<p>Well, every time I think of it, the idea gets more and more tempting. College admissions (and especially merit aid) seem to be getting so finicky and unpredictable... </p>
<p>And furthermore, with the advent of the common application, one essay to rule them all. Only a select few colleges require supplemental essays... </p>
<p>It's a $50 fee, which can be shrugged off at the possibility of a package that could be 10,000 dollars better than the previous package. Who knows? One of the adcoms might have gotten laid last night, or something... </p>
<p>I know people will come on about "fit", but honestly, I'm searching for a college with a small class size and good academic reputation, that can teach me what I need to know. I really couldn't care less about the prettiness of the trees, or the colors of the dorm room walls, or whatever strange clubs there are on campus (Because I probably won't be interested in them)... </p>
<p>Don't come on here and flame me about it, my college list is still a tidy 7-8 colleges... but I just want opinions on pros and cons.</p>
<p>Does your current list contain a couple of safeties and some good REALISTIC matches? If you’ve built a reasonable list already, then sure, go ahead and apply to as many schools as your parents are willing to pay app fees for. Just don’t get your hopes up.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t bet on the “ad-com might have gotten laid last night” theory. Admissions and fin aid seem quirky from the outside, but each school has its internal decision tree. Just because you don’t know what it is, doesn’t mean it’s not there.</p>
<p>BTW, my D had to write a unique essay to each school she applied to (Tier 1 LACs). Good schools aren’t going to be impressed by a generic essay which was obviously sent to 10 other schools with only the details tweaked. What they want to see is that you’ve thoughtfully addressed their specific topic.</p>
<p>From what I’ve seen, a whole bunch of top Tier 1 schools don’t require a supplemental essay. From my list of 8, only Grinnell has asked for supplemental responses. But I get what you mean by an internal decision tree… but there’s no denying at some schools you just get luckier than others, for some odd reason.</p>
<p>I say go shotgun. A lot of top, top schools no longer track or even want to be made aware of “demonstrated interest,” which even is trickling down to profs who don’t want to be bothered and adcoms who don’t want to be cc’d academic inquiries. The point I’m making is, they are the band; applicants just get to dance to their tune. If this is how they are playing it, you’ve got to do what you have to do. Study enough to be able to do a good job on the “why do you want to attend ‘Ivy College’?” short response essay, but outside of that, do what you have to do in order to get into a school that is the caliber to which you feel you belong based upon your intellect and performance.</p>
<p>Well I guess there really is nothing wrong with the shotgun approach… It’s just that most people don’t prefer, or are unable, to pay app fees to like 20 schools when you’re still going to only get accepted to one school whether you apply to 7 or 20 schools.</p>
<p>And is the scholarship package a different college offers going to really be that significant of a difference to another school? If judging this based on “average” colleges or the like (since the high-ended schools usually require a supplement to common app), who mainly award money based on merits, then it only slightly matters if you do have a lot of good academic merits (but then people with that good of merits and academic ability with low-income would probably be shooting for the Ivy Leagues, which award scholarship on need-base). Otherwise you probably still get the same amount of scholarship money from the individual schools. </p>
<p>But if one has the “extra” hundreds to use out of their parents’ income (or maybe their own job) to do the shotgun approach, then by all means go for it?</p>
<p>The only drawback I can think of (besides any supplemental essay), is that some schools also want unique recommendations. Except for that I’d say go ahead.</p>
<p>Don’t forget in addition to the application fee’s, there are also fees for sending SAT’s, ACT’s, and CSS profile. Some HS’s also charge for each official transcript. Add in postage and mailing materials, and the $ can add up quickly.</p>
<p>The only real drawback if someone has the funds is being able to keep up quality applications. You need to remember that while most top schools will only require one or at most two supplemental essays-those essays are generally school specific and you’ll want to do good research about the schools to make sure its presented well.</p>
<p>Oh and, if everyone else did that that would make admissions even more crazy. And I guess some teachers wouldn’t be happy mailing out 20 recs or something. But by all means do so if you can present quality apps for each school.</p>
