<p>I'm really trying to whittle down my list of colleges, but I'm finding it difficult! I want a good mix of safeties, matches, and reaches. I'm pretty indecisive, so when March/April comes around, I want to have a variety of options. Would you say 15 schools is too many to apply to?</p>
<p>Yes. There actually has been some research that students who apply to, I think, more than 8 colleges end up getting into fewer colleges than do students who apply to 8 or less. That probably is because the more colleges one applies to, the less the chance that you've carefully thought about your selections, and that you've been able to personalize the applications. Students who have to interview at many colleges, also are likely to get burned out or to get irritated or bored with the process, and that hurts them.</p>
<p>Colleges are more likely to reject students who seem disinterested or uninformed about the college or who appear to be applying at random.</p>
<p>If you start early enough and feel like you can handle applying to 15 schools, and put the same amount of effort into each as you would if you applied to only say 8, then 15 is fine. However, northstarmom has a very good point. If you find 15 applications is too straining then I would suggest trimming it down as much as possible. Good luck!!</p>
<p>i decided to apply to 20 schools and i didnt find it was too hard. you really have to organize and use things like checklists in order to make sure you send everything to each school: recs,essays, transcripts, FAFSA(huge struggle to send to each school), and etc. at the end i was accepted to 17 of my schools and i was happy i had such a a huge selection. though many would disagree i would say applying to alot of schools is a good idea</p>
<p>You are crazy. Who has the time and money to apply to 20 friggen schools. That is ridiculous, plain and simple.</p>
<p>With the common app, it is quite easy to apply to as many schools as you like. You can recycle essays in most cases as well.</p>
<p>well it didnt take too long at all to apply so please do me a favor and dont call me crazy. i actually had a social life and I was still able to do it. its really not that hard</p>
<p>In all likelihood, I will be applying to around 15 schools this fall. While I obviously can't offer you any "I did it and it was no problem" anecdotes at present, I do feel that it is not unreasonable to apply to this many schools. I would like to echo what other posters have said by advising you not to apply to this many schools if you don't think you can handle it. In that case, you may wind up so fragmented that all of your applications will suffer. The following is my belief: If you really think it's too many, it probably is. However, if you are just worried because you are applying to twice as many colleges as your friends are, then just don't worry about it.</p>
<ol>
<li>I have never met anyone who thought applying to eight or more schools, in hindsight, was a good idea.<br></li>
<li>Although the Common App thing sounds lucrative, every school has its own little extra form and most have another essay as well.</li>
<li>You're going to have to narrow your list down eventually anyway as you can only attend one school, and if you are accepted to too many schools you are set for a VERY stressed April come springtime! My best friend applied to twenty and was accepted at eighteen... not a pretty situation at all!</li>
</ol>
<p>Lmao ^. I'm applying to 10 for sure, with 6 additional "mystery-up-in-the-air" schools. I'm sending them out in waves (lmao! I sound like a villain) of 3-4 so I can personalize and fill out everything to the T. By the end of November everything WILL be sent out and I can rest easy. Or uneasy. Whichever.</p>
<p>I don't think it's too much. Go for it!</p>
<p>I have also heard that eight colleges is a crucial number, any more than that and quality of applications decreases.</p>
<p>ill probably apply to 9 or 10</p>
<p>goodness gracious yes thats too many. Well thats what I think. If you really feel you won't be comfortable without applying to all 15 (why so many safeties?) AND you're financially capable to do so, I guess then you're OK. Geez. I don't know how you would do it, I'm applying to 4 and think thats daunting enough. lol</p>
<p>Haha, thanks for all the replies! I'm still going to try and cut it down a little bit, but I think I'll be okay. =)</p>
<p>Picture this: It is April. You have been accepted to all 15 schools. Could you really make a choice between 15 schools before May 1? What's that you say? There are a group of core schools on your list that would be your top choices? Consider applying to those schools only, with perhaps 2 safeties thrown in the mix.</p>
<p>If you're going to apply to alot, have an abundance of reaches/high reachers, rather than an abundance of matches/safeties.</p>
<p>yeah, I applied to 15. it's certainly doable. I applied everywhere because I needed aid. many schools didn't give aid or not as much as I wanted. by applying to many different schools using the essay recycling method, I was able to choose a school that gave me the most aid.</p>
<p>I applied to 11 universities in the US, 2 in Canada and 5 (although it was a common application) in the UK. I got into 16 of the 18 universities, Cambridge and UNC being my only rejections.</p>
<p>It is certainly doable. The hard part was chosing the school. Can you imagine having to chose between over 10 of the World's top 50 universities? It took me over 4 weeks to decide.</p>
<p>I applied to 12 schools and was only rejected from one. However, I wish I wouldn't have applied to so many. I was trying to be safe by making sure I'd have enough schools such that it would be a horrible turn of fate in order to get rejected from every single one. </p>
<p>If you only apply to 3 schools and get rejected from them all, you'll wish you applied to more. But if you apply to 20 and get into 17, you'll wonder why you wasted the money. It's just a question of how much money and time you're willing to spend, and how many schools you think you have a chance at.</p>
<p>I think 8-12 is the right amount. I inititally applied to seven and really wished I had applied to a couple more that I eliminated without knowing enough about. I was set on a school I didnt get into, and skipped some reaches I would have loved. I ended up transferring to a reach I wish I had applied to inititally.</p>
<p>I'm thinking of applying to around 12, with 2 major reaches, 4 reaches, 4 matches, and 2 safeties.</p>