Number of College Apps - Common Wisdom?

Parents Forum
1

<p>My DD (she is a Junior) and I just had our first meeting with HS GC about college planning. When GC got to the number of schools to apply, he gave us pretty standard "2-3 reaches, 2-3 matches and 2-3 safeties". Is this rule still relevant? Why not apply to 15 or 20 schools that fit some sort of broad criteria. e.g. "Medium to Large, Urban or Suburban, good pre-law"?</p>

<p>GC comments were:
- It costs more to apply to more schools.<br>
It's true, but on the large scale of things, when you are going to pay hundreds of thousands, what's another 300-400 to make sure you get a better FA package or get into a Tier 1 school?</p>

<ul>
<li><p>You will not have time to perfect 15 applications.
True. But if you wait until the last moment, you will not have time to work on any applications. Start early. It's all in the planning.</p></li>
<li><p>If you get too many acceptances, it might be difficult to decide where to go.
Come April 2009, I really want my DD to be in that position where she has multiple acceptances, so she can narrow down her choices. I don't see it as a bad thing.</p></li>
<li><p>If you apply to too many schools and get accepted, you are taking someone else's spot.
I don't think this is true. Schools always tweaking their freshman lists all the way into May. Adcoms know that not everyone that has been accepted, will matriculate in their school.</p></li>
<li><p>(My Favorite). You need to fall in love with school, and you cannot like all 15 schools.
Yes, yes, fall in love with the school... BUT WHAT IF THE SCHOOL DOESN'T LOVE YOU BACK. If you are set on certain school, but get rejected, how does that make you feel? Wouldn't you be kicking yourself that you haven't applied to one more, similar school? This is not marriage, it is more like a job search. When you are looking for a job, would you apply to just one position because you LOVE the company? I wouldn't. I would send 10-20-30 resumes out to improve my chances.</p></li>
</ul>

<p>Bob.</p>

2

<p>Since students from low income families can get waivers on the admissions fees you are right to question the 10 school rule and you are right that it is more analogous to a job application process than a marriage. However, the issue of watering down your efforts is legitimate. Many schools require supplements to the common app, with special essays, or have their own applications. Don't underestimate the amount of time neccessary to to do a good job on the applications.</p>

3

<p>Many kids apply to 15 schools but they are predominantly of the same level of selectivity and in the same geographical area (like HYPCDB or Middlebury,Amherst,Williams).It seems risky to do that. You haven't said where your daughter intends to apply. I wouldn't dismiss GC's advice out of hand because with 6-8 schools your d would be better able to determine what she likes about them and tailor her applications around that.</p>

4

<p>I would go along with the GC's advice unless there is some other consideration, like an usual major desired or merit money needed in a big way. I think that if kids take the time to research schools realistically, if possible with parental help/guidance or some other input, it shouldn't be necessary to apply to more than 10.</p>

5

<p>You will also need the cooperation and patience of the teachers writing her rec letters...</p>

6

<p>Do teachers and GC customize recommendations for individual schools? I thought that they would write a letter once and then just copy it.</p>

<p>As far as researching schools. It all depends on your criteria. Let's say that your criteria is to get into a medium size school with a strong pre-med. Your stats are impressive enough, and it makes no difference to you whether it will be HYPS or Duke or Northwestern or JHU or WUSTL. All you want is to get into a medical school. Why not apply to all of them?</p>

<p>Everyone agrees that you can have a stellar candidate that still not able to get into very selective schools - there is an element of chance in the admission process. Why not increase your odds by applying to more schools? If Brown is not impressed with you being an Eagle Scout, maybe Dartmouth will be interested...</p>

<p>Bob.</p>

7

<p>^^^ That's why you have match and safety schools on the list.</p>

8

<p>I applied to 8 many years ago, and that seemed like a lot to me. It was certainly a lot of work, even though I was motivated and organized. I think your GC is trying to give what he considers to be the best range, but each student is different, and more is probably right for your family, if your daughter feels she can manage them all. As far as teacher recommendations go, I don't think that should be a problem, since I believe they can write a recommendation and make copies for each school. I don't think they are ever required to use the forms provided by the schools. Teachers will appreciate getting the forms early in the year, though.</p>

