Excellent advice. This is likely the person who will advocate (or not) for your application to the admissions committee. Get to know that person as much as you can. Ask him or her point blank what the school is looking for in an applicant and really listen to what he or she tells you. If you fit what he or she is looking for, communicate those qualities in your application and ask your recommenders to do the same. If you don’t fit, consider applying elsewhere.
@KeDIX1414 Yours is one of the most thoughtful posts I’ve read on this website. I’m going to show this to my child, who will be going through admissions next year.
DD actually applied to 11 schools, most were reaches (for everyone) and she was rejected by Brown & Tulane. She was accepted to 3 Ivies and will attend Yale in the fall. I suggested that she add more safeties, but she didn’t find any that she liked/could see herself at.
Another way dd showed interest? After meeting with the regional reps at her school and adcoms at the June 2013 QuestBridge conference, she sat down and wrote thank you cards…a few even emailed her to say that they were delighted with her correspondence and they couldn’t wait to read her application.
Thanks for everyone’s response to my question! 
I will keep them in mind when I go to a college conference in a few weeks and meet the regional reps.
Bravo, great post. Signing up for newsletters probably isn’t worth that much honestly. If you are really interested be sure to call them and ask about possible visits pending you financial situation and then you could later explain that it just wasn’t financially possible.
Here’s another piece of advice.
Do NOT apply ED/EA to your first choice school if your application isn’t ready. Since my ED school had the closest deadline, I really rushed to finish my common app essay, and it was mediocre at best when I submitted it. By December, when I had to submit the rest of my applications, my essay was 100x better after I had the time to go over it with other people a few times. I’m really really confident I could’ve gotten into this school (Cornell) where I was deferred, and then rejected, if my essay was better than it was earlier during the submission (I changed a lot of it, made it more interesting and personal etc), since I had been able to get into even more selective schools after my essay was all fixed up. I know this just shows correlation rather than causation, but I’m almost certain I could’ve gotten in if I waited to improve my application.
So don’t rush into ED just because you heard the acceptance rate is 10% higher - that’s what I did. Only submit with that pool of applicants if you’re confident your application can’t be improved any further.
I also think that people shouldn’t go overkill with the safeties if their scores were high enough (me and some of my friends did this). CC and all the high achieving students here made me feel like a way less competitive applicant than I really may have been, so I ended up paying for applications and sending scores to SEVERAL safeties (UW-Seattle,UCSB,UCSD,UMass Amherst, Case Western). Just choose two that you like - that’s really all you need.
This may be sort of opposite of what the OP was saying, but I don’t think there is anything inherently wrong with applying to several reaches if you would be happy / can afford attending each of them. I applied to five reaches and got into two, both of which were 2 of my top 4-5 choices. but I actually wish that I applied to two more now. One of the schools I didn’t apply to but wanted to was MIT, which I avoided because it wasn’t on the common app and I doubted I’d be able to get in, which is probably true - but I think I still should’ve tried nevertheless since now I sort of regret not doing so.
About the whole “applying to too many reaches will lead to you facing a lot of rejection” thing, sure it’ll suck for a few days. But after a while it feels better to try (assuming your stats are within range and you don’t mind paying for the application) than to not. I was rejected from my first choice (Cornell) and second choice (Stanford), but I honestly don’t regret applying to either. On the other hand, I DO regret not applying to MIT, despite the fact that my chances were minimal.
The good thing about all these colleges though is that a LOT of the prompts are very similar, if not the same. I was able to recycle the same 5-6 essays for every single prompt, so even if you feel like you’re applying to too many reaches, check the prompts and then decide whether you want to cut it out. I wasn’t going to apply to Harvard, but after I noticed that it had the same exact prompts as my Stanford application which I was filling out anyways, I gave it a shot.
