@Kayak24 - He chose one of the reach schools and is very happy so far!
I counted incorrectly before but he had 10 real reaches (plus the 2 extra). Out of those 10, he was rejected by 2 (one after a deferral), wait listed by 4 and accepted by 4.
- eleven total (so far....she is NMSF, and we might be swayed to add one or two schools later for NMF scholarships, although we are pretty certain we are done right now.)
- safeties: 3; matches-high matches: 5; reaches: 3 (but none are ivies; we are looking for merit aid)
- first child applying to college
My D applied to 18 schools. She is my second through the process and applied more widely than her sister. About a 4 are academic reaches, and the rest debatable between matches and safeties. Almost all are artistic reaches (she’s a dancer), and unfortunately the academic/artistic reaches don’t line up, so she’ll be lucky to have four schools to choose from in the end.
She currently has three academic only acceptances, two artistic only acceptances, and one for both. The one sided acceptances are still waiting on the other half of their decisions.
S19 was our first and he applied to 12 schools for Chemical Engineering; 3 safeties, 2 matches, 1 low reach, 2 reaches, and 4 high reaches(<10% acceptance for his major). He was rejected by all his high reaches, wait listed by 1 reach and accepted by all the rest. The reach he was accepted to (Ga Tech) was probably #2 or #3 on his preference list and is where he is attending. He didn’t do any ED and did EA to 5 of the schools.
We have D23 in a few years and will see if the numbers change. It may just because as of now she is not planning engineering. One thing we will do different is start standardize testing earlier. For S19 we started testing too late and didn’t even consider SAT subject test until fall of his senior year which didn’t work out well since he was taking tests on stuff he completed, in some cases, years before. We plan to have D23 take 2 subject test (Math 2 and Bio) end of this school year or next Aug. since she is currently taking H pre calc and AP Bio.
S16 applied to 9 (and I thought that was a LOT). 1 safety, 3 matches, 5 reach. Was accepted to the safety, all matches & 1 reach. He was waitlisted at other 4 reaches. He is at a match on scholarship.
S19 applied to 4. 2 safety, 2 match. He is at a safety, because they had the specific program he wanted and on scholarship.
FWIW - in my day, I applied to 1.
P.S. I have a hard time classifying some of them as safety/match, but it’s my best guess.
First and only kid. Assuming she has a good revisit this week, we anticipate this will be her favorite so she’ll apply ED1 here and not put in any other applications unless 12/15 brings bad news.
Since the end of summer, the list has been as long as 9 schools (3 safety, 3 match, 3 reach) and as short as 4 (1 safety, 3 match). The ED school is a match: 50% acceptance rate in ED, test optional and kid has ~75th percentile test scores, nothing amazingly good or bad in her profile otherwise.
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D is applying to 13.
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she has 3 reaches, 6 matches and 4 safeties
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she is our oldest
She may cut the list once her EA acceptances come in. Her potential majors are so generic that it’s hard to narrow down the list and she likes most of the schools we have visited. We’re also looking for merit as she will get no FA so we want to be able to compare offers.
Many have no application fees or we got waivers for visiting and about 2/3 have no supplemental essays so the applications are not that hard or expensive. I know people say you only need one safety but she really liked the safeties we visited. I think many of them she might pick over her matches or reaches. Why not have choices?
All three of mine were one and done. We spent much time researching schools before admissions.
I’m afraid to say, for fear I’ll get the CC smackdown.
My S applied to more. He’s not in MT, but he is very open about a variety of schools, of different sizes, in urban or suburban areas. He’d prefer to get into a school with a higher level of academic rigor but many of those are High Matches or Low Reaches for him. And he and I feel he’s in a position where he can’t be sure which of his most-desired schools will accept him.
In the end, he’s hoping to be able to choose from 4-7 of his High Matches and Low Reaches. And there’s no way to know which he’ll choose until he sees the mix of acceptances.
The good news is he’ll be happy attending any of his 4 Safeties and any of his Matches. So, no matter what the outcome is, he’s guaranteed to attend a university where he’ll be happy.
Our first, S16 ( we refer to him as test-kid) applied to 14 schools. We had no real information to go on (pre-CC for us) and our HS counselor was of no real help. We were aware of the reach, match, safety, concept so, at that time, we thought he had 5 reach, 5 match, and 4 safety (including 1 guaranteed acceptance). I recall the feeling that he could get rejected by all and wind up attending the guaranteed admission school. Luckily that did not happen.
Looking back now, with everything we’ve learned from CC, his list was actually more like 10 reach, 3 match, 1 safety. D22’s list will look much different I think.
Son #1: 1 school (ED, got in)
Son #2: 2 schools
Son #3: 4 schools
Also two years ago.
DS2 applied to 2 in-state as safeties and 14 OOS privates. Of the 14, 3 were LACs and the rest 11 National Universities.
