<p>I have currently 8 schools on my list I know for sure I want to apply to next year, and the guidance counselor at my school recommends that we apply to 6 schools max. However, I've heard from many people that they're going to be applying to 10+ schools, and I just wanted to get your takes on it, because I'm not sure if expanding my list would be the right thing to do. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! :)</p>
<p>You’re fine! Anywhere from 7-10 is perfect. Less is risky, more is unnecessary. Remember that you should only choose the undergraduate experiences that are right for you, and I’m serious about that. For instance, don’t apply to Duke if you won’t enjoy North Carolina, even if it’s a great school (that was just an example, I have nothing against the school).</p>
<p>For the majority of students something in the 4-6 range is probably fine … but, and it’s a big but, … for some subsets of students only applying to 4-6 schools will likely simit their options after decisions. I’d recommend something more like 10-12 if …
- the student is applying to a program with an audition/tryout … musical theater for example
- the student is trying for big merit aid awards
- the student wants to compare lots of financial aid awards
- the student wants to attend a highly selective school (HYPMS, NESCAC schools. etc)</p>
<p>In these cases 10-12 applications probably helps the applicants cause … while these situations might be a minority of all applicants … I’d guess it is easily the majority of students on CC.</p>
<p>Because many of the schools I applied to were very selective, I wound up applying to 10. I didn’t find it overly problematic and I don’t regret it–granted, it was a bit more stressful and more expensive (application fees can be killer), but manageable. As long as you’re on top of things and start early, you should be totally fine.</p>
<p>Thanks! Since I’m applying to pretty selective LACs (Williams, Macalester, Bowdoin, for example), I think I might get my list up to about 10 schools. </p>
<p>togo, what are HYMPS and NESCAC schools?</p>
<p>HYMPS = Harvard, Yale, MIT, Princeton, and Stanford … representatives of the very highly selective universities.</p>
<p>NESCAC = New England Small College Athletic Conference … the league with Williams, Amhert, Bowdoin, Bates, Colby, etc … representatives of the highly selective LACs</p>
<p>I applied to Ivy League and music schools, so I applied to 12. I’m really glad I applied to a lot but just wish that I hadn’t freaked out at the last second and added two “safety” schools that weren’t Ivy or music! I was wait-listed at both of them and accepted to Brown and a couple music schools. Applying to so many was stressful, but it was really good to have options! Apply to however many you need to ensure you’ll be happy wherever you go, but trust you’ll get into one of the more attainable schools.</p>
<p>I think anything from maybe 4-12 is completely reasonable - some do more or less in specific circumstances but I think in general you want to stay within that range. Make sure you’re applying to enough matches and safeties that you’re sure you’ll have a good option come next April, but you don’t need to go overboard - although one reason to apply to a lot would be for merit awards. I applied to 4 safeties and the aid really varied, so I’m glad I had a lot of options to choose from. Just to share my personal experience, I applied to 8 and I think that was a good number. It gave me a good number of options and filling out the applications wasn’t too overwhelming. I think if I had to do it over again, I might have taken a few off my list, but overall I think it was the right number of schools for me. </p>
<p>I would recommend taking your list of schools that you like and narrowing it down as much as you can while still keeping a good number of safeties (maybe 2-3) on your list. Apply to the schools that you know you’d be happy to go to, and take the other ones off the table, because if you don’t love them, they’ll just take up time that could be spent on schools you care about more.</p>
<p>My son wanted to apply to MIT only early admission and just accept if admitted. I made him apply to fifteen because the public school had threatened to corrupt his grades when he returned to homeschool. Fifteen was too many because it was impossible to do a good job on all the essays and applications, so he probably didn’t get into some schools for that reason. He got into ten, mostly Tier 1 but some safeties. He did get into MIT, but he chose Caltech after visiting both plus a few other schools. He is so glad I made him apply to Caltech because he had said he would never go there due to it being so, so focused on science and math versus having more balance. Yet, the visit was all it took for him to realize it was perfect for him. He had been wavering between MIT for the academics and Carnegie Mellon for the smaller, more connected atmosphere. Caltech had the nest of both. </p>