EDIT: Forgot to mention another thing I learned…
Know beforehand IN DEPTH the order in which you’d choose your schools. I CANNOT emphasize this enough. Research courses of your major, location, social scene etc for every single school you apply to before your decisions come out. By the time I got my decisions, I hadn’t done any more research than what was required to actually initially come up with a list of colleges to apply to. I ended up wasting DAYS deciding between going to Cal and Brown because I wasn’t clear which one was my top choice beforehand. And the reason this is bad is because you will want to be studying for your upcoming finals. I wasted a lot of time researching Cal/Brown and talking to alumni and current students at both… and as a result, I won’t be able to do as well as I could have in my finals that are starting in a few days.
Lots of helpful advice here. I wonder though, should students at the top end for scores and grades really limit the number of reach schools they apply to? I’m talking about students whose stats fall near the top of the range of accepted students’ stats for schools with <10% acceptance rate. (This does not describe my own D, so I’m asking purely for the benefit of others and out of academic curiosity.) I’ve heard it said that HYP etc. are a reach for everyone. Maybe that means that for students like that, there really are no matches, so where another student might choose 2 reaches and 4 matches, these students are applying to 6 super-competitive schools as reaches, and then a few schools in the 10%-20% acceptance range as safeties.
I think students need to know that any school with an acceptance rate of <20% is a reach. No matter the stats/scores. One never knows what the adcoms are looking for. This site was filled with high stat/high score students who were rejected by every school on their list. The admissions game is a crap shoot…and students need to make sure they market themselves well & are a great fit for the school. Even the major they select can make a difference. DD was rejected by Tulane and accepted by Yale! Something that we never expected!!
OP I love this thread!
my input
To the Class of 2015 and future seniors in general:
** Do not apply to too many schools! **
It is costly and makes no sense! Obviously acceptances are great but if you apply to too many reaches and matches it is likely you will receive a hefty amount of rejections. Who wants to pay upwards 70 bucks for a rejection letter?
** Apply to a variety of schools! **
Coming from California, too many classmates assumed they would automatically get accepted to any of the UCs (Davis, Irvine, SD - the popular ones) and had a chance at the competitive ones (LA and Berk). Many of them got rejected from all of them. Don’t do that! Make sure you have 2-3 safeties on your list. A similar amount of matches. A couple of reaches. Don’t assume you’re a shoo in for your match, either. Anything can happen.
** Acceptance rates can change **
They can change dramatically year to year. UC Berkeley’s acceptance rate was 20% in 2013 and then 17% in 2014. -3%, considering the amount of students that apply, is a lot. Admissions are unpredictable.
** Be happy for your friends. **
If your friends gets in and you don’t, don’t get mad/upset. Try your best to be happy even if you believe you deserve a spot there more. Acceptances are no measure of your capacity or self worth. Real friends at least try to be happy for their friends. It is part of growing up.
** Look on the brightside, even if you don’t like the college you’ll be attending. **
A great student will find great opportunities anywhere! Location matters and the strength in a school matter, yes. But try to see what great things you can do at your new school, even if it isn’t your first choice.
The best piece of advice I have to give:
Don’t get hung up on prestige and rankings. Especially when it comes to Liberal Arts schools, there are soo many great schools that no one you know has ever heard of, and it makes no sense to pass them up just because they aren’t an Ivy. When searching for schools, I got so unnecessarily hung up on US News rankings and I could have saved myself a ton of stress (and STILL ended up at my dream school) had I concentrated more on finding the right programs in the right locations.
Also, I strongly second the advice to talk about financial expectations beforehand. I fell in love with (and got accepted to) a school there was NO WAY I could afford, and turning them down hurt more than not applying would have.
@fairfantasy you should demonstrate in your essays why you pick that school over others or why are you interested in that school. usually colleges ask that in your writing supplement part of your application.