9

<p>i've heard horror stories about guidance counselors...part of the reason that they limit schools is to make themselves look better. also, my school has ridiculous rules about early decision and early actions, many of which are not in the interest of the students, but the teachers and gcs.</p>

10

<p>Applying to 15-20 colleges might make sense for some students if most of those schools are in the "reach for anybody," super-selective category, or if visiting is difficult. For most students, I think there's a natural attrition process, though; the college list gets smaller as the process unfolds and the student focuses on which characteristics are most important, makes A-B comparisons and says, "if I were admitted to both (similar) schools, I'd choose B," and so on. I don't think that most students who have done some research feel the need to apply to 15+ schools by the time application deadlines roll around.</p>

11

<p>Bob, Welcome to the wacky world of applying to college. I can just see the lightbulbs flashing in your brain as you realize that everything that someone just told you “need not apply” and the operable phrase is “it depends.” </p>

<p>If, and this is a big IF, your daughter is interested in selective colleges you can ditch the old 3/3/3 rule. This is especially true IF your family needs substantial merit based aid or if your child has an unusual background or exceptional talent.</p>

<p>A student really only needs one safety (or two if you’re super cautious). BUT it has to be a good one that she really wants to go to. If the thought of ending up at the safety gives you and her the willies then keep looking; they’re out there.</p>

<p>After the safety is identified, then she can do whatever she darn well pleases and whatever she has the time and energy for (see below). One solid safety and 10-12 reaches works for me. </p>

<p>Don’t fret too much over which schools are reachy-matches and which are matchy-reaches. Find 10-12 that fit into a general personality – environment, ambience, teaching style, student type. Inotherwords, don’t apply to Stanford, MIT, and the entire Ivy League just because they’re there. Go for fit and be realistic in your expectations.</p>

<p>If you need merit based aid, then you may have to increase that number exponentially. Some excellent colleges offer merit aid. Some big names do not.</p>

<p>If one of those schools is EA, all the better. If you get accepted you can relax with an aggressive RD list. If you get rejected or deferred you can recalibrate.</p>

<p>One more ‘it depends” : Completing those application IS arduous and requires a lot of thought, creativity and revision. The number of applications that can be handled effectively will vary by student. Get the safety done first, then the top favorites. See how it goes when you get into #8 and up.</p>

<p>PS, my son’s recommenders did not customize their letters. The same one went to all.</p>

12

<p>4-6 applications are plenty.</p>

13

<p>I would not consider going over 10 applications. Anything over 10 seems excessive. I applied to 7 schools: one rejection, two waitlists (which I withdrew from), and four acceptances. All of my schools were top-20, but I did have two safeties. My sister applied to 4 since she got into a school she was happy with early: two acceptances, two rejections. I'll note quickly that it was hard for my sister around decision time since she only had "reach" schools left; it's tough for a kid to get a few rejections at once without acceptances to balance it out. There is simply no need to apply to a vast number of schools. First of all, applying to more schools doesn't improve your chances. Think it through for a minute. </p>

<p>It's better for your daughter to narrow down her choices now than wait until April when she has finals, AP tests, and 2.5 weeks to decide on a school. Your reasons for applying to lots of schools is to ensure an acceptance and to get a better FA package. If your daughter is looking to get merit aid, then it makes sense to apply to a higher number of carefully selected schools. Otherwise, FA packages tend to be pretty similar. With a few acceptances in hand, you'll have a good representation of your FA options.</p>

14

<p>
[quote]
A student really only needs one safety (or two if you’re super cautious). BUT it has to be a good one that she really wants to go to.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yes, if the college is correctly characterized as a safety college, there is no reason to have two others. Choose the one you like best and make that your safety college, apply to it early (or in early autumn on a rolling basis) so that you know for sure it really is a safety, and then aim high in your other applications. It truly is a waste of application fees and time to apply to several "safety" colleges when your child will only attend one of them.</p>

15

<p>First have the money talk and let your D know how much realistically you are willing to pay/borrow for college. </p>

<p>If merit money is a consideration, then by all means you may have to cast a really wide net (I would suggest looking up postings by curmudgeon, who was a master of the game when seeking out merit opportunities).</p>

