<p>Every school has a different formula for the handling of applications. One school of thought is to aim for the skies, and send a few safeties. Another is some reaches, some probables, and a few safeties. And, of course there are others.</p>
<p>Better yet, how many to apply to makes the formula more difficult.</p>
<p>My favorite was the rule of 9/10. Apply to three of your reaches, three probables and three safeties (or less of each) and maybe a fourth of any of the three to max out at ten. Then list the 10 in order of preference. Once you got into the highest chosen school (e.g. got into 3 after rejection from 1 and 2 would meet the criterion), and worked out the aid matter, you would withdraw from the other schools so as to make the pool richer for your peers -- hence the valedictorian cannot hog all of the admissions as can be the case in some schools.</p>
<p>I open this forum to others as to how they or the counselors approach the application process -- how many, how to allot, etc.</p>
<p>I don’t think this will work in most instances. A large number of selective schools send out their regular decision acceptances at the same time, with all replies expected by the same date. There is no opportunity to withdraw from some schools in time to make the pool richer for others. </p>
<p>There is no one answer to how to handle the admissions process. Much depends on the family’s financial situation and the student’s college choices.</p>
<p>In our case, my D didn’t like any of her “reaches” and applied only to matches and safeties. She’s now a happy sophomore at a top 25 LAC. I think it really depends on the kid and the circumstances. There is really no point in aiming for the skies. The point is to aim for a places where your kids will be happy, challenged and will thrive.</p>
<p>My D also didn’t like most of her reaches. She applied to 1 complete reach and was waitlisted. She said that even if she got in to the other reaches on her list, she would not attend, so she did not send in applications.</p>
<p>She ended up applying to 7 schools.
1 Reach- waitlisted
1- Semi-reach- accepted
3 Matches- accepted at all (attending #1 choice match school)
2 Safeties-accepted at both</p>
<p>She received merit aid at all but one, which only offered need based merit aid. She also applied EA to all schools that had it. She knew about 5 of her acceptances by Christmas, and had to wait until March for the remaining 2.</p>
<p>My oldest applied to 5 schools- one reach, two safeties, two matches- was accepted to all. Merit aid at two, need based only at reach.
Youngest applied to two schools both matches. need based aid only offered, accepted at both.</p>
<p>I think that if one does good research and applies to schools that are good fits, you can limit applications to 6 or so schools. I had 2 who applied to LACs and small universities. One applied to 6 schools, all matches and safeties. He was accepted to all 6 with varying degrees of scholarships. The other applied to one reach, 2 reach/matches, and one match safety. He was waitlisted at his reach and accepted at the other 3, with very nice merit scholarships at 2 of them. (Third school only did need based aid.) I don’t think it is necessary to apply to reaches just for the sake of applying to them. I think a student should be able to articulate a reason for each school they apply to.</p>
<p>My son has only one true reach. Most are targets with one being a higher target. His safeties were still schools he would consider, just below the others.</p>
<p>I think the admission madness is the schizophrenic dates that things are due by. Nov 1 or 15 or Dec 1 or Dec 15 for ED. Dec 1 for one school if you want merit aid (better read the fine print). Dec 1 for EN but everything must be there before Dec 1. EA dates. </p>
<p>RD Jan 1, Jan 15, Feb 1. or rolling admission. I especially like when the ED2 dates are the same as the RD dates. </p>
<p>Yes, maybe, no :subject tests
Send AP scores: only to one of the schools wants them to add to admission decision.</p>
<p>No common app allowed to the main campus of one state Univ. but one of the lesser branches will take the common app. really? that makes sense.</p>
<p>Can’t these schools get together and come up with one or two processes? They can’t possibly need so many versions since most all schools are on the semester or quarter system.</p>
<p>My kids applied to 2 safeties and 5 or 6 reaches. (Two kids.) While each of them got into one school early, neither of them visited that school till April. In one case it was a safety and in the other it was a reach. The notion that a valedictorian is taking away places from others at the same school is silly IMO.</p>
<p>Agree, S1 didn’t apply to any reaches, only 4 matches (they might even be considered safeties to some) and ended up at his favorite from which he graduated this past spring. He knew where he wanted to go and really applied to more than 1 school simply because he thought he should. S2 applied to 1 reach and 4 matches and was rejected at the reach and ended up attending one of his matches where he was accepted EA…again maybe it was a safety who knows. Kids have different needs, wants, and general criteria. The concept of reach, match, safety isn’t necessary for most kids. But I honestly think most kids don’t need more than 7 or 8 tops and many don’t even need that many. I’d rather see the entire cycle shortened and over by January or not start until January and be over by May and limit applications to 10 but it’s not gonna happen because it’s really not about the kids, it’s about the colleges.</p>
<p>We entered this game thinking the best strategy was to apply to as many schools as possible. We don’t qualify for need based aid, so it would boil down to the vagaries of “merit” awards in determining the COA for each school. The application fees seemed insignificant considering the expense of 4 years at a private LAC. However we didn’t factor in the time required for our perfectionist writer to construct earnest responses to the unique supplements associated with each application. She’s had too many lost weekends, sometimes spending 24 hours in pajamas to produce a few paragraphs that may or may not affect her application success. Fortunately we are in CA, which has built in “reach, match, safety” in its 9 undergraduate campuses. So the paring began by dropping any school that was not far superior to one of the UC match schools. That has us down to 2 reaches, 2 matches and 1 safety for the private schools.</p>
