<p>The rule of thumb is 2 safeties, 3 matches, and 2 reaches- that's 7 schools. I have 12 on my list mostly from the fear that I won't be accepted anywhere. Should I narrow it down?</p>
<p>If you have at least one safety that you are sure you will be admitted, sure you will be able to afford, sure you will find the academics you want, and sure that you will like, then you can put aside the fear that you won’t be accepted anywhere.</p>
<p>You can prune your list by eliminating schools which you would not choose over your safety under any circumstances. Other easy prunings include eliminating schools which have no chance of being affordable, or which do not have the academics you want.</p>
<p>Lots of kids apply to 12 schools. It is hard for anyone to judge your situation without more info about the schools and your stats. For example you could have 10 reaches and 2 safeties that you don’t love. That would be bad.
The **ratio **of reaches/matches/safeties above looks good.</p>
<p>My D narrowed down to 10 the fall of her senior year. Then once she had a couple of acceptances (EA), she decided to drop one more. And I asked her to drop one that I did not think was a good fit, and did not really want to pay for… she was fine with dropping it given the EA acceptances she had. So she ended up with 8.</p>
<p>Just saying that you may decide to drop some partway through the application process. Stuff changes between now and next Nov/Dec/Jan…</p>
<p>I think 12 is a good number of colleges. I went overboard on my applications and sent in 16 because I was paranoid too. You should also think about the cost of applying. I had to pay a couple hundred dollars just to apply because I had to send in the CSS, SAT scores, ACT scores, and just for the actual applications.</p>
<p>We started with a list of about 20 schools. Then started winnowing them down based on a variety of factors to a manageable list of 8. The 8 that we applied to consisted of 3 reach/3 match/2 safety schools. We would have only applied to 4 of those schools (early action) but the deadlines for the second set of 4 schools was before we heard back from the first 4. So we ended up sending out a 2nd round of applications (regular decision). As luck would have it we received an acceptance back from a school in our first round the day after we sent out the applications for the second round. </p>
<p>Researching and understanding the school admission criteria, merit aid, and your own personal preferences is important. Some people just send out lots of applications. This “spray and pray” method is usually a waste of time and money. It is a very prevalent method for those that are indecisive or those that did not do enough research and cannot effectively narrow their lists. Then of course there are those that are just trophy hunting acceptance letters so that they can blanket facebook with all of their acceptances.</p>