<p>IMO, if you are legacy at Columbia, you may have probably blown your chances by not applying ED. By not applying ED, the adcoms there will know with absolute certainty that C was not your first choice. And since everyone wants to be loved and you didn’t show them any love…</p>
<p>Bluebayou - OP is not revealing his legacy Ivy school (one of the other six). He is saying he is allowed to apply to only two (I am guessing private school that controls how many ivies their kids can apply to so everyone has a chance to get into a good school and not one student getting into all of them) and one being legacy, he is trying to choose between Columbia and Harvard.</p>
<p>One of my friends went to public school in North Dakota, and her counselor would only send recommendations to three reaches. (They can easily “not let you” apply if they just won’t send information to more than x number.) The counselor’s definition of a “reach”? Schools with <50% acceptance rates! My friend is one of the wickedest smart people I know, and we only met because she destroyed me in a national competition. Needless to say, my friend now goes to a very good college. So yes, counselors can refuse to “let you” apply to more than two, and no, that refusal does not always imply privilege.</p>
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<p>That is a stupid rule because it is the same information being sent to every college, and the student can provide the envelopes and stamps if the school can’t do it electronically.</p>
<p>As a matter of fact, students who go to schools that use Naviance (or some other method of transcript and recommendation submission that doesn’t go through Common App) cannot provide all required materials on their own.</p>
<p>I’ll talk to my college counselor. Maybe I can convince her to make an exception.
In the meantime, any other opinions?</p>
<p>If counselors are loading information to Commonapp or Naviance, they have the least amount of work. Once loaded, it should not matter to them whether a student applies to one school or 20, the max allowed by commonapp. They should have no right to dictate how many or which schools a student can apply to.</p>
<p>OP - Don’t make the assumption that Columbia is easier to get into than Harvard. It just depends on which school finds your profile more attractive. I know a local mainly academic kid who got into Harvard but rejected by most other high profile schools going all the way down to Tufts.</p>