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<li>Scan the various forums now to read about the nightmares some students faced along the way or are facing post-May 1 Decision Day so that you avoid them. (Examples include matriculating at a university your parents and you cannot now afford or not getting in any universities because the student did not have a thoughtful list of safety, target, and reach schools, etc.)</li>
<li>Once you have your list of universities, spend the summer writing the essays, gathering the other materials for the applications, and preparing the packets your teachers and GC will need for your letters of recommendation. If you are applying to a university that requires a performance audition or portfolio, get the support you need THIS summer to get it well under way. Senior year is a total bear with all the AP classes and other demands, and you simply cannot afford to wait until September to get the college application process done. </li>
<li>Junior year is THE LAST set of grades on the transcript (unless you take summer classes) for ED and EA admissions. Not only do top grades help you with admissions, but with merit aid–something most Juniors are not really thinking about. Finish strong! Get those A’s! And there is nothing like getting a couple of EA decisions in the bag to keep the sweat off your brow going into the RD season!</li>
</ol>
I don’t know if I agree with the “too many schools” tip. Yes, if you apply to too many you can get really swamped with work and be less able to put greater effort into each application. However, recycling essays can be fairly easy with colleges’ similar essay prompts. Also, you don’t want to have that feeling of “what if I had applied” later on.
I was not able to visit enough schools to thoughtfully narrow down my college list to below 10 schools, and all but two schools on my list were reaches. I was willing to settle for my safeties, so once I had those down, I just aimed as high I could. I am very happy with how things turned out, because I got rejected by only one school and April was lovely with the admitted students’ opportunities to get closer looks at so many great places.
I understand why some of you would advise not applying to too many schools. I’m pretty biased because I have a very happy ending.
I disagree with #1 to a slight degree. This was actually one of my regrets for my college application process. Even though everything turned out great, I regret not applying to the following schools: Stanford, Columbia, and Oxford and Cambridge in the UK.
While I agree that you should not apply to a billion schools just to see if you can get into at least one by chance, I also think that it’s important not to doubt yourself. I originally had Stanford on my list. However, after getting rejected from my ED school and getting deferred by my EA school, my morale was at a pretty low point during winter break. I was beginning to think that I was a lesser candidate than I originally expected.
The day I was about to start my Stanford application, I scrolled through the incredibly long application with what seemed like dozens of essays, and then I asked my dad whether I should still apply and spend the $85 (or whatever the amount was) application fee. He literally told me not to bother because I wasn’t going to get accepted anyway.
My mom, who was nearby, told me to apply and give it a shot. She was always a believer in my abilities. But my father was adamant. I thought he had a point, so I listened.
This year, five people from my school got accepted to Stanford even though Stanford had an all time low acceptance rate. I don’t think any of those five people had anything that I didn’t have. Granted, many other extremely qualified candidates from my school were flat-out rejected, so my dad was probably right. But I think that I had as good of a shot as anyone. I just regret not at least trying, you know?
I ended up not applying to ANY super “top-notch” school because I flat-out doubted my abilities. UChicago was the highest-ranking school on my list. To this day, my mom tells me that I should have at least applied to one HYPSM school.
Sorry for the long post lol. I ended up having many other great choices, so everything turned out okay. But I’ll always wonder, you know? My point is, please do not repeat my mistake; apply to the schools you like! If one person is encouraging you and another person is telling you that you can’t do something, LISTEN to the encouraging person!
Like so many other posters here, I regret applying to so few schools. I applied to a total of 7: my state flagship and ASU as safeties, USC, UT Austin, and Rice as matches/reaches, and Harvard and Wharton as high, high reaches. I’ll ultimately be going to USC as a happy Stamps Scholar, but I shudder to think what would’ve happened if I hadn’t had that stroke of luck. Rice and UT BHP offered no FA and Harvard and Wharton were almost impossible reaches. I wish I would’ve applied to a few more “mid-reach” schools in order to get rid of that nagging “what if” feeling. Please don’t repeat my mistakes, and best of luck for the admissions cycle ahead!
Here’s another tip, Never let your parents meddle with your application or essays. If you want they can proof read but never allow them to even touch a single button of the common app.
