<p>The lowest number of applications I’ve seen personally (from someone who didn’t apply early decision) is one. He applied to University of Maryland: College Park and while they do have a priority application deadline (November 1), decisions don’t come out until the end of January. Therefore, he would miss out on applying to any other colleges. </p>
<p>I know UMCP isn’t a hard school to get into, but he didn’t have the stats to be that confident. He was like 80/500 in our class, the typical “B” student. He took AP classes, usually got Bs or Cs, with As in standard/honors courses to cancel it out. Wasn’t in NHS, nor any other clubs besides Track, and even then he frequently didn’t finish a season because he kept breaking his leg (seriously, but he was always so optimistic and it became so routine it was almost comedic). He was accepted, no honors or scholars. I asked him what he would have done if UMCP didn’t accept him and he said “I would have been f***ed.”</p>
<p>The most I’ve heard of from someone I know personally is low 20’s. I cannot even fathom how anyone handles that many applications. I currently have eight schools on my list and sometimes I get to a point of being so stressed just by those that I want to forget it all and just go to the school I’m already into.</p>
<p>soozievt: Ironically, one of the pre-frosh that I met in the spring was choosing between Brown, Stanford, and Tisch. She ended up choosing Tisch (I could tell money was not an issue for her as well…perhaps it was the same person? or maybe Brown and NYU get many cross admits).</p>
<p>AmbitiousMind…Yes, this girl was choosing between Brown, Stanford, and Tisch and chose Tisch. I worked with her for two years and I am sure it is the same person. And yes, she attended the events for accepted students at Brown.</p>
<p>D applied to 18. I would say 8 were reaches (ivys less Columbia + Stanford). 3 were low reach/high match (Northwestern, Vanderbilt, WUST). 5 were matches (BC, UVA & UNC – OOS, Tufts, Wake). 2 were safeties (Trinity & Pepperdine). She poured her heart and soul into each app and all of the essays. She also visited most all of the schools and went to regional presentations when reps were at her school or in our town. She thoroughly researched all of the schools and found great things about each that made them appealing. In the end, we were a bit shocked by the results: Rejected by 3: HYS. Accepted by 7: Northwestern, BC (Honors), UVA, UNC, Wake, Trinity ($), and Pepperdine (Dean Scholar – considerable $). Waitlisted at 8: Princeton, Penn, Dartmouth, Cornell, Brown, Vandy, WUST, Tufts. We weren’t quite prepared for the vast number of waitlists, and I don’t believe it had anything to do with insufficient time/effort spent on individual apps. In her case, I’m glad she applied to so many. When the discussion of cutting the list by 5 came up in November, one of the schools she said she would have cut at that time happens to be the school she decided to attend. So for her, it was a good thing she wasn’t forced to narrow her list. In short, I think students should do what’s best for them. I’d be livid if a counselor or school put a limit on the number of apps, but then again, she went to a private prep with fewer than 100 in her graduating class as opposed to a public with 800+. I suppose in that case, a line has to be drawn somewhere due to time restraints on the GCs.</p>
<p>Even if I had a few thousand dollars lying around, I doubt I’d spend it all on applications. Why apply to a school unless you had full intentions of going there (even if you didn’t like it as much as another school you were applying to). I’d spend the $$$ on something else. Yes it would suck if you could barely afford to apply to all the schools you wanted to, but I don’t know why anybody would apply to more than 12. Which I think is more than enough.</p>
<p>^ If you only got into one of the schools, would you go there.
