<p>@hunt @anniebeats Yeah, I do question that method. Given the amount of time and effort applications can require, after you have a few safeties, I believe that time would be better spent applying to colleges you are very interested in, as opposed to more safeties and matches you aren’t as interested in. </p>
<p>I think it is redundant to have more than 1 guaranteed safety(finances & admission). Surely, if you apply to several match and reaches and you get in, you will likely not choose your safety, if the other options are affordable. So, why would you waste your time applying to other safeties if you only would really care to attend one? They’re called safeties for a reason - if all else fails, you still have a school you would like to attend and would love to have you.</p>
<p>Don’t apply to too many schools schools where you cannot meaningfully complete each application. </p>
<p>@Hunt @sw0206 You are giving bad advice. Horrible advice actually. Applying to many 4 schools that are at your level or below and as many reach schools as you want is a poor idea. Just because a school is a reach doesn’t mean it’s your number one school. Not everyone just strives to be in super competive environments. My d fell in love with her safety. She actually considered going there AFTER she got her acceptance from UPenn and Swarthmore. Applying to many reaches means more essays, more essays means fewer quality essays, fewer quality essays means lower chances at admissions, thus it becomes a waste of money. No student should apply to 5 reach schools unless they have 5 or 6 matches and 4 safeties. If you apply to 8 reaches, there is a very good shot that you won’t get into any of them. With the 2:3:2 ratio, you have a several schools you can choose from instead of just 1 safety school and 2 matches. You provided no reasoning for your claim (and it was a bad one at that). OP, you should ignore that advice. </p>
<p>@anniebeats What is the purpose of increasing the number of safety schools? What if you did prefer another reach to another safety? I do dislike the rigidity of the 2:3:2 ratio</p>
<p>@sw0206 It’s not rigidity. It’s called order and organization-- which is a huge part of applying. My d was done by the middle of her December with her 14 applications because of diligence and order.</p>
<p>Err, so a school being a match means no essay? What difference in terms of workload does having your 10 essays be from reaches or matches make? Order isn’t necessarily good if the order is wrong. I can arrange the numbers from 1 to 10 in backwards order, doesn’t mean I’m accomplishing what I want with them.</p>
<p>@anniebeats Of course, organization is a must. But given the time and effort that is required of applications, at this point I believe it would be within my best interest to apply to those schools that interest me the most (whether it be and additional reach or match or safety), so long as I have 2-3 each of safeties and matches I am interested in. The reason I’m a little lower on matches is because many of my “matches” in terms of scores, etc. are also reaches due to lower percentages accepted. I will certainly take your advice into consideration. I’m still not 100% certain, and appreciate your help. </p>
<p>“AnnieBeats, please. This is terrible advice, even if it’s in a book. There are lots of people on this site who are looking at reach schools that have single-digit admit rates and unpredictable admissions. If they really want to go to Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Amherst, Duke, et al., they need to apply to more, not fewer. So again, if what you really want is to go to a reach school, apply to a couple safeties, 2 or 3 matches, and as many reaches as you can manage in terms of the applications.”</p>
<p>This. </p>
<p>There’s actually a pretty similar thread started a week or so you posted this, OP. Linked below with my advice/response. I encourage you, OP, to take advantage of early admissions.</p>
<p><a href=“How Many Schools Did You Apply To??? - #20 by enigmaticescape - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums”>How Many Schools Did You Apply To??? - #20 by enigmaticescape - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums;
<p>Not everyone has the money for 14 applications. When you don’t qualify for fee waivers, the $50-75 of each application fee plus the absurd amount of money you need to spend to send your SAT and ACT scores, it all adds up. That plus all the time and effort it takes to fill out apps for schools that you don’t even like is quite discouraging.</p>
<p>@foolish Reach schools and schools that accept less than 30% of applicants tend to require more essays and supplements because of the academic qualifications of the students who apply</p>
<p>@sw0206 You’re welcome. And I think the ratio is especially helpful to make sure you aren’t applying to too many schools. If you use it, and you have 6 reaches, it will make the number of schools you have to apply to dramatically increase. Because very few students have more than 10 colleges they actually want to go to. My d applied to 14 because her school required student to apply to certain schools</p>
<p>I guess the “2:3:2” would work in some cases, unless you are really competitive/qualified for top schools (Ivies) 
</p>
<p>@medicsz Even still, there are tons of 2300 and 4.0 students who get rejected from every ivy and top 20 school. I read a post on here about a college senior who is going to be stuck in CC. He was so arrogant that he only applied to the Ivies and Stanford. He was very bright with a 36 ACT and 4.0 and perfect subject tests. He got rejected by every single school. It’s important to be wise with where you apply.</p>
<p>@AnnieBeats Oh my… but then again, he does have a choice to state/community colleges. 
