<p>When the application asks what other colleges you are applying to, do you think it would be smart to put your safeties, your reaches or a mix? Why?</p>
<p>I'm split myself as putting all reaches could either make them want to give you merit aid to sway you away from the top schools or they might implement Tufts Syndrome and reject you because of your more prestigious options.</p>
<p>Here’s my FAQ on the subject: </p>
<p>APPLICATIONS TO OTHER COLLEGES </p>
<p>You could quote chapter and verse from the Statement of Principles of Good Practice of the National Association for College Admission Counseling:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nacacnet.org/ABOUTNACAC/POLICIES/Documents/SPGP.pdf[/url]”>http://www.nacacnet.org/ABOUTNACAC/POLICIES/Documents/SPGP.pdf</a> </p>
<p>and once you have done that, you could say, based on whatever is the truth, “Not wanting this to be construed as a statement of my order of preference, I am applying to”</p>
<p>a) “other colleges that appear to offer some of the same features as your college”</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>b) “a varied list of colleges to ensure that I carefully consider what is the best fit between me and each college”</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>c) “small liberal arts colleges with a focus on undergraduate teaching” (or whatever summary characteristic applies to all colleges on your list)</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>d) “a list of colleges developed according to policies of my high school counseling office”</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>e) “[actual list] but this list should not be taken to be in preference order”</p>
<p>or</p>
<p>f) “a list of colleges that I would rather not mention here, so that we take extra care to follow NACAC principles of good practice.”</p>
<p>Your own creativity can probably come up with some more choices. I do NOT see this question on many of the college application forms I have downloaded from the Web this year.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.nacacnet.org/ABOUTNACAC/POLICIES/Documents/SPGP.pdf[/url]”>http://www.nacacnet.org/ABOUTNACAC/POLICIES/Documents/SPGP.pdf</a> </p>
<p>One student mentioned that a college that he was applying to online allowed only fifty characters in its online form for listing other colleges that he was applying to. That would allow for lots of fun possibilities, such as</p>
<p>Q: To what other colleges are you applying? </p>
<p>A: [in online form:] I am applying to other colleges that share some of the great characteristics of your college, for example </p>
<p>To sum up, if you are applying early decision somewhere, OF COURSE that college is your first choice, and you plainly signal to that college that it is your first choice by applying for a binding early decision program. But if you are applying for nonbinding early action, for rolling admission, or for regular action admission, no college should care much where else you are applying, and you are certainly not obligated to tell the college where else you are applying, especially not in a rank-ordered list.</p>
<p>Thanks for all the info tokenadult, you’re always very helpful. </p>
<p>Only a couple of my colleges are requesting this info and both of them only want a list of the colleges. They give a few blank spaces, not a block of white space for a paragraph. These schools that ask for other colleges I’m applying to are also safety/lower match schools for me. So, with that in mind, I’m not sure which colleges to put down, if any.</p>
<p>I think that if you HAVE to put other schools, put down your matches and/or safeties. Don’t put down reaches because schools hate to think that <em>they’re</em> being viewed as a safety, and I know a lot of colleges will reject highly qualified students because they know they won’t go in the end.</p>