<p>How many schools did you guys apply to? I did 20 and I wanted to know if I was the only crazy one to apply to so many???</p>
<p>i applied 11 but i do know two friends who applied 20 (lucky number? i dunno). ones at caltech now and the others at Washington U</p>
<p>i applied to 8, people thought 8 was a lot.. but i wanted to have choices. i don't think you're crazy for applying to 20, i probably would have too, but luckily i was able to narrow my list down, saving me time and saving my parents' $$$.</p>
<p>OK thanks. now i dont feel as bad as before</p>
<p>I have a friend applying to 32.</p>
<p>I'm only applying to 9.</p>
<p>I don't think you're crazy but I think you're probably in error.
It's much more difficult to take care of making each app be "non-generic" if you're applying to 20 than if you're applying to 6-9. Someone in the Parents Forum a while back posted a study showing that people applying to more than 6-8 schools (I forget the exact number) had worse outcomes than those who narrowed their focus. As a reasonable stand-in for the type of person who would sit on an adcom, this makes sense to me.</p>
<p>TheDad.. someone applying to 20 universities probably has worse outcomes because they probably applied to more reaches than someone that only applied to 6 universities. </p>
<p>EXAMPLE</p>
<p>person #1 applied to 20 universities:</p>
<p>10 reaches
5 safeties
5 matches</p>
<p>gets denied from 8 reaches, 2 matches, & (omg) 2 safeties
gets accepted to 40% of schools applied to</p>
<p>person #2 applied to 6 universities</p>
<p>2 reaches
2 safeties
2 matches</p>
<p>gets denied from both reaches & (omg) 1 match
gets accepted to 50% of schools applied to</p>
<p>therefore.. even though applicant #1 only got admited to 40% of the schools he/she applied to, they get to choose from 8 universities including 2 reaches that the applicant can't believe he/her got into! even though applicant #2 got admited to 50% of the schools (10% more than applican #1, nanananana)they also get to only choose from 3 choices and his/her dream schools (aka. reaches) aren't one of them (nanananana =P).</p>
<p>i know not all situations are like this... but it just goes to show you that applicant 1 will not always be in "error."</p>
<p>The only reason I applied to 20 schools was because I got into my two backups (Binghamton and University of Michigan honors) so i applied to about 15 reach/matches.</p>