But being ‘perfect’ and ‘arrogant’ as described, he might not choose the path to schools that he would see as ‘low standard’. </p>
<p>@AnnieBeats She was required to apply to some schools!? Was this a public or private school? That sounds pretty insane to me.</p>
<p>But cases like the person you mentioned are rare, and it is his fault that he didn’t apply to any appropriate matches or safeties. Surprised that his guidance counselor didn’t mention this, but then again, they’re kind of not involved.</p>
<p>@anniebeats @medicsz Definitely. I do certainly want to avoid falling into that trap. I have heard too many cases where students couldn’t attend their dream schools, whether they were rejected or couldn’t afford it, and had few options because they had no safeties </p>
<p>@enigmaticescape Public school. But guidance counselors really put emphasis on college readiness. It was a very strange school though. 95% of students are going off to 4 year colleges. Yet the valedictorian is not because she doesn’t think college is worth it. I suppose she is right in her case. Her brother has a job at Google without a college degree and he got her a job working there too. But that’s tangential. </p>
<p>
Tons? In fact, if you look at results threads, you will see, again and again, that students with qualifications like this are almost always admitted to one or more reach schools *as long as they applied to enough of them.*The ones who get shut out are those who apply to just a couple, like Harvard, Yale, and Princeton. In other words, the ones who follow your advice.</p>
<p>@Hunt What great advice. So everyone should just apply to every top 30 school right. I mean, you’re bound to get into one of them-- right?. That’s TERRIBLE advice and that’s a waste of tons of money. </p>
<p>Let me clarify this, in case perhaps we’re talking past each other. There are some students who have a strong interest in going to a highly selective school, often because they value studying with mostly other highly qualified students. (Let’s put aside for the moment whether this is a sensible desire or not.) Students like that, if they have very good qualifications, will find that they are interested in schools that have very low admissions rates, and that practice holistic admissions. As noted, these schools often reject very qualified applicants. So, if their goal is to be admitted to a school that is like Harvard, or Duke, or Amherst, what is the best strategy for achieving this? While it is still important to research the schools and to find good fits, a top student may well find that there are 9 (or 20 or even 30) very selective schools that he would very much prefer to his matches and safeties. Since these schools practice holistic admissions, he might be admitted at Harvard and rejected at Brown, or the reverse. So, the sensible strategy is to apply to more than a couple of them. Based on my experience and observation, a student can probably do justice to 12 to 14 applications, especially if they are fairly similar (and many of them are). I don’t think it’s sensible to do too many more than that, because you’re likely to start doing a sloppy job. Since safety schools should be schools where you will definitely be admitted and where you will be willing to go, you don’t need more than two of them (it’s nice to have a choice). Matches are schools that you are highly likely to get in, so three, maybe four, should be enough, as long as you have a realistic view of your admissions chances. After that, as many reaches as you can do–6 to 9, perhaps. If you also use early admissions strategically, you many not have to fill out all of those applications in the first place.</p>
<p>Students who have the qualifications and follow this approach tend to have good results in terms of getting into a reach school. It reduces a bit of the unpredictability of admissions at the very most selective schools.</p>