Why are my guidance counselors saying you should only apply to 20 schools when I am 90% done with my application for RD and eligible for pell grant and application fee waivers. Why is it so discouraged? My writing supplements for the colleges I want to apply to are done. I don’t understand… it’s not like colleges know I am applying to 40 colleges? Help me understand this odd piece of advice.
Your conscience?
Common app limits applications to 20.
After that you have to use the coalition app and/or the school’s own app. You can also apply to 58 HBCUs with the Common Black College app.
There aren’t many reasons to apply to greater than 20 schools, even those who are merit hunting should be able to get the list down to 20. Why do you want to apply to more than 20 colleges?
Why? Because your college guidance counselor is not your own personal paid employee to write out 40 recommendations, submit the paperwork, on time, and check your accuracies for email submissions.
There are other students at your school who also need attention for their college applications. Being selfish Is not a quality that I would let my guidance counselor see right now. Whoops! That recommendation letter might change a little.
You’re already getting an advantage in that you have fee waivers. You’re already getting an advantage and that you may qualify for Cal Grant support.
Sometimes, something like this will backfire; it doesn’t matter how good a student you think you are.
Apply to as many schools that you would actually be willing to attend, but be aware that your counselor has many students and that the suggestion of a 20 school limit is quite generous.
The extra work is negligible for a counselors. Counselors only have to write a rec letter once…the same one goes to all schools, and is typically uploaded once to Naviance/Scoir and/or the application vehicle (common app, coalition app, et al)
More transcripts will need to be sent, but that’s usually done by an admin, and isn’t time intensive regardless of who is doing it.
Lastly it is atypical that a HS counselor would review every application that any student submits…at some private schools this might happen, but is probably not common, at all.
My point was that the counselor still needs to keep track of 40 submissions. Everything is done online but errors do occur given the numbers.
Are you actually thinking about 40 different schools you might attend?
If not, you think it’s odd advice to not waste your time and that of everyone else involved in the process for no reason at all?
Frankly, “only” 20 is still extremely high. If you haven’t narrowed down your application to a smaller list, you should put some more effort into research and decision making.
There are news stories every year of people who were admitted to a very large number of schools, as if it’s something impressive. Frankly, they earn more disdain and pity than admiration, at least on CC.
You can only attend one school.
The title question raises some “return questions” to me:
- What is the breakdown of reach vs match vs safety schools in your 20? What would it be if you applied to 20 more?
- What is so unsatisfactory about the 20 you have that you want to apply to more? What do you hope to get from the additional 20 that you don’t think you’ll get in the ones in the first 20?
If you’ve applied to 20 schools which represent the right mix of reach, match, safety-- and you’ve just learned about two more schools with programs which interest you that you didn’t know about- yes, I think approaching your counselor in a respectful way to ask to expand your list is perfectly appropriate.
If you’ve applied to 20 schools and are now on a trophy hunting trip? You’ve applied to 20 and say to yourself “Hey, none of my schools are in Hawaii- I should really think about Hawaii”? You’ve applied to 20 and have time on your hands and don’t have any other interests besides researching another 20 colleges?
Those are the scenarios your GC is trying to avoid.
Just because you can do something doesn’t mean that you should do it. The schools are being nice to you by allowing you to apply with a fee waiver. Why do you want to abuse this gift? Bragging about getting into 30-40 will get you nowhere. There are lots of students that could get into thousands of colleges if they wanted.
Not to mention the impact your applications might have on fellow students in your school - it increases competition. Some high schools around the country and the world limit the number of applications a student can submit to 8-10 for this reason.
Lots of colleges have unique essays and stuff for the applicant to do, even if they use a shared application (Common, Universal, Coalition, state, CBC, etc.) that is shared with other colleges on your application list. So it is extra work for you.
It may be extra work on your counselor and recommenders if they do not all share the same letter of recommendation forms and questions.
8-10 is probably plenty for students only concerned about admission, but may not be enough for those chasing competitive merit scholarships, where it is much more difficult to assess chances than for admission. However, those chasing competitive merit scholarships will be applying “down” (i.e. to colleges which are low match, likely, or safety for admission), so they will not be competing with similarly qualified students only concerned about admission.
If the cost is not a problem … if you’re up for the extra work involved … if you need substantial FinAid … my advice is YES do it. I’m probably one of the few that will not try to dissuade you from doing this. No, it is not a path for everyone, but it is a necessary and smart path for a few.
Good luck and keep us posted on your progress.
I think our brand new OP may be pulling our legs.
At any rate, it takes some work to vet your college targets and come up with a presentation in the app/supps that meets their expectations. Seems to me, either OP is crapshooting or aiming at easier to get into rack and stacks.
It looks like your list of 20 is missing the True Safety. So instead of cranking out 20 more applications, find that one. Your True Safety is a place that:
- you can afford without any aid other than federal aid you qualify for with the FAFSA and/or automatic merit aid for your stats and/or guaranteed state aid
- you are flat-out guaranteed admission to because of your stats
- offers your probabl emajor(s)
- you will be happy to attend if all else goes wrong in the application cycle
Once you identify your True Safety, don’t waste one second of your precious lifetime on applications to places you don’t definitely like better than that True Safety.
Yes, in some cases huge numbers of applications can be justified. For example if a student has serious financial need, a shaky academic record that means the only guaranteed affordable place is an open-admission community college, and/or a somewhat uncommon major that isn’t offered at the places that normally would meet the four criteria listed above. If that is your situation, sit down with your guidance counselor and draw up a plan for all of the applications that you do need to make.
What would you do if you got 40 acceptances? You cannot attend 40 universities. You probably will not even have a chance to visit 40 universities even if the pandemic is over.
One friend of a daughter had a very good reason that she was unsure where she could get accepted, and therefore applied to 25 universities. She got into somewhere around about 15 or 18 of them. It was hard at that point to figure out which ones to seriously consider, and which one to attend. We had enough trouble deciding between the 5 acceptances for a daughter who only applied to 5 schools. We got it down to 3 quickly but she then had a lot of trouble deciding.
Perhaps the big question is: Why would you want to?
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More transcripts will need to be sent, but that’s usually done by an admin, and isn’t time intensive regardless of who is doing it.
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Transcripts can be uploaded to the Common & Coalition Applications as well. However, the only scenario in which I’d consider applying to 15-20+ schools is for students applying to combined BS/MD programs, as it’s necessary to apply widely to both traditional undergraduate schools and BS/MD programs if you’re certain you want to go down the BS/MD path.