<p>Also, don't sleep on the women's colleges. Heard for years that she would never go to an all girl's school. That was until she visited, sat in on classes and talked to some of the young women on campus (there are always men close by and mat many women colleges there are cross-registrations not making them totally single sex schools).</p>

<p>The advice that I gave my D is to approach each college as if this were the only school that you were accepted to would you be happy to attend.</p>

<p>I know my D's counselor gave them an 8 school limit, when she narrowed down her list (and boy did we see and research a lot of schools), she could not come up with 8 schools. She applied to 7 and was accepted at all of them. D went in to the process wanting a small school. Most of the schools on her lists were overlaps and had similar approached to education. Ask your D what it is that she wants/ needs and which things are deal breakers. For my D it was study abroad programs. She would not consider a school without a good study abroad program. Because she has lived in NYC all of her life and knew that she would be returning after graduation, she was flexible to other places; green grass and open space was also on her list (although she did apply to Barnard, the only school she said she would stay in NYC to attend). In the end, she said she really felt the difference between a school with 1600 students, 2000 students and 4000 students. Ultimately she wanted small, but not too small (chose school with ~4000 students), focus on undergrad education, a number of warm fuzzies in a non-cutthroat environment and is happy with her choice.</p>

16

<p>The thing is, going for a ton of super-selective schools BECAUSE they are super-selective schools tells me you have more research to do..or rather, your daughter has. Some of these schools are VERY different from each other, not just in size but in how they feel socially.</p>

<p>My son selected 10 schools to apply to after visiting 20. They were all top 50 or so LAC's but a couple were definitely safe for him. Writing the CA and 10 supplements is a LOT of work during senior year. Then he was accepted to all 10, a matter for rejoicing, but there was very little time to revisit and make decisions. In the end, the most selective school was not the one that won his heart. And he's very happy at his chosen school.</p>

<p>Maybe you can think of this process as cultivating a bonsai rather than running a factory farm. Help your daughter figure out what she is really looking for in a learning community. Once she does that, applying to ten or less, rather than 20 or more, may make more sense. If financial matters are crucial, more apps might make more sense. But applying to a bigger list of schools that don't give aid...not so much.</p>

17

<p>"A student really only needs one safety (or two if you’re super cautious). BUT it has to be a good one that she really wants to go to. If the thought of ending up at the safety gives you and her the willies then keep looking; they’re out there."</p>

<p>To add to the above: A lot of schools that used to be "safeties" are no longer safeties, especially with the numbers of kids applying to school (and the increasing numbers of applications per student). Your D should be absolutely sure she is a shoe-in at the safety of her choice. I'd still recommend at least two safeties, for peace of mind.</p>

<p>Both of my kids applied to 8 schools (one is now a senior and the other a freshman). It was a very reasonable number, assuming careful research into the fit and likelihood of admission.</p>

<p>Don't underestimate the time it takes to do applications even if all the schools on your daughter's list accept the Common App. Combined with all the other stuff students have to take care of during the fall of their senior year, doing more than 8-10 applications could be brutal.</p>

18

<p>
[quote]
Maybe you can think of this process as cultivating a bonsai rather than running a factory farm.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>I really like that turn of phrase.</p>

19

<p>For the original question, the one other aspect I advise is making some applications contingent on results in the early admission round, if your child is applying to some colleges with rolling admission or early action. Let the early results calibrate your sense of what is "safe," and don't apply in the regular decision round to any college that is plainly less desirable than one that has already admitted you.</p>

20

<p>Here's our strategy. Apply first to your academic and financial safety school that has rolling admission decisions. That way you know you're going to college at a school you could be happy at. Apply to at least one match school that has a strong program in your field of study. The rest of the applications go to reach/potential merit aid schools with the top programs in the intended major. How many depends on how important a factor merit aid is and what your priorities are. Personally, I think it's nice to have a variety of different types of schools to choose from in April. My older D always thought she wanted a big urban school, but ended up happy at a small town LAC. I would have never thought she would have chosen that school over what she thought was her dream school last year this time. My younger D is applying to 9 schools this year (1 safety, 2 matches and 6 reaches). The only thing they have in common are excellent programs in her intended major, but she could see herself happily attending any of them...though she has a special love for one of the reaches.</p>