Hi all,
I am currently a junior in HS, and thinking about college. there are so many to choose from, and I can’t visit any before applying because I don’t have the time to. Also, I think I have a higher chance of getting into a top-tier college if I apply to more of them (prestige is big in my family) However, I do feel like if I apply to 15 plus, i might get laughed at…
thoughts anyone?
If you are going to do that, you will need to get a good jump on essays over the summer and start the Common App as soon as it opens in August. My son applied to 12 colleges (11 of them on Common App) and it was a lot of work on top of AP Classes, ECs, and general senior-level busyness.
I applied to 21 schools, only a few safeties with 3 match schools and the rest high reach (Ivies and comparable).
I still believe it’s true that this shotgun approach is good if you want to get admission to a very elite school. It’s certainly better than not trying at all. Just remember to apply to some safeties and a few good matches, all that you would be happy at and actually like if you didn’t get in anywhere better.
Before you try the ‘shotgun’ approach, you need to ask yourself if your stats, ECs and essays are realistically competitive in the elite university pools. Take a look around the results thread on some of your top choices (though, know that those are usually the cream of the crop that post on this site!). Is your own profile in any way comparable? This will help you decide if applying to so many schools is worth your time and money. (Money is a big factor… I was lucky enough to get fee waivers, but if I had not, the costs of applications and sending test scores would have come to well over a thousand dollars.)
If so, get started on your essays and other components to your application over the summer. Ask your teachers for recs by the end of this year. And do something very cool over the summer!
P.S.: Trust me, no one will laugh at the number of colleges you applied to, especially if you get into some really awesome ones. After acceptance letters start rolling in, no one cares anymore about the application process and your number.
Please feel free to message me with any questions about the elite school application process! I know how tough it can be. All the best.
You must find the time to visit colleges
Pros: Increasing your chances at having options
Cons: $ and time writing supplements
Pretty simple.
When do you expect to visit? April of senior year is packed – senior ECs are in full swing, tickets are expensive I short notice, you are still in school, and your parents may not be able to get away much. Most students pull off 3-4 visits max that month. Pressure is huge for students who have not visited, too.
And no matter how much your family likes prestige, schools don’t care at all. You could end up with no choices in the spring, too. Even if you have high stats, top schools have very low acceptance rates – and your odds don’t go up by applying to a lot of them.
You probably will be paying application fees and fees to send test scores to all of them. If you are applying for FA, it costs money to do the CSS profile for each school, too. And every school has somewhat different dates and requirements for financial aid paperwork submission, which will make you and your parents crazy if you apply to a lot of schools.
I posted on the linked thread. I helped K1 do that. Now with K2 I will be encouraging more of an ED stradegy combined with EAs at some state and safety schools with the hope that K2 will have safeties before the RD season and can concentrate on matches and reaches if deferred or rejected ED.
What you give up by not visiting now is the inability to do ED which is your best shot and you are not showing interest. Some schools do not care, some care a lot.
Chances are you will not get into that many top reaches in March so you probably will only have 3-4 schools to visit next April.
You cannot apply to all 3000 colleges in the US. So at some point you have to narrow down the list.
Whatever you do, don’t apply to 16 matches and then have to choose anyway.
I applied to 14 (so not quite 15 but still a lot). Money wasn’t a barrier, so I would say if that isn’t a barrier for you as long as you start your essays in the summer it’s manageable. Some schools have truly unique prompts, but most schools you can recycle essays.
Originally I had less schools and a really balanced safety-match-reach list, but I panicked that I wouldn’t get in anywhere so I added several more safeties and matches 
I’m not sure if the shotgun approach is a real thing… every time someone has asked about it the more experienced CC members have reiterated it’s not a valid approach.
At the end of the day, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with casting a wide net, especially in your situation with not being able to visit. This way you can apply to your 15+ schools, and then visit the top three that you’re accepted to and your serious about. It will be stressful keeping all the deadlines straight though! Good luck
@CDOESenior2k16 So was the panic valid - were any of those extra safety and matches you added at the end even schools that you would be happy at or would want to go to?
Or none, depending on the list. Or none that they realize they would actually want to attend, if they are only relying on ranking and paper/internet to assess the college.
