helped somewhat, good luck!</p>
<p>I agree that 8 colleges would be an ideal number of schools. I applied to 6, and I wished I applied to at least 2 more. From my 6, my breakdown was even: 2 safeties, 2 matches, 2 reaches. I agree with thsfan345’s breakdown of the 8 schools to apply to.</p>
<p>I applied to 9 schools (5 of them UCs, so all one application).
I think it’s important to remember that instead of sending out tons of applications, really narrowing it down based on what you want from a school and being realistic helps.
Then again, sometimes colleges can be kind of unpredictable 
Definitely have safeties!
But be careful… I have quite a few friends who just sent out applications to all the UCs, cuz it took a click of a button… but each one of those applications is expensive :/. And I feel like you need safeties, but dont apply to schools you wont really want to go to, in the end. Don’t be like me! Research hard!
And once you come to your decisions, i would say about 10 maximum :]</p>
<p>I agree with the above. Somewhere around 7-10 schools should be good. It really depends on what you think you can handle though–I ended up dropping three schools off my list (4 UCs, 9 privates). In retrospect, it was not a good idea for me to do that, but by mid-/late December, I had completely run out of juice and couldn’t bring myself to write any more essays.</p>
<p>That being said, if you’re a competitive student aiming at top schools, you’ll probably be applying to more, just because admissions at that level is unpredictable and practically becomes random.</p>
<p>I applied to 10.</p>
<p>4 reach/ 4 match/ 2 safety, depending on the accounting. My family is well off, so I did not apply to “financial” safeties, but I did apply 3 in-state(VA).</p>
<p>Here is the full list. UPenn, UChicago, WashU, Cornell / UVa, Wake Forest, Michigan, William and Mary / GaTech, VaTech+honors. I was rejected from my all reaches. Accepted to the other 6.</p>
<p>The thing is that applying is a LOT easier than you expect, especially if you have a good counselor. All of the schools I applied to were common app (except my safeties). GT and VT were both ‘copy and paste’ from my other essays. Wake forest had no supplemental essay. My U-M essay was about how much I would rather go to UVa. W&M was drafted in 1 hour after a late night driving at 3 AM(revised for several hours a few days later). They are fun, so just run with it. I wish I would have applied to 1 or 2 more. </p>
<p>Summary: 7-12 is fine, If there is any question, just do it. It’s just writing. The worst case scenario is rejection, and you’ll be getting 1-6 of those anyway. Senior year! What else would you be doing? not studying.</p>