<p>I am having a hard time making up my mind on several schools that I would like to apply. I know I have to consider the time it will take to apply,visit, and interview at all the schools that I do apply at. So...how many schools do you apply for at the same time? Only your top two or three? Or can you apply for as many as five or six? Or more?</p>
<p>I would be interested in knowing how many each of you applied for(don't need to give names of schools, just number). Then how many of those you were accepted at(once again, no names of schools, just numbers)</p>
<p>With the increase in both competitiveness and size of the applicant pools this year it would be smarter to apply to more especially if your top choices are very top tier.</p>
<p>I applied to 24 or so because Questbridge paid for all the top tier colleges’ application fees and I got fee waivers for my UC schools.
So I ended up only using common app and my QB app. The real work was the supplements but if I didn’t have the school at the top of my list I just recycled essays.
Feel free to ask me questions :)</p>
<p>I applied to 9. If you are applying for financial aid you may want to apply to somewhere from 5 to 10 and look into schools that will place you at the top of the applicant pool. Also don’t only apply to schools with a < 20% acceptance rate, they are a crapshoot for pretty much everyone.</p>
<p>I really don’t like describing schools as “reaches”, “average”, and “safeties”, but I did it anyways. You may end up getting into a “reach” school and a “safety” school, but choose the “safety” instead. Don’t apply to too many schools, nor too little (unless boarding school is a casual option/one school mindset).</p>
<p>For the people who applied to 10 or more schools, didn’t it end up being very expensive? I’m not sure my parents are willing to spend so much money when I’m only going to end up going to one school.</p>
<p>I think FA is right in the middle of the equation. It’s more and more of a gamble now, so if you absolutely need it to consider BS, that drives more applications. You should look at the master list…you’ll see it varies from people applying to only 1 school, to maybe 3 top tier schools (or maybe 3 regional/specialty schools depending on the student), to a range of 5-8, to a BROAD range of 10+…and the results are very different, too.</p>
<p>In our case, FP family, applied to 5 schools, acceptances at 4.</p>
<p>I applied to three, which was pretty risky. Two were Hades, and the third one is more of a second teir, but imo just as good. By some miracle I was accepted at one Hades and the lower teir school, and waitlisted at the other Hades. I would really recommend applying to a lot of schools, especially ones that are less known. They are the coolest</p>
<ol>
<li>Research and visit as many schools as you’d like. You don’t have to apply to schools just because you visit or even interview. I’d suggest making the apply/don’t apply decision after your interviews. If you do that you can probably trim off a few schools that will feel marginal to you by then. (You’ll need to schedule interviews prior to December for this strategy to make sense and allow you sufficient time to finish essays).</li>
<li>Don’t apply to fewer than 3-5. You can’t count on safeties necessarily being safeties. Schools are seeing rising numbers of applications and will be closely focused on the percentage of offers that are ultimately accepted (yield).</li>
<li>Be prepared with an answer to the question, “where else are you applying?” This will most likely be asked to your child during the interview. The answer will color the admissions officer’s report. This is treacherous territory in my opinion.</li>
</ol>
<p>Thanks for all the replies. Are they really going to ask “where else are you applying?” If you apply to 10 other schools, won’t that hurt your chances because you will look like you’re not serious about their school but rather just applying everywhere and anywhere. How do you answer that question?</p>
<p>I personally applied to 4. Two safeties and two “reaches”. In fact, those two weren’t really reaches. They were more like the schools that I didn’t have such a good chance at. I don’t think 10 is necessary. Find a balance of schools that are reaches and “safeties”, but love your safeties! This year, after all of the drama, you don’t even know if you’ll get into some safeties. There’s a thread in the Parent’s forum about applying to college, and the college counselor suggested that the student look at a balance between a greater than 50% acceptance rate and a less than 50% acceptance rate. Look at safeties and look at reach schools, don’t get attached to one or another, and try your best. Love all of the schools. And please, don’t go overboard with the amount of schools you apply to. It’s unnecessary. If you want more safeties, go ahead. But applying to more than 5 schools seems to be added pressure that you don’t need! :)</p>
<p>I’m glad that you thought a safety would be best. I know that a safety is always the best idea. It’s not like my local public school is necessarily bad, but I just want every future applicant to know that, unless you want to potentially end up in public school, you should apply to a safety that appeals to you. And safeties aren’t always safeties. On this website people have gotten accepted into the acronyms and wait-listed at the “safeties” (i.e. Mercersburg, Blair, Miss Porters). So don’t assume anything!</p>