This post more so correlates with college applications as opposed to Questbridge, so I decided to post this in the college selection forum. This also doesn’t relate to me, as I am only a junior, but I am only asking out of curiosity. I know it is discouraged for students to apply to 10+ schools because of the time and money that does into the process. However, if a student applies through Questbridge, which grants free applications to all partner colleges, is it still discouraged for this person to apply to 10+ schools because, assuming that more than half of the applications are through QB, the application fees would be very low. What about 15-20? They would still probably be paying for applications for state schools and other schools (if applying RD), but it surely wouldn’t be as expensive as paying $75 for every application! Thanks for any answers!
If you play your cards right and choose colleges that specifically gave you fee waivers (in email) or don’t demand application fees from you, you can still apply to 9-10 schools and not have to pay as much. I applied to 9 schools and only paid for 3. The others were free and a few of those free ones were from fee waivers.
I see nothing wrong with doing it as long as you actually qualify for Questbridge and you’re genuinely just applying to colleges. I think it wouldn’t be okay if the person in question was involving himself with Questbridge just to get some discounts.
It isn’t really if you are Questbridge Finalist or not. It is about applying it is free or not, yes? But I think you still have to pay for test scores to be sent and also the CSS Profile, most QB schools are Profile schools. Sure it is easier to do if it is free. But there is still a lot of time that needs to be spent for the many supplements you will have to fill out. I don’t know how to determine what is “okay” or not. I do know of someone who applied to “too” many by anyone’s count, 46 I was told, and spend a lot of weekends doing fly-ins and couldn’t even go to them all. I think the SAT scores were on the transcripts and most schools accepted that. They actually couldn’t go to the top school because of cost, but went with a full ride college. I do not know why they applied to so many, I don’t think they tried all tippy top schools just to see or anything but I might be wrong about that. I know there were tons of LAC.
I think sometimes people are really delusional about where they are going to get into and forget to pay more attention to the likely ones or especially the safety ones. So that’s why they say don’t apply to too many, it is better to be more realistic and spend the energy well on a lower number so you do a better job on your match and reaches.
QB NCM is like a ranked ED application, so it is entirely possible that the applicant can wait until the decision before deciding whether to apply RD to many other schools. However, s/he may still want to apply early to other schools with early deadlines (particularly if an intended safety has an early deadline to apply for a needed scholarship). For the RD schools with later deadlines than the QB NCM notification, s/he can prepare the applications and essays, but not submit or pay any fees or send any test reports unless all of the QB NCM schools reject him/her.
Why do you care what other students are dong?
I think it’s less about money and more about the amount of time you have to spend on each application. If all 10 of those schools require essays and perhaps supplemental statements, then you’re spending a lot of time writing unless you can repurpose some of those essays. If the trade-off of time and energy is worth it to have a shot at a wider range of schools, particularly if they are free, I would just go for it.
I just think 15-20 is too much personally.
Apply to as many as you can: 1) afford, and 2) put quality effort in on the applications.
Be aware that some of the partner schools require supplemental essays that will take up a lot of time and that many will not match if your EFC is not 0. I think there is a risk in thinking that - if you select 10 schools to match - you are guaranteed to get matched to at least one. The downside is that your applications might not get your best effort and you will be wondering if you could have done more if you don’t get in.
Personally I applied to 18 schools, several Ivy, several comparable schools (Duke Vandy, Stanford, etc) some other private schools like Tulane, some state uni’s like UNC, UT Austin, South Carolina, Cal, etc.
I will say, I didn’t use a single app waiver (except Tulane was free) so all of the financial burden that that many apps (and don’t forget test scores, it adds up) was luckily for me, swallowed by my family.
But after talking about everything, the 2,500 dollars or so we’ve spent are nothing in comparison to the amount I’ve saved, because by giving myself options… I already have a couple full rides to choose from.
That being said, if financials are not an issue, or QB helps them become less of an issue I would encourage others to apply to 10+ schools on two conditions. One, you don’t mind writing. I’ve written upwards of 30 essays, and while yes after a while you can take bits and pieces and rearrange to work magic, it’s still a lot of work, time and energy. The other thing, is interviews. So far I have interviewed for Harvard, Duke, Princeton, Rice, Yale, Penn, Stanford, Vanderbilt and I have more coming up. Scheduling has been somewhat convoluted but for the most part manageable. All of the interviews have been fairly flexible and I have no fears of speaking publicly or one on one in any situation. If you can handle all of that, and don’t let yuourself fall prey to anxiety at any point, applying to a myriad of colleges can give you a much better range of options and schools to compare side by side when it finally comes time to make a decision.