<p>My dd is about to start her senior year. Wondering how many colleges/universities your children will apply to this fall?</p>
<p>I’m going to be a senior and i plan on applying to between 5-7 schools. However, one of my friends plans on applying to 10 so its all your preference. With the cost of the applications being so high now i would try to limit it.</p>
<p>For some 3 is enough. Others may apply to a dozen ore more. A lot depends upon financing. Many families can’t afford $50,000+ per year… so they chase need based aid or merit scholarships (usually not both). Then they compare acceptances/offers. </p>
<p>My son planned to apply to 8 schools. Then at the end he added a 9th based on my merit scholarship research - that school gave him one of his best deals financially.</p>
<p>The number varies. Each of my kids started with 10 but each ended up applying to 5 after EA/ED decisions culled the list. </p>
<p>Try to calculate the probability of attending each schools. If you rank order the preferences, its the probability of getting in times the probability of getting rejected by more preferable choices. I would eliminate schools with a probability of attending less than 5% unless it has the potential to be a first choice. </p>
<p>Use Naviance if your school provides it to estimate the chances. </p>
<p>You need more if you need merit aid, you need less if a favorite school is a match (40-90%), you need one if the favorite school is a safety.</p>
<p>5-8 should do the trick if the list is researched and thought out. Some kids can get away with 3 or even 1 if they know they will be accepted and can afford it as in a true safety. More than 10 and you are struggling with managing multiple versions of FAFSA, spending the costs on test scores and application fees and finaid forms when Profile colleges are involved not to mention managing the personal statements. Seniors are busy kids without even considering the time needed to do a good job with college and scholarship applications.</p>
<p>My daughter applied to 6 with one being her stretch school that we didn’t think she would get into- she didn’t. She did have a lot to choose from.</p>
<p>Another thing to keep in mind is that not all applications are the same amount of work. Some schools have a fairly simple process, but it seems like many of the uber-reach schools have a lot more involved. D applied to 9 schools. The only uber-reach was UNC-CH, which had extra essays, recommendations, etc. That one was an uber-pita (and a rejection). </p>
<p>Applying to all 8 ivy league schools would be a different ball game than applying to 8 easy-app schools.</p>
<p>Yes, and throughout the years I’ve never, ever seen one parent or student post “I applied to 12 schools, or 15 schools or 20 schools and I’m darn glad I did.” But we do have a post or two from kids that applied to 10 WRONG colleges…so do the research before the students fingers hit submit.</p>
<p>Max 9. 3 reaches, 3 matches, & 3 safeties.</p>
<p>Agree with momofthreeboys - do the research! So much info is available online, from reviews to price calculators, that it is easy to narrow down the list. Also, if you have one or two good, affordable EA (or rolling) safeties, that helps. </p>
<p>My D applied to 7, a wide range in cost, size, location, selectivity. It worked out well for her. She is the type who would probably do well anywhere. </p>
<p>My S is applying to either 1 or 2 (both rolling). He has very specific criteria, needs lots of personal attention, and can’t go too far from home for medical reasons. He will be done with college admissions before senior year begins - hurrah!</p>
<p>So basically, it depends on an individual’s circumstances and the time and money they have and want to spend on the process.</p>
<p>D accepted to 6 out of 8 but found that she was only seriously interested in 2 of them.</p>
<p>^^ quite frankly that is generally the case I think or at least in my experience. S1 applied to 4 only really wanted the one he attended…the other 3 were me being a worry wart with the first. He could have been one and done. But who knew since it was the “first.” S2 applied to 5 but only 2 were ones he really wanted and 1 of those 2 was a big reach. The other 3 were all me encouraging him to have some choice if he changed his mind. S3 applied to 9 but all were engineering schools and he is attending one that he is OK with and there was only 2 he really wasn’t sure he’d want to attend but it was his safeties. His acceptances were all over the place, surprisingly rejected at less selective programs and accepted at more selective programs. He knew engineering schools were abit of a crapshoot for him. Sometimes major can make a difference in how many colleges are needed.</p>
<p>I have two kids, who applied to a total of 3 colleges between them.</p>
<p>Kid #1 applied to our state university, which was where he wanted to go, and to a less selective school that he used as a safety.</p>
<p>Kid #2 applied ED and was accepted by her ED school. She partially completed applications to 6 other schools but never had to finish the process with any of them.</p>
<p>It doesn’t get much easier than that.</p>
<p>Too bad the same approach doesn’t work for jobs and graduate programs.</p>
<p>I think it is an individualized decision. For kids with their sights set on a top school, casting a wide net can be an effective strategy it seems. Over and over I have seen kids apply to a bunch of reach schools and only get into one or two. What if they had only applied to three? Would they still have had one or two acceptances? Odds say no…</p>
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<p>Yes. In an extreme case, someone can apply to 9 UCs and 23 CSUs for a total of 32 applications with the work of 2 applications (though with 32 application fees, but only 2 sets of test score fees).</p>
<p>Probably something similar applies to other states with several state universities that share applications.</p>
<p>But that answer to the original question can be anywhere from 1 (if the top choice is a solid safety) to a significantly larger number (depending on how may schools are preferable to the safety).</p>
<p>OP - Sometimes in CO the students apply to their favorite state schools early, on rolling-admissions. If they are accepted in October they skip the whole college admissions hoopla. Then they enjoy senior year. On these CC threads, that is not so common.</p>
<p>The optimal number of applications varies tremendously from student to student. For example, many students get into their top choice via early EA/ED, so they only need to apply to 1 college. I got into an upper choice via non-binding EA, so later on I only needed to apply to the 4 colleges I favored over the EA admission. </p>
<p>If there are no EA/ED/rolling acceptances, then it’s a balance of how important a particular college is, chance of admission, and cost/time/effort of additional apps. A 2010 NACAC survey found that 77% of 4-year college students submitted 3+ apps, and 25% submitted 7+. At the current rate of increase, both values would be ~5% higher today.</p>
<p>DS-2011 applied to 10 schools. </p>
<p>DD-2014 is still narrowing her list and will be making final visits and interviews next week. She will apply to 1 ED and possibly 1 or 2 EA schools. She will prepare the balance of the application materials but will not apply unless the ED/EA apps are rejections or deferrals. Her max will be in the 8 to 10 range.</p>
<p>C’mon, really? 6 schools? 8? 9? Sure, if need-based aid is not an issue. But if it is, then be aware that different schools can calculate need very differently . . . and even when the calculation is the same (or close to it), award packages can still vary significantly. What’s the expected student contribution? How much is she expected to borrow? How much work study is offered? These numbers are important . . . and each package is going to be different.</p>
<p>There are only a handful of schools that meet full need without loans, and even those schools can have dramatically different assessments of family need. Once you add in schools that only meet full need for some of their students, the offer could range from generous to downright stingy. And, yes, you can try to predict some of this in advance, but with schools that don’t meet full need, you won’t know for sure until you see the offer.</p>
<p>If a student is looking for significant need-based aid, the more options he or she has in the spring, the better.</p>
<p>1 safety (admissions and financial)</p>
<p>1 reach</p>
<p>3 matches</p>
<p>If you are a high stat kid for whom many highly competitive schools seem to fit, you should apply to many more because the “holistic” review is difficult to predict. JMHO.</p>