<p>There is one student at my kids' school who applied to over 30 schools this year. A couple of DS'14's senior friends applied to over 20. Is this typical? It seems like it would get extremely expensive in addition to being a lot of work. This is all new to me and I am trying to brace myself for next year. Is this a necessary strategy?</p>
<p>It costs money (unless the kid somehow got waiver, and a few schools will waive fees), but with common app it is not that much work.</p>
<p>It is not necessary, nor do most students do so. I’ve seen it blamed on the common app a lot, and that it’s part of the college rat race where it’s so much harder to get into college than it “used to be”. So it becomes a vicious circle where kids apply to more and more colleges, college acceptance rates go down more and more, so kids apply to more and more colleges…</p>
<p>BUT, my D and all of her friends, from the valedictorian to the kid barely passing, applied to only a handful-and they got into most of them. How was this possible, when we’ve all heard that you must, must, MUST tour 30 schools and apply to 20 or more?? The answer is simple-they applied to schools that they could afford and where they had a decent shot at getting in and would get the aid they needed. It’s really that simple.</p>
<p>No one NEEDS to apply to 30 schools, and I daresay they probably wouldn’t even find 30 schools to be a good fit. But the rat race demands it, so they think. Lest you think I’m talking out of my hat-D was a decent student-slightly above average grades, a couple of AP classes, no hooks, EC that were good but not great. She applied to 6 schools, got into 5, deferred at one. Two were state flagships, one in-state, one OOS. Two were small, private LACs, and one was a state directional. It was the in-state flagship where she was deferred. She used the common app for 3, I believe. A friend of hers applied to one school only, and OOS flagship, and got in, and went. Simple. The val went to our state flagship, lives at home, is now in grad school.
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<p>Our kids applied to 10 and 9 schools this year (twins). That was a lot. Half of them were on the common app, all but 2 had free online/common app applications. Even with that though, sending test scores to 30+ schools is expensive!! We cast a wide net, but not THAT wide. I can’t imagine trying to keep up with the paperwork for all of those schools. I would say that the kids’ friends, for the most part, applied to 3-5 schools for those not applying to any lottery schools and 5-10 schools for those that had more than one lottery school on their list.</p>
<p>That is absolutely ridiculous. And on top of it shows a total lack of focus and research on the part of the student. More unfortunate is that some adult who should know better didn’t stop this person. There is no rat race to the top that even requires that many college applications. Personally I don’t think people should even be allowed to apply to more than 10 and most kids can get it done in 5-8 and still include their financial safety or a in-state public, but that’s just my opinion.</p>
<p>I have never heard anyone say that you must must must apply to 20 or more schools, here on CC or in real life!</p>
<p>Everyone’s situation is different. I can’t imagine why it would be necessary to apply to 30, but there is no magic number good for everyone. I have said on CC many times - one D applied 7, my S to 3, and my youngest D to 13. I thought the 13 was a bit of overkill, but half of those are extremely selective. She is a very intellectual type kid, who would like to attend a top LAC, so she applied to several. My S was not interested in highly selective schools, so no need to apply to many. Oldest D was accepted to 5 of her 7, so she had good choices.</p>
<p>I do feel sorry for the guidance dept secretaries though, submitting all the forms. I guess the common app makes their lives easier too.</p>
<p>At our high school, for at least the past ten years, guidance counselors have been cautioning students who want to attend one of the most selective (“reach for anyone”) universities that admissions to these schools have become increasingly capricious, even for students who fall in the top 25% of admitted students and have what seem to be good “hooks.” They have gone from recommending six carefully chosen schools to conceding that a dozen might be a good idea, to suggesting (a few years ago, when D was applying) that even twenty might not be outrageous. Not sure what they would say about thirty, though.</p>
<p>Students who need financial aid, especially as tuition is increasingly out of sync with famiy income or expected starting salaries, might also want to apply to large numbers of schools in order to compare merit and need based offers in order to limit or even eliminate loans, as will students with lopsided profiles or issues (academic or disciplinary) that might present red flags to some universities.</p>
<p>Absolutely NOT a necessary strategy! And in my opinion, a waste of money and a strategy that makes it very difficult for a student come April.</p>
<p>A 30-school list implies to me that the applicant has not done his or her homework, college-info-wise. One of my favorite college books is entitled “Eight First Choices” by Joyce S. Mitchell, the premise of which is that if you do enough research on colleges and enough self-assessment, you should be able to narrow your list to about 8 schools, at any of which you would be happy (and hopefully financially able) to attend. I wholeheartedly endorse this premise.</p>
<p>My kid applied to 9 schools, but really only considered four of them his top choices – the others were financial ‘safeties’ to a certain degree. It was still a tough choice for him in the end. Imagine the choice facing a kid who applies to 30! Let’s say he gets into half of them. He still has to choose between 15 schools. How many of them will he be able to visit (or revisit) before May 1? Is he THEN going to start really assessing which is the best fit for him? Should have been done much sooner.</p>
<p>Do NOT feel that your child will have to go down this road. If he or she, with your help, makes a balanced and realistic list of schools, maybe with a couple of reaches but mostly schools that he/she likes and that you are likely to be able to afford, there is no need, in my opinion, to apply to a number of schools in the double digits. </p>