<p>The takeaway lesson is that an excessive number of applications will reduce the quality of your submissions, but include some variety. Your college visits for admitted students will open your eyes. Also, bring your parents to admitted student weekends. You will be able to ditch them while you are participating in the student activities, and they will be able to see things from the perspective of your welfare and fit to personality, giving you valuable feedback and asking questions you would not think of. Trust your parents to be an extra set of eyes. It will be you who makes the decision. Furthermore, your financial aid will vary widely between schools, and having several options is important. Not only will you have more to choose from, but you can ask your favorites for more if other schools are offering more. Two schools offered my son full rides after learning about his other full ride offers. They were supposedly need based but commented while looking over his records that he was an impressive student, upping his offers with haste. </p>
<p>For my son, it still worked out perfectly. The schools he didn’t get into were not good matches for him, but we had no idea how acceptances would go so we included them. </p>
<p>Having said that, I know two top students who got into NO Tier 1 schools. One had not applied to any safeties so had no acceptances at all. He took an very accellerated program at the.local university he took some courses at in high school so. he. could graduate in two years and go quickly to grad school. The other student got into her safety but refused to go despite a partial scholarship, opting to take a gap year and apply again after I reconnected her to one of her Ivy interviewers who gave her research she could do at home and some good guidance and a referral. I also kind if pushed her to reapply because she was for a while just asking the safety for more aid, putting her in an all or nothing situation. So, please apply to some safeties you will be happy with and don’t assume you will get accepted to them as they might not think you are a fit ir might think you wont accept. Also remember that even if you are invited for an interview, the interview can influence acceptances so be prepared to look your best, be naturally charming and well spoken. </p>
<p>Hope this helps.</p>
<p>Hey journier,
Why would the school threaten to corrurpt your son’s grades?
Also what were your son’s stats like GPA, Sat, Extra curriculars, etc</p>
<p>If you apply to schools that you would realistically want to go to if you got in, and that you have a realistic chance of getting into, 6-8 sounds pretty good. I applied to and auditioned for 5 selective music schools, and some people consider that to be pretty risky, but I still ended up with a lot of nice options. If I applied to any more, I’d know that even though I put in time applying and auditioning, I wouldn’t want to go there nearly as much as I’d want to go to those other 5. </p>
<p>However, if your application ends up looking pretty average or uninteresting compared to the pool of applicants in your situation and you don’t have to do anything else like audition, you might want to consider slapping a few more schools onto your common app list just in case.</p>
<p>In my mind there are two kind of safeties…admission and cost. In the end, we did 8 schools,some very top, accepted to all, but since we fell in that hole where EFC too high and the only aid we got was merit based, we were glad to have one or two financial safeties - one was a full ride. Be sure you are clear with your child about what you can afford and do the estimators to see what you might get in income based aid.</p>
<p>My D must be an exception. She applied to >20 schools. With hindsight, many are totally unnecessary. She got a bunch of acceptance, but to most she has no intention to go at all. My S is going to apply to about 12 schools, most of which are highly selective.</p>
<p>Sent from my Desire HD using CC</p>
<p>I’m just a rising junior, but when the time comes, I’m planning on applying to four to five of my top, selective choices EA, and then going to my safeties/lower-ranked schools for regular if my outcome isn’t good with EA.
I figured that way I would save money on applications, and yet not run the risk of no acceptances.</p>
<p>Alaska: That might not be a good idea. EA can vary from school but it is usally in mid-late December and January that EA schools give results. Many schools (even rolling admissions) have dates that you must make to maximize scholarships/honors applications. If you are interested in honors applications and you need merit scholarships, this plan might not work out very well.</p>
<p>Good luck, my daughter is also a rising Jr. and my oldest is starting college in a month.</p>
<p>When I applied a few years ago I only ended up submitting applications to 6 schools. I think if you can get into a decent fallback school ED in December then you can apply to a few reach schools. I was accepted at BC in December, so I submitted Duke, Harvard and Princeton for the January 1st deadline. It was much less stressful than frantically writing 10+ supplemental essays during the holidays.</p>
<p>I applied to five (U of Ariz., Caltech, MIT, UCLA, UC Berkeley). Got accepted to all of them except Caltech, which I got waitlisted (then rejected).</p>
<p>5 is a good number if you can include one or two safety schools (in my case U of A). I could’ve applied to Harvard or Yale, but oh well…</p>
<p>Kicno, you applied ED to Boston College and gained admission and didn’t retract your applications from all other schools? Isn’t that breaking the ED agreement?</p>
<p>I think 6-8 is a good number</p>
<p>2-3 safeties
2-3 reaches
2-3 matches</p>
<p>You should definitely have at least 2 safeties.</p>
<p>6 schools max?! holy crap, I’m planning on applying to 10-12 schools…</p>