<p>Splitting the list 3-3-3 puts too little emphasis on the schools where the student will most likely end up – the match schools. IMO the list should be concentrated on matches, with one or two safeties and one or two reaches. So if there are 9 total, I might go: 2 safeties, 5 matches, 2 reaches.</p>
<p>Does it really matter how many reaches or matches a student applies to if s/he has safeties that s/he would like to go to, will definitely admit, and will definitely be affordable?</p>
<p>Of course, to be worth applying to, a reach or match needs to be preferable in some way to the safeties, and not be completely out of reach either academically or financially.</p>
<p>Happykid is at our local community college because it is what we could afford. Her transfer app. list has only two places on it because only one private that she looked at has more to offer her than the in-state public where she will be an ********* because of her in-state A.A.</p>
<p>The system appears irrational to parents because each institution sets its own admission policies. However, at the institutional level each of those policies make sense. Our job as parents is to keep our own heads screwed on straight (not always easy I know), while we usher our children through this process. My kid’s list may be two colleges, and your kid’s list may be fifteen, but as long as both of those kids can fully articulate the rationale behind those lists, it is OK.</p>
<p>Re post #11 - there’s no one right answer. For some students it may make sense to have more matches, for others it doesn’t. </p>
<p>My younger son loved his safety - so he applied to reaches plus the one safety. He looked for schools that were strong in his probable major, and the few that were matches he didn’t like. My older son was a stellar student with an interest in comp sci. For him the matches were all reaches - lottery schools. The second tier of tech schools (all very good schools) were safeties. He didn’t need to go looking for artificial matches. If he’d been interested in the humanities there might not have been such easy to find alternatives however.</p>
<p>Every student and what they need is different. My son is very practical and penny wise. It made no sense to him to apply to schools where he knew he may get in, but would not get any merit aid, and we would be outside the limits of FA. So he identified a school that he liked, that had guaranteed scholarships, that met all of his other “requirements”, and he applied there. He has been admitted, has his scholarship notification, and he is pleased as punch. He is focusing on their honors college applications and other small scholarship applications to defer the cost of housing/meal plans some. </p>
<p>He is not a “what if” kind of kid. He did not even feel the need to apply to other schools just to see if he would get in, or what they would offer. Including the school that he has wanted to attend since 7th grade! I would have been different, I would have wanted to apply, just so I would have known. And see what they may offer. But he is happy with what he has in his possesion, and it is well below our max budget. So how could I complain?</p>
<p>I think there are different strategies for different goals. There are quite a few kids for whom highly selective schools are intellectual matches, but are still admissions reaches, because they are admissions reaches for just about everybody. Kids like this probably need more than two or three reaches if they want to go to a school like that (look at the results threads for a couple of the most selective colleges to see what I’m talking about).</p>
<p>Most of DD’s classmates are applying to >=6 schools (last year the average from her HS was 8-point-something. DD is applying to 11, most of them academic safeties, trawling for merit aid. But one of her classmates is applying just one place and another to just two.</p>
<p>The kid applying just one place has wanted to go to our state’s flagship since he was a young child. He’s a lock to get in, they have a well-regarded program in his field, his parents can afford it without aid, so why waste the energy and money applying elsewhere?</p>
<p>The one applying to two is a lock to get into both, but needs a substantial merit award to afford her first choice. She loves the other one too, her financial safety, so why bother applying anywhere else?</p>
<p>We’re applying to 9. The problem I have is a child with an 800 math, 530 reading and everything that follows that points back to that consistency. Do you look for the fit at the high or the low? He wants engineering and has his 4 ap’s in calc - ab & bc, physics, chemistry, honors physics and honors philosophy - the rest are regular english and history, with B’s in those classes. </p>
<p>I couldn’t begin to imagine what will be safety or reach or tossed out because of an obvious ld. He played year round basketball, volunteered at one location, but a bunch of hours and spends roughly 30 hours a week on guitar. He wasn’t a “leader”, didn’t do a single thing he didn’t want to do to resume build. So he doesn’t look “exceptional”, though very bright in math/science.</p>
<p>We couldn’t apply based on math because the gpa of the regular classes brought down his gpa. If we apply based on cr we’re concerned he won’t have enough intellectual challenge he craves. </p>
<p>So we have a huge wide range - from univ of new hampshire as a “safety” in our minds, to his biggest reaches at case western and univ of maryland. </p>
<p>If I could have talked him into it I would have had him apply to more because I honestly have no clue how he’ll be seen by admissions.</p>
<p>My D is applying to 11, with 6 reaches, 3 matches (at least, we think they are probably matches) and 2 safeties (at least, we think they are safeties). This fits what I’ve suggested to others who are interested in reach-type schools: a couple of safeties, two or three matches, and then as many reaches as appear to be good fits, and for which you can deal with all those applications.</p>