<p>Sometimes a kid makes a list, and then the parent says, “Well you should also apply to all the Ivies for the heck of it, because they give good financial aid / because a big name helps open doors / etc etc etc.” This can lead to a huge college list, but is also (in my opinion) an unproductive strategy. All those schools are very different from each other, and there is no kid for whom all of the them would be a good fit.</p>
<p>Good luck, and don’t let people like this scare or sway you! Know your kid, and encourage your kid to know him/her self, and all will be well.</p>
<p>I don’t know where the line is to be drawn on these things. It really comes down to the individual situation, but 30 schools is a lot. Like way a lot. The only situations where it may make sense are those looking at dual med/ug programs where you do have to apply to both schools and the chances are low in getting accepted, and for international students looking for money. Even so, it is going to take a lot of organization, work and time to keep on top of that many applications. Things do go wrong in the process and the more balls you have up in the air, the more likely one beans you and the that can cause a chain affect. </p>
<p>Senior year is a tough year anyways. Gotta take tough courses, gotta get the grades, some of the schools need interviews and visits and you need to show them some love. Anyone embarking on applying to a mega number of schools is going to have his hands full. There is a point of diminishing return when one goes to an extreme and when you start adding more schools on the list than easily handled, it is likely you get there. It’s also mostly unnecessary except for apps to the most selective schools and that is where attention to detail becomes ever so important and having that many school s to juggle can really lessen the quality of each attempt. Young people are not good actors for the most part and when things lose their freshness and become old hat and stale, it shows. My kids had trouble making it through scheduled tours and visits after a handful, so to throw in interviews and treating each schools as special when you have that many, is not easily done,. And to apply to 30 schools where it takes no more than an app, is redundant. Who needs that many acceptances? So you are stuck between the extremes where you want a lot of schools to increase the odds, yet the very act of having that many will likely dilute the impact, quality and attention that each school gets and reduces the chances that way, to the other end where it was a waste of time and money because 3 or 4 of such schools would have been just fine.</p>
<p>My (currently in college) two applied to 3 and 6 schools respectively. Neither have regrets. I’m encouraging youngest to apply to 3 - 6 places too. IMO, they should be able to get the numbers down to that before application time except in very rare circumstances. I wouldn’t want the wasted time nor expense of more schools. None of mine would want the extra time with essays or scholarship apps for additional schools either.</p>
<p>30 sounds pretty far out there … however there are a bunch of application strategies for which a lot (10-15) applications may make a lot of sense.
- Someone trying for big merit aid
- Someone applying to low admittance specialty programs like musical theater
- Someone applying to tippy top very low admission rate schools.</p>
<p>In all these case a bunch of applications certainly can make sense … although it’s hard for me get near 30.</p>
<p>My daughter’s school (a private prep school) recommended applying to 6 to 8 schools (2-3 reaches, 2-3 possibles, and 2-3 likelys). They would allow some students to go as high as 10-15 for the three reasons that 3togo gives, as well as students who might be on the edge for financial aid. They had a big focus on students finding possibles and likelys that they loved, so they’d be happy going to one if they didn’t get into a reach. </p>
<p>The problem with the strategy of applying to a lot of low-admission schools on the theory that you might get into one, is that they usually require different essays and you’ll likely do a poorer job on them.</p>
<p>No reason. Do some research and narrow down the field.</p>
<p>It’s not just application fees, but I bet some of those 20-30 schools require CSS Profile and IDOC and that costs money, too. And other schools have their own financial aid forms.</p>
<p>And that doesn’t count honors college applications and scholarship applications.</p>
<p>My daughter applied to 10 and I thought that was a lot. I know friends of hers who applied to 20 (mostly changing direction or parent wanted to add some schools).</p>
<p>I can’t imagine 30.</p>
<p>frazzled2thecore, sounds like someone has been giving your guidance counselors spiked Kool-aid…like perhaps some “for pay” college counselors who like to get hired to “help” manage this so-call application strategy… LOL.</p>
<p>My kids (twins) GC recommended applying to 7-10 colleges, split among safeties, likely and reaches. Some kids applied to 20+, but I’m not sure how common that was. My D applied to 2 - both safeties. My S applied to 13 - six of which are UC’s (shooting dice), two top LAC’s, and five safeties (one private, three CSU’s, and a maritime academy). </p>
<p>My son finds it a butt pain checking the portals for the 13 he applied to. Can’t imagine him checking 30!</p>
<p>My first thought when I saw this was how our school lists a $ amount for scholarships you were offered… not accepted… for the top 5 in the class. Looking at those numbers last year you could see where some people had spiked that by applying for a larger number of schools. </p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong, I think this is a meaningless number and am in no way in favor if it. </p>
<p>And I think 30 is a very large number of applications. I wanted my D to submit 5 and she only actually applied to 3 since her EA came in from her first choice before I could browbeat her into getting the bottom two done.</p>
<p>10 is about normal for my school, but then again, you’ll have some applying to 4 and others to 14. I’d say that is the “normal” range. Anything beyond that is excessive or lacking.</p>
<p>My older daughter applied to 2 schools - she knew she wanted to attend a specific state school, and knew she qualified for admission, but applied to a second state school just in case something unexpected happened. Average student (B/B+).</p>
<p>Younger daughter applied to 4 (3 private, one state), as she was applying for a hard-to-get-into major (Physician Assistant 3 + 2 Masters program). Top 3% of her high school class.</p>
<p>No. </p>
<p>10char</p>