So an FB friend that i’m sort-of-friendly with (nice person…we just haven’t seen each other in years!) posted this about her son’s college journey last night: “(Son) applied to 23 schools. He was accepted by 14, waitlisted by 4, and rejected by 5. Then the 14 started calling and sending packages. But today he committed and sent in his deposit!”
(and I had been feeling guilty that my kid applied to 12 colleges…but this puts me to shame. Kidding
And, yes, I know that it’s nuts but I thought all of you - especially - could truly appreciate just how nuts.
But he accepted his spot and sent a deposit. With two weeks to go! I’m impressed.
There is a student on CC who claims to have applied to 27 colleges-or maybe it’s 28-got into all but one, and all are tippy-top schools, including most of the Ivies. I keep waiting for the news venues to pick this up.
“Then the 14 started calling and sending packages.”
I’m always amazed when people go on about the free do-dads they get from colleges given how much in return we all pay for college. I can buy my own t-shirts, decals, and posters, thanks!
A news venue would make that student verify his/her claims, that’s why it hasn’t been picked up. 
I think I applied to a 6 and only got into 1, about a hundred years ago. Even my safety turned me down!
D asked me recently what I would’ve done if I hadn’t even gotten into the 1. I shrugged and replied that I probably would’ve had to go to community college. Kinda frightening how casually I took the whole college thing back then. My parents were completely uninvolved, talk about lazy parents!
Its very different today. Today, it’s about bragging rights for the parents. Which I get, we want to relish in all of our hard work, this is what we have been waiting for! But, I also feel we have done a disservice, not all kids, but some. Lack of responsibilities, compared to when I was growing up. My kids have it much easier. I also stressed education and being involved with school, sports, etc. I guess it’s a balance! At least they do their own laundry. Soph and Senior in HS. S has had a camp counselor job. Will b three yrs this summer. D is hopefully getting CC job or lifeguarding. Hiw do other parents feel?
@doschicos, I wear the t-shirt one of D2’s colleges sent me (yes, the parent) all the time. My kid didn’t pick their school, though.
Wow. I told my kids it was reasonable to apply to 7 or 8 schools each, if they chose them well. I think they each picked 7, including a reach and a safety. I guess if your main goal is to get into as many super-selective schools as possible, then it makes sense to apply to dozens.
Or if you are chasing merit aid as in our case. D applied to 19 schools, was rejected/waitlisted at about 6 or 7 of them. Packages for the remaining 13 varied from a full tuition grant to a low of $2000 merit award at our instate flagship. With the exception of the state school, the median price was about $60K. In the end, COA ranged from $12K to $40K, well worth the time spent researching and the monies put out for visits and applications.
My kid applied to 19. Got rejected by 2, wait-listed by 1 and accepted by 16. I realized that we a little overdid on safeties, but with all those horror stories about SAT 2400 unhooked kids getting nowhere we did not know what to expect. 6 UCs were on one application as well as 3 Calstates.
I love this thread!! D1 was going to apply to 15, but got into some schools EA, so ended up applying to 11. D2 is quite picky, she applied to 10 schools, and only because she got into all her EA schools threw in a couple of reachy reaches just to see if she could get in (i.e. Harvard - and was rejected form them).
What is an issue?
One applies to a lot when one wants / needs and applies to few when there is no need to apply to more. I do not remember exactly how many colleges D. applied, maybe 8, but she was accepted to all, she did not care to apply to Ivy’s though, rather she choose a free option based on her Merit award. Then she did not feel that she needed to apply to many Medical schools. She applied only to 8, while many others applied to a much higher number. But it is not the end of the story, when she applied to residency, she applied to 110 places, because she felt that she needed to apply to these many and she got her top choice.
Too few, too many, there is no criteria to call any number too low or too high. D’s number of residency applications was not even the highest possible, some people applied to more.
Both my Ds thought 5 apps was plenty.
I applied to 20 schools and only got into 4.
My D applied to over 20 (includes 7 UCs and lots of reaches) because she was an unhooked student with fairly decent stats.We visited all but two of these schools. No regrets, as she got into all her safeties & matches, and at least four of her reaches ( including her dream school which is a lottery school). However, we were not really chasing merit, and the cost of application was not a hardship, so maybe, our situation was a little different.
My son applied to 11. Got into 9, waitlisted by 1, and rejected by 1. Then he ended up at the University of Southern Maine, anyway! Life is weird.
My D1 applied to 16 - 11 acceptances, 4 rejections and 1 waitlist. D2 applied to 20 - 6 acceptances, 7 rejections and 7 waitlists. Both ended up at the same school!
These days, one has to ask: Is it safe to apply to just seven? Given the viscious cycle, the whole process just becomes more and more inefficient for both students and schools.
Middle son applied to 23 schools! He was also safety heavy since we’re homeschoolers, and he was a particularly strong applicant. Community college was the ultimate safety-no big deal to him or us. He applied to that many because 1) we weren’t sure if he’d get into any schools that weren’t safeties, and 2) he was looking for one affordable school
He was admitted to 16, waitlisted by 3, and rejected by 4. He got into exactly one reachy-reach, which also turned out to be, by far, the most affordable option. Even so, in the end, he was choosing among schools with very different admit rates: 9%, 35% and 80%.
Applying to a lot of schools can be easier than you think since multiple schools can go on one app (Cal State was 5, UCs were 3; at least 4 other schools had no essays). The rest, except for one, were Common App schools.
The other big issue with my son was that he hadn’t a clue what he wanted to major in, and since all the state schools require you to pick a major (unless you choose undeclared, but that’s not always the wisest choice), he applied to at least 6 different majors and very different types of schools.
In retrospect, if he had decided early enough that he didn’t want to go into engineering or industrial design (didn’t decide until all apps were in), that list could have dropped down to about 15 schools.