<p>I am having trouble narrowing down my college list. I want to start my application in august before I get busy with school and other activities. </p>
<p>Right now I am interested in about 25 different schools. I have visited 3 already, and I will visit about 12 more within the next month. What do I do if I like all the schools I have visited?</p>
<p>Do any high school graduates have any advice for the class of 2015? How did you narrow down your list? Did you apply to different sorts of schools, or were they all pretty similar. If I want to apply to 10 schools, is that too many?</p>
<p>Why don’t you wait until after you’ve visited the schools? You might very well find that the list will narrow naturally. My son visited about 18 colleges before applying. He eliminated some from his list, and added others. He applied to fifteen colleges. I still don’t understand why he applied to a few of them, but it was his choice, and five of them had free applications. You might fall madly in love with one school and decide to apply there ED. If you plan on taking another round of tests, your scores might change enough (for the better, we hope) that you can remove one or two super-safeties from the bottom of your list. My son applied to a very diverse group of colleges. They ranged in size from under 1000 students to over 20,000. His one stipulation was that he wanted to go somewhere outside of the Northeast, where he has spent his first eighteen years. </p>
<p>I agree…wait until you visit schools. You may be able to eliminate a type of school you don’t love (by size, location, or any other attribute you find you want/don’t want). Or you may find individual schools that you don’t feel are a good fit. Other than that, one idea is to look at your reach, target, and safety schools and try to find a good distribution between them (ex. if you have ten safety schools on your list, pick your favorites and eliminate the others etc.). Another idea is to see if you can apply to any schools EA or rolling and if you get in before December you may be able to cut down your application list. And my kids applied to fewer schools, but IMO ten applications is not unreasonable.</p>
<p>Have you already trimmed the list in the following ways?</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Affordability. If the net price calculator indicates that need-based aid is insufficient, and there are no in-reach merit scholarships that can make the school affordable, you can remove the school from your list. (Also, if you need to get a merit scholarship to make a school affordable, make the reach/match/safety assessment on the merit scholarship, not admission.)</p></li>
<li><p>Academic offerings that cover the subjects that you are interested in and might major in.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>As far as number of schools to apply to, start with safety school(s), so that you are 100% assured of admission and 100% assured of affordability. Of course, they must be school(s) that you like and are otherwise academically appropriate. Any number of other schools can then be added to your list, although having too many can mean too many application fees, essays, etc…</p>
<p>Run the net price calculator with your parents. If any school is way out of their affordability range with no hope of any aid (merit or need), take the school off the list. </p>
<p>I agree with ucb - start with your safeties. If any safety has rolling admissions, do those first. Once you get accepted to a couple of schools you will be happy to attend, apply to however many you desire.</p>
<p>I’d start with finances. For example, my D and I are not even visiting Northwestern. It’s a grand school but insanely expensive and their financial aid is very anemic. So there’s no reason to even chance falling in love with the place…it’s not happening…</p>
<p>First of course, research and visit the schools. Once you visit a few schools you’ll get a feel for what type of campus/school you like best (urban, suburban, country, large, small, etc.).
2.) think about what you want to do. Make sure you go to a school that can provide you with the necessary opportunities. If you don’t know what you want to do, a large school or liberal arts school with lots of majors will probably be best.
3.) Be picky! College is a service industry and colleges don’t make money without students so put yourself first. For me the things I was pickiest about were: campus architecture, campus layout, friendliness of students, school spirit, and quality of education. Find what you want and don’t settle.
4.) Price. Don’t go to a school that will put you above the national average in debt which is about 30k.
5.) Understand your abilities. Don’t apply to too many “reaches” apply to maybe 3 or 4 reaches 2 or 3 matches and 1 or 2 safeties. </p>
<p>All of the above posters have given you good advice. Being picky is very important. Price, location, strength in major all are. Do you have too many reaches or safeties on your list? Have you done enough research into all of them? Visiting is very important, if it is too far or you don’t really have the motivation to visit that may be a red flag already. I decided through visiting the actual college itself and stopping myself from putting colleges on the list last minute (without extra research and “just because my friends were applying.” Fit was very important as well - don’t go to a college you might hate just because of the name. Good luck!</p>
<p>Here’s how I sorted mine: I determined the maximum number of applications I would be able to comfortably finish by one month before the deadline (for me, it was 14- but I think I miscalculated because if I could go back I’d just do 8).</p>
<p>Start with the safeties. What’s your worst-case scenario? Keep adding schools (usually with 45%+ acceptance rates or automatic admission) where you can get in until you’re 95% sure that you’ll get into a good program at a good school with an affordable price. Don’t stop adding safeties until you’re comfortable with the idea of not getting into anything above a safety- so multiple safeties is usually a good idea.</p>
<p>Then evaluate your safeties. Determine what would be an improvement upon them. (If you’re in Texas or California, there might not be much). You might add too many schools here, so if that happens:</p>
<p>Start with the matches. It’s a good idea to “tier” them so you’re applying to one 30% acceptance school, one 25%, one 20%, etc.; just add enough until you’re 70-80% sure that you’ll end up somewhere better than your safeties without shelling out too much cash (if your safeties are something like UT or a UC, this is going to be tough since there aren’t that many matches better than UT or the middle UC’s). Once you meet that criterion- or just give up due to the lack of matches, fill up the remainder of your list with reaches that you’d be ecstatic to go to.</p>