<p>I think that qualified students seeking a high-opportunity education should approach the shotgun method unless they make their top school through early admissions. Sure, schools might be looking for a certain kind of student, but you just can’t predict what they’re looking for. </p>
<p>Every year a few students at my HS approach this method, and they are all well-qualified. Usually these students will be accepted by about half of the top institutions, and there’s no predicting where. One student, for example, was WL/rejected by Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Columbia, and Penn, and UC Berkeley, but was accepted by Stanford, MIT, Dartmouth, Cornell, Georgetown, and Johns Hopkins. Can anyone guess what she had that the accepted schools liked but the rejected schools didn’t like? Me neither. And yes, these results are typical for all students similar to this student (4.0 GPA, 2350+ SAT, no major hooks) except that the schools wildly vary (except for Cornell; Cornell LOVES our school :)).</p>
<p>One problem with the kind of shotgun that you’re planning is that although you think you’d be happy at any good school with small classes, such schools differ widely, and it’s unlikely you really would be happy at all of the many schools that meet your criteria.</p>
<p>In addition, it’s next to impossible to do an excellent job when applying to lot of schools. While many schools take the common app, many also require supplements that are unique to their schools. In addition, many schools require interviews. Even if you are able to crank out 20 applications that are somewhat individualized, it’s very hard to handle a bunch of interviews thoughtfully especially if you haven’t bothered to learn about or care about what makes each school special.</p>
<p>It’s also hard to find time for lots of interviews. Yet, some colleges either virtually require interviews or look askance at you if you turn down an opportunity to interview. </p>
<p>While having a great interview isn’t likely to tip you into a college, having a bad interview due to burnout or not knowing a darn thing about the college that you applied to can hurt you. </p>
<p>If you also are unrealistic in terms of where you apply or if you don’t take the time to individualize your apps, you could end up with all rejections. It has happened. Just like at the old thread about Andison.</p>
<p>When people talk about the shot gun approach they generally mean they will apply to many reaches believing they’ll get into one. That in general does not work because colleges of the same level are generally looking for the same thing. So if you’re not top 5% and you have a 2050, you can shot gun every ivy and top LAC and you’ll get rejected from all of them.</p>
<p>But if you’re talking about applying widely to schools where you have a chance in hopes of getting a better package, it’s a fine approach.</p>
<p>To counter the question in the title, what’s wrong with doing some homework and putting together an intelligent, well-researched, realistic list where you stand a decent chance of being admitted to most of the schools? You can always shot-gun a few reaches in addition to, not as a substitute for, a good solid list.</p>
<p>"To counter the question in the title, what’s wrong with doing some homework and putting together an intelligent, well-researched, realistic list where you stand a decent chance of being admitted to most of the schools? You can always shot-gun a few reaches in addition to, not as a substitute for, a good solid list. "</p>
<p>LasMa, your approach would be great IF the admissions choices were more logical. But we’ve all heard way too many stories of people getting in, say, Columbia, CalTech, Dartmouth, and Williams, but waitlisted by Northwestern and Rice. I say use the shotgun, BUT don’t waste an ap on a college you don’t REALLY want to go to. In other words, there’s nothing wrong per se with applying to 15 or 20 reaches, but I’d guess most students’ preferences are clear enough that they couldn’t even think of that many that they’d REALLY want to attend.</p>
<p>LasMa, OP has made it clear that his primary concern is maximizing finaid. The shotgun approach is better suited to bringing in a varied number of offers. If the OP were more concerned about the total experience at college then your rifle approach would be more appropriate.</p>
<p>Exactly. I think I would just pop out the applications to a range of LACs from 50-15 in ranking, looking for some of them to offer better aid packages then others, and pop out a bunch of applications to a range of National Universities also. Most of them I’ve seen DO NOT require lengthy supplements, actually. It’s only the Ivies and tippy-top LACs that I’ve seen make you do hard supplements.</p>
<p>And Nick017, I LOVE your analogy… haha. Brings back memories of Zombie games.</p>