It’s rather difficult to classify these 14 OOSs in the categories of safeties, matches and reaches, since most of them practiced “holistic” admissions. Strictly by the academic qualifications, they all seemed matches, but of course that’s not how it works in today’s holism that throws much fog into the picture. Given that 3 LACs my DS2 applied to were all ranked within top 5 and 11 National Universities within top 20 based on the USNWR rankings in their respective categories, one could say they were all reaches based on their selectivity rates alone.
Based on the results, all 3 LACs and 4 National Universities were matches out of the 14 OOSs total.
Obviously, it takes a lot more hard work and additional stress placed on the applicant to deal with in excess of 10+ colleges, especially if submitting arts supplement, as well, as we did. As a FA dependent family, though, our strategy was to cast a wide net as possibly can handle, because not all colleges offer the same FA package. Of the 7 OOS colleges admitted to, they all differed in FAs by significant amounts. And this is where the strategy of casting a wide net really worked for us: we had a “luxury” of picking and choosing the most “fit” college with the most generous FA from the 50% admissions yield.
I said it worked “for us,” i.e., I’m NOT here to recommend that every family cast a wide net as we did. It’s up to each family to know what the applicant can handle and willing to put up with, the family financial circumstances, as well as the chances based on the applicant’s overall qualifications. We carefully selected 14 OOSs based on “holistic” chances, i.e., the combination of DS2’s academic qualifications and his EC accomplishments. We of course chose these based on the “fit” factor but with varying degrees of fitness, that is, some were better fit than others. The ultimate balance act is the best match up between the fitness and the FA. That’s the goal.
D16 applied to 6: 1 reach, 3 matches, 2 safeties. Accepted at all and attending one of the matches because the reach was too expensive ( we are full pay).
S19 applied to 5: 2 reach, 1 match, 2 safeties. Accepted at all and currently attending a reach which is our instate flagship so also the most cost effective.
Oldest: 1 reach, ED (got in and loved it). Had others queued up that were mostly reaches too, with a couple of likelies.
Middle: 1 reach, ED (got in and loved it). Had also applied EA successfully; had others ready to go that were a mix of reach and match. NO SAFETY because of the successful EA, where he would have been happy to go.
Caboose: 2 EAs so far, not sure how to categorize them other than likelies, for him; about to pull the level on 1 reach, ED.
Several more are queued up and ready to go if the ED doesn’t succeed; they’re a mix of reach and match.
Current 2020 child has 1 reach, 1 match, and 6 safeties, but with no merit money/scholarships he could only go to the 1 match and 2 of the safeties… He may apply to 1 more reach that would affordable down the line.
D20 is doing 1ED, 2EA, and those EAs were only because I pushed her to apply. All are matches.
She wasn’t interested in prestige, just wanted somewhere that felt comfortable. She’s already gotten an acceptance at one EA and if the ED falls through (very doubtful), she may add a few more RDs.
It might be different if I had a child that was actually interested in and excited about the process. She just wants it done!
We are in an unusual situation because my daughter is applying only to BFA programs that require an audition. So in terms of dance, there are really no safeties–though of course some programs have a reputation that they are harder to get into. But honestly there’s no data and who really knows.
- Probably 12. She has auditioned for a few programs that she will probably not complete the academic application for. I doubt we would be casting such a wide net except for the uncertainty of auditions.
- All are safeties academically. Maybe a couple are matches? We tried to pick schools that we thought were a match for dance, and that seems to be the case so far, with 8/10 admits in dance so far.
- This is our first rodeo. The audition aspect has made it particularly harrowing, but so far, so good!
We applied to ten, which was the maximum permitted by my S’s school. He applied to two schools EA, probably a match and a safety, and was admitted to both. With those acceptances in hand, the rest of the list was pretty reachy, as he would have been very happy with one of the EA schools. This was our first time around the block, and we live overseas. It might be that if we had access to Naviance, etc., we might have felt comfortable with a shorter list, but we felt safer applying to a broad range of schools, each of which might have evaluated our son differently - kids are more than the sum of their stats. He did write a lot of essays, but that reflects primarily the fact that just a few of the schools he applied to required multiple essays (sometimes 4 or 5 of varying lengths) in addition to the Common App essay. Other schools required only the Common App essay. The school he ultimately chose asked for only the Common App essay initially and then later offered the opportunity to write an optional “Why X College” essay. It’s important to look at the essay requirements of the individual schools to avoid getting overloaded. If a school is not a high priority and asks for 5 essays, you might decide to give it a pass.
I am in round 2 right now with my senior - I had a senior last year as well.
He really narrowed his list down and really only wanted to apply to five schools, which were all safeties plus the UCs which range from Safety, Target and Reach.
Based on our experience with my older, I thought narrowing his list down and reducing the number of reaches (my older did not get into any reaches, he got into half his targets and all of his safeties – and ended up picking a safety).
With this kid, we are not so concerned about ‘ranking’ and if it is a target or reach or whatever, just want to pick the best school for him. We visited CU Boulder and he LOVED it. It is a safety but might be the right school for him due to a variety of factors.