I have an extremely authoritarian father who would alter every single one of my essays to a point where they were meaningless and bland. He also forced me to give up all my passwords and account details so that he may “check” my applications. He ruined my applications( he wrote UT Austin in place of A&M in one essay, made my Stanford essay seem like it was written by a robot) and made me lose at least 5 Universities.
While I think there are some good points in the OP’s posting, it suffers from the same flaw that so many posts on here do (including a few of my own, I suspect). It is a bit of a one-size-fits-all type of posting. Now to the extent that a reader can see themselves in the OP’s descriptions, it is useful. But, for example and as others have pointed out, the first point to limit the number of applications, especially to top schools. Many can afford multiple applications, to start with. Also, many are aware of the long odds to HYPS and other top schools, and can deal well with the resulting denials, should that be the case. Given that, it makes sense to apply to them all, unless you absolutely know that being in a rural school like Dartmouth would drive you nuts. Then you can cross that off the list. And to echo another poster, some are looking for the most intellectual of atmospheres. Granted, some are of course just prestige shopping, but as much as most of us probably look down on that, if that is what it takes to make them happy who are we to tell them not to do it? It doesn’t hurt us, except perhaps in the most indirect way if you have a child applying to one or more of those same schools.
I am not sure what is so new about #2. It seems to me the same as saying make sure you have a solid number of matches and safeties on your list that still meet most of the facets you are looking for in a school… Maybe it is a slightly different way of looking at it, and to that extent so be it. But that is really all it is saying is make sure you stay grounded in reality. Good advice to be sure.
I basically agree with #4, except it overstates things a bit. Sure, with so many good to excellent colleges and universities out there in all sorts of settings, one should be able to find several that meet most of the criteria one is looking for. It is called "fit, and I think everyone knows about it. But echoing another poster (again), saying you should “absolutely love” the school is a bit hyperbolic, as is thinking there might not be a little compromise. Given how little one usually knows about a school at that stage, even after a one or two day visit, it would be a bit like falling madly in love after one date. Which, not coincidentally, is a very teenage thing to do. But of course in reality it is usually more about falling in love with what one imagines college will be like for you, and how well the particulars of that college seem to fit that idealized dream. And that’s fine to some extent, but better advice was in the general gist of the message. Focus on factors that you know, or at least think you know, are important to you (size of the school, geographic location, urban vs. suburban vs. rural, sports scene, Greek life, etc.) and of course affordability. Academics are actually usually secondary when it comes to fit, as long as the school offers the major you think you want and enough variety if you change your mind, and that its overall academic profile matches what you want. In other words, do you want to be around the best of the best when it comes to academic achievement so far, or are you looking to be the big fish in a lesser pond, or what exactly? Lots of variables, which is why they call it “fit”, a very personal thing. Still, in the end, if a school can meet most of your criteria, students usually end up loving where they are. There definitely is not just one fit.
Even with those quibbles, I agree with the spirit of the posting as well as quite a bit of the letter of it. The take home message, to me, is do your homework about applying to college and stay mostly realistic while still dreaming a little.
First and foremost, make sure to select schools that you can afford to attend. If your family as a high EFC and you want to go to a school that offers zero merit aid (such as the Ivies), make sure you have 100% commitment from your parents that they are willing to pay. The costs for college are huge and have destroyed families.
Don’t apply to schools just to feed your ego. Many students fail to actually research the strengths of the schools and discover how they are viewed by the ‘outside’ world. We all have egos and it is easy to get caught up in the excitement of being able to say ‘I applied at Harvard’ or ‘I got accepted at Yale’. The reality is that you need to find out if those schools really match your chosen field for academic prowess and that their cultures really match yours. If you want to be an engineer, Va Tech is a more highly respected school than Harvard, though your friends and relatives may not know that. Do the research before you apply.
Know and love a true safety. Schools like WashU are not safeties. Safety schools have greater than 50% admission rates and very generous, if not automatic, scholarships for high achieving students. It is not simply a matter of can you get in, but can you afford to go once you do.