OP, in another thread you said you were in top 20% of your class. Have you looked at the stats on top tier colleges? Something like over 90% come from the top 5-10% of the class. You really need to take a hard look at your stats and be real about what schools you will likely get into. There is nothing worse than getting 10 rejections. Look at the results in college results threads from march.
@suzyQ7 No it wasn’t valid! Sorry if I wasn’t clear enough-- I wasn’t saying that that panic was a good thing. I meant to imply that I had a really balanced list and then panicked and added more schools. I added several safeties/matches that I knew I would get money from and that I would be happy to attend IF I didn’t get into any of the schools I liked more… so I did my research but it was a little unnecessary to add so many.
I ended up getting into one of my top choices and am very excited for next year… Good luck OP!
EDIT: Just noticed I said your not you’re in my last post 
no judgement please it has been a long week of APs haha
@junejiehuang , applying to that many colleges guarantees nothing if they are all in the Top 20. http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/1631163-rejection-from-all-colleges-no-acceptance-yet-p1.html
Every year there are a bunch of threads like the one above, from students who have incredible grades and test scores. People assume, wrongly, that if you apply to enough elite colleges you are sure to get lucky. That isn’t how it works. You do not need to apply to 15 schools, and I especially wouldn’t bother applying to really elite schools if you don’t have incredible grades and test scores, unless you are an underrepresented minority, or have some other special hook, or some truly outstanding extracurricular activity. You need to apply to some colleges that you can actually get into, which means they have an acceptance rate above 40% or higher, and your stats are high at that college.
I applied to 15 colleges. I didn’t get a single rejection but all of the colleges I applied to were pretty easy to get into. I wished I had applied to at least one reach but apparently all of the reach colleges have like a January deadline and I didn’t get all my apps done till way later(I blame my GC for taking forever to start my commonapp profile).
@lindagaf I am planning on applying to 12-13 schools, including BU, George Mason, and maybe another college with around a 50% acceptance
does a safety school count if it is a public OOS with an acceptance of around 60%?
Also, I heard that LAC admissions are unpredictable, and I am planning on applying to 4-5 of them!
If it is public OOS, is it affordable? A school is not a safety unless it is affordable for sure. Also, a lot of state schools are required to take a certain % of students from in-state, so sometimes OOS students need higher stats.
LACs aren’t less predictable than other schools. But they may care if you show interest.
@intparent idk, I just saw on multiple cc posts that lacs tend to be more holistic and emphasize writing/extra curriculars more. also, on the US news profile, I saw that some of the people who got into top LACs had low GPAs (3.3, 3.2, not joking at all), and barely anyone who got into a top uni with under a 3.7
let me pull up the site for u (:
http://www.usnews.com/education/features/student-profiles
http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/articles/2015/10/02/how-i-got-to-college-briana-garrett
http://www.usnews.com/education/best-high-schools/articles/2014/09/30/how-i-got-to-college-eric-tims
I think this is debatable. A top-tier student who has a chance of getting into elite universities like Stanford, Columbia, Harvard, et al. has a very good chance of admission at excellent universities with 30-50% acceptance rates, like Brandeis, Boston College, Lehigh, Lafayette, University of Rochester, Case Western, Tulane, Northeastern, University of Miami, etc. And then there are the in-betweens - the ones in that 10-30% range, like Duke, Georgetown, Tufts, Wake Forest, Rice, Emory, etc. But only a very small fraction of the universities in the U.S. accept less than 30% of their applicants - probably less than 1-2%. But a truly ambitious kid who is competitive enough for Stanford or Columbia could go to BC or Tulane and do just as well in life (not to mention Georgetown or Duke).
So I see no reason why 10 can’t be the upper limit. Instead of trying to run the gamut, pick 2-3 of the super-reach schools and 1-2 of the in-betweeners (10-30% range), or vice versa, depending on how badly you want it and what your stats look like. That’s 3-5 schools that are in the reachy category. Then round out the rest with a solid gamut of matches (3-5) and some safeties (1-2). That’s an additional 4-7 schools. Adjust as necessary given one’s stats and desires. You can only go to one! To me, a shotgun approach values prestige and ranking above all else and I think that’s not a good spirit to enter your college search with. (I also think the kids who are applying to 15+ schools are usually applying to a reach-heavy gamut - like 10-12 reach schools, 1-2 matches, and just 1 safety. I think your college search should instead be mostly matches!)