<p>yah like the poster above me hinted at, if you apply to that many schools, you’re going to have weak essays, especially if you haven’t started yet. Stick to 12.</p>
<p>Cut it down to 10-12.</p>
<p>No. You should cut it down to 8… XD
Well good luck. I highly doubt you will get rejected to 25 schools. XD</p>
<p>The OP will apply to however many schools he wants. He had this question answered before he posted it. Stop giving him attention, you won’t change his mind.</p>
<ol>
<li>You realize that you can only go to one, correct? </li>
<li>Have you ever heard the statement that goes something like Jack of all trades or king of one…idk the exact phrase.
The point is, if you apply to 25 schools, your applications and supplements are not going to be as good as if you put a lot more quality time into one.
I’m not saying apply to one school. Applying to 25 is absurd, and is expensive and stretching yourself way too thin.
You have to list on your application every single school you are applying to. That really doesn’t show colleges that you care about them, or that you have put any effort into thinking about what you want in a school, or that you want to go there for a special reason. Colleges want to see that kids too the time to narrow down their list, and that their college is on their because you have put effort into thinking about why you would truly want to be there.</li>
</ol>
<p>I’m sorry, that was harsh and I realize it. But I truly do not believe that you have taken the time to narrow down your list.
Maybe narrow it down to 15.</p>
<p>The one thing that’s important to remember:
If you got into X school, would you be happy and excited to go there and live there for 4 years? I remember the summer going into my senior year, talking to my dad about the schools I was thinking of applying to. I mentioned Cornell. He asked me if I got into Cornell and another school on the list (that was not an Ivy, but still a pretty well-ranked school), if I would go to Cornell. I shrugged. “I dunno.” He pointed out that I shouldn’t apply just for the sake of applying, and so I crossed it off my list.</p>
<p>Apply to places you love, to which you can express that love on paper through well defined reasons. Don’t waste your time going for the spaghetti method - throwing it on the wall and seeing what sticks.</p>
<p>very insightful and useful post</p>
<p>I had been urging my kid to apply to 20-25 schools. Now I see that his chances would not be significantly improved. So thank you.</p>
<p>If you get time, however, what would be the stats if he only applied to 5 or 6?</p>
<p>What would be the the proper number to apply to by applying your analysis?</p>
<p>
Except college admissions isn’t probability driven. They don’t put the “qualified” (subjective and not how they look at it) pile into a randomization program.</p>
<p>If you need financial aid at all… keep in mind that you can only send the FAFSA to 10 schools.</p>
<p>
After it’s sent to the first 10, you can edit the list and send it to more.</p>
<p>I applied to 13 schools and I didn’t realize how much work that was until I actually did it. When I was done, I <em>only</em> (lol) had 6 acceptances, and 4 that I was seriously considering. Even that decision was EXTREMELY difficult.</p>
<p>What’s oddest about this original post is that it includes schools that have very different ways of educating students. For example, Brown has no breadth requirements while Columbia has a rigorous required core curriculum. Hence they attract different types of students. </p>
<p>Now I suppose it’s possible that the OP really doesn’t care which curricular path is preferred or in fact would thrive thrive equally in either atmosphere. But it’s more likely that the OP simply hasn’t through what kinds of schools ze is more likely to thrive in, hence the looooooong list. </p>
<p>At some point once needs to narrow things down, and I suppose that one could decide to postpone all that pruning until the April decision month . . . for most people, though, applying to 25 schools is a way of indulging indecision and postponing some hard thinking about what one wants.</p>
<p>If there are 25 schools that you’d honestly WANT to go to should you be accepted, then no, 25 is not too many. Don’t limit yourself.</p>
<p>“What’s oddest about this original post is that it includes schools that have very different ways of educating students. For example, Brown has no breadth requirements while Columbia has a rigorous required core curriculum. Hence they attract different types of students.”</p>
<p>I was actually between Columbia and Brown for transfer and legitimately loved both curriculums. I don’t think I’m the first person who’s been in that position either.</p>
<p>For money, if your parents are ok with it, then I don’t think there’s anything we can say on a message board that will get you to change your mind about the cost.</p>
<p>On the other hand, 25 supplements are A LOT to do. It’s not whether you will spend too much time to get them done, it’s whether you decide to get them done at all.</p>
<p>floridadad</p>
<p>The formula I used is e=1-(x^n) – where </p>
<p>e is the probability of getting into at least one school
x is the probability of getting rejected by specific school and
n is the number of schools to which you apply</p>
<p>DoloresEdd – of course it isn’t random. Well, it is to a degree, we’re dealing with human beings, so how one will view an essay or a recommendation will vary from person to person or from day to day (essentially random from the point of view of an applicant).</p>
<p>I agree though that if 5 schools have somewhat different criteria i.e., what they’re looking for in essays), the unknown percentage of getting accepted to any specific school will be different from the others. But since we don’t know the actual criteria for any of the schools and can’t calculate these percentages, I think that it effectively boils down to randomness – when I have time, I’ll model this (more because it’s an interesting mathematical question – and easy to calculate too!! than anything else).</p>
<p>Of course, if all schools were looking for exactly the same thing (and there was no randomness), then either you get accepted to many or none at all – in which case 5 or 6 applications would probably be plenty.</p>
<p>In any event, I think the model is a useful tool for demonstrating why under the current regime there’s little utility to applying to more than 10 -15 schools.</p>
<p>
I agree that colleges are looking for different things. I got accepted at one reach, rejected by another (equivalent, ranked slightly lower), and waitlisted by a university considered a “backup college” by the people at those two reaches, so it may often seem random, but my point was that it isn’t. Of course, if you have a serious mismatch in SAT/GPA (I did), it seems more random than usual, since different schools handle that much differently.</p>
<p>And speaking of test scores; OP, you should really retake your 29 ACT, if you’re applying to all these top 20 schools. Otherwise, you’ll be wasting over a thousand dollars.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>There’s more to life than utility my friend. Your math is obviously flawed, but that’s a whole different issue.</p>
<p>Regardless of how many colleges you apply to, you can only attend one of them.</p>
<p>Do the research about which colleges are good fits for you before the admissions process, not after. It will save you the significant time and effort associated with writing essays, completing applications, etc.</p>
<p>Yes, it makes sense to apply to multiple schools so that you can be sure of actually getting into some colleges you’d like to attend. However, if you really are an “over-achiever” and actually justified in applying to the top schools you named, this should not be a concern for you. Even if it is an issue, 25 is an excessive number of schools to apply to, and simply indicates that you’re picking the wrong schools.</p>
<p>If you are at a public school, will your over-extended guidance counselor, along with the sole guidance office secretary who must send out your 25 transcripts, blow up? In otherwords, YOU may think you shold apply to 25 schools, and indeed this may be a wise strategy, but administratively HOW will you get your guidance office to support you? You may want to trickle out the balance of your requests over the Fall, as otherwise you risk the guidance counselor getting well and truly p*****d and giving you a bad rec. This is the biggest hurdle I see to getting this done. Outside of just checking off the boxed for the usual State schools, virtually all public high schools hate any added pain when it comes to college apps, and you’re about to inflict major pain that could redound to your own embarrassement.</p>