If you have something you hate (urban school, rural school) cross those off and don’t look back. There are so many good options, there is no point in being unhappy where you live for four years or more.
Understand that there is a difference between a huge state flagship (and their admissions data) and the honors (or equivalent) programs within those schools. Some big state schools are every bit as good, if not better than their more prestigious cousins. The honors programs at these schools pour out many of our top minds. The small programs in these schools can also help the huge university become small and more manageable for students who prefer that.
Don’t underestimate the value of interest. The biggest problem with over-applying is that you cannot truly show interest in too many schools and do it effectively. S1’s biggest issue with his reach schools was that he simply thought that it was enough to apply and let his awesomeness shine through. He failed to do the math that shows that when your top two reaches have a total of 1250 new Freshman (combined) the competition is ALL awesome. Without something to set you apart, being awesome is not enough.
I would echo the flip side of Tmadness above. Parents, resist the urge to have this be about you. Your job now is to advise when requested. Your child will learn a lot more by doing for themselves. If they are high achievers they will do well wherever they go, even if it isn’t a school you can ‘brag’ about to your friends. Be honest with them, let they know you are there to help if they want, but it is ultimately their decision. Don’t be a bully. If you are willing to pay ‘X’ amount, do so wherever they decide. If you have strings, let them know up front and why.
I am so happy that people have enjoyed reading this advice post! Again, I wish everyone who is planning on applying this fall and winter the best of luck. Here are a couple things I want to clarify about my original post.
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<li>Limit your number of reaches.</li>
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This post is really my own personal opinion, and I see why many people would disagree with it. If you like 7 reach schools, have the money to apply, and have the time to write/recycle essays, you can apply to all 7. In my case, there weren’t 7 reach schools I really liked. There were three, but I applied to five because of the prestige. My family was not applying for financial aid, and there was enough money for me to apply anywhere I wanted. I decided to throw in some extra applications. If I were to repeat this process, I would only apply to reach schools I truly like. If you truly are in love with six reach schools, go for it! That wasn’t me though. If you decide to apply to many reach schools, just make sure that the prestige does not go to your head and that you do not neglect your matches and safeties.
<ol>
<li>Do not compromise</li>
</ol>
I will admit that there is no such thing as a perfect school, so you will have to compromise to some extent. I should have made this clearer in the original post. When I said, “do not compromise,” I meant that you should make a huge effort to find the school that is best for you. You should know what you want before you start searching. If a school you are thinking about falls far below your expectations, try finding another school unless there is a reason you can’t (like cost). The most important thing is to talk to your parents before you apply. They will let you know if there are any compromises you have to make. Otherwise, take your time researching to find the schools that are the best for you.
I hope my comments clarify things. Feel free to respond or PM me if you have any questions and comments. Also, people who have already gone through this process should keep on posting advice. It is really interesting to read!
@KeDIX1414 - I think the thing I would still change in your comments is talking about “loving” a school. I know this kind of language gets thrown around all the time and it is mostly harmless hyperbole. The one aspect that makes it not so harmless is that when one talks about love in this context, it implies there is only one “soulmate”, or in this case only one school that one should be at. This is simply untrue. And even if one disagrees that this is the implication, you have to admit it is a bit silly to talk about loving a school that one hasn’t even attended yet. Like I said earlier, it is a bit like falling madly in love after one date, or in cases where there hasn’t even been a visit, falling in love just based on an internet profile.
For example, you still say
The fact of the matter is most students can be equally happy at several schools, if not more. There is rarely a “THE” school. Same with talk of dream schools. It sets up misguided expectations and approaches to the college selection process. For most, there should be a number of “dream schools”.
None of this obviates your advice, I just think it is better to lessen the talk of “loving” a particular school and the ramifications that many students would infer from that, and stick to talking about finding schools that are very good fits. It is a more realistic description.