If this scenario struck you and you have colleges you wouldn’t attend, I’d say that you don’t need to apply to them. Just my thoughts.</p>
<p>A few years ago I helped my son apply to 14 schools, the top 14 of US News. He had strengths in both humanities and engineering, no strong preference, undecided at time of application (finally chose engineering major). He got into 7. My wife and I do not believe in fit and match, nor does my son. It is just 4 years. One can manage to thrive in diverse schools and in fact students do, they have their dream school and when they dont get in they do well in their safeties and backups, etc.</p>
<p>The top 14 are more alike than people realize. There is too much emphasis on CC about rural/urban, small/big etc. Caltech and UPenn or Duke have more in common than people realize: strong student body, strong faculty, strong academics. In the end, the signaling effect of ranking is important, in my opinion. Students feed off each other and it is important to go to a school where the student body is closest to your SAT or above.</p>
<p>Not to wander off subject, WE (no, I am not apologetic about parent involvement in the process) chose the top 14, then after admission HE decided where he wanted to go.</p>
<p>With admissions being very unpredictable, especially for Asians, we believed in casting a wide net.</p>
<p>I strongly recommend a minimum of 7 or 8 schools. Anyone who recommends fewer is being irresponsible unless the student is a prodigy of some sort. Now, go ahead and bash me up.</p>
<p>jc40, I agree it is an individual choice and I don’t believe a counselor should limit the number as it is up to the family. I don’t think someone needs 8 reach schools though. As you can see, your daughter got into her matches and safeties for the most part, and came close on several reaches (wait list). I think if someone has an appropriate list that is reasonable for their profile, it can yield as many acceptances as your daughter got but with less applications. For example, you obviously have a very strong student and she got into 7 out of 18. I also have two kids who are very strong students and applied to very competitive schools and got into 6 out of 8 (and also had one waitlist). I think having an appropriate and well balanced list should yield results without applying to 18. Of course if someone wants to apply to 18, they should. I just don’t believe they NEED to. </p>
<p>ramaswami…I don’t agree with you in selecting colleges by “the top 14 ranked schools” rather than fit. I do agree that if someone is a top student, they would thrive the best in a selective college that is challenging and at their level. But that can happen at a school ranked 20 as much as one ranked 10. I have a kid who attended an Ivy League school. She indeed wanted a very challenging learning environment. She has never seen the college rankings and could not tell you what number her college was ranked at. But she had various selection criteria. She had a particular major she wanted the college to have (Harvard was out as it didn’t have this major). She wanted to be able to continue in at least one of her sports that not every college has (alpine ski racing…she was not recruited by the way). She wanted to be near a city, having grown up in a rural area. “Very selective” was also a criteria but there are more than 14 colleges in this land that are very selective and offer high end academics. She applied to 8 schools and they certainly were not all in the top 14 in the rankings (I don’t know the rankings off the top of my head, but will assume that the 4 Ivies on her list were in the top 14, but the others were not). By the way, did your child not have any safety school? Every student needs safeties. None of the schools in the top 14 are safeties for anyone, in my view.</p>
<p>Sooz, I apologize if I left the impression that only the top 14 matter. My first point is, since admissions is unpredictable, applying to a lot of schools is a good idea. Second point, fit is overrated. Third point, rankings have a signaling effect and it is a good idea to apply to schools where the SAT scores of the student body is slightly above yours.</p>
<p>soozievt: What a small world! NYU definitely seemed like the place her dad wanted her to attend; it was so hard to sell Brown to them, but they were really nice and I’m sure she made the right choice for herself! So do you counsel students from all over? If I remember correctly, she was not from one of the immediate 50 states…</p>
<p>ramaswami…I just disagree with you. I agree on going to a school where the student body will challenge you as well as the academics offered. That was important to my kids as well. But using rankings instead of fit doesn’t make sense to me. Also, your criteria is “where the SAT scores of the student body are slightly above your own.”</p>
<p>I’ll stick with my own daughter as an example. She got into Penn as one of 100 Ben Franklin Scholars. I honestly don’t know where Penn was in the rankings that year as we never viewed rankings. But I just looked it up now for Penn and they are ranked #5 currently. She also got into Tufts University which I see is ranked 28th. Now, as far as SAT scores go, Penn’s mid CR/M are 1350-1530 and Tufts are 1360-1500, which I consider so close to one another as to be a wash. When my daughter was narrowing her acceptances down to make a final decision. She knocked Penn off the list and Tufts was one of her first choices. It was a better fit for what she wanted. She could care less about rankings. As far as SAT range, which is your criteria in terms of academic fit (not mine), she would not be worse off in being challenged by the student body and the academics at Tufts than at Penn. There are many very selective schools in the country with very accomplished bright student bodies and challenging academics beyond the top 14 in the rankings. </p>
<p>My D would never have applied to Cornell as it was not the right fit, for example. She was interested in architecture but did not want to do a BArch degree program which is all that Cornell offers. That alone meant it wasn’t on her list. There are plenty of other very selective schools that matched her “fit” criteria (and for that matter, the SAT range as well). My D would never have applied to Dartmouth as the setting is very similar to where she grew up (rural Vermont) and their ski team is one of the tops in the country and she could not have made the team. They also didn’t have the major she was interested in. So my kid did pick by a range of selection criteria, one of which was the level of students in the student body. Rankings never entered into it, however. Fit was essential. Even if my kid could have gotten into Harvard, for example, it wasn’t a good fit, even though they offer a great education. Yale or Princeton met her criteria better than Harvard. Stanford would not have been on her list as she wanted to stay on the East Coast. There are plenty of highly selective colleges on the East Coast that she didn’t need Stanford on the list no matter where it is ranked.</p>
<p>Regarding just choosing the top 14 schools on the US news list and applying: I have to agree with soozievt on this approach. Okay, so you let your S. pick after the fact, but so what – the entire process seems narrow, based only on school reputation and a ranking methodology of only one entity. Yeah, these schools are good, but if they end up not really being a good fit for the student, then you have to start the whole process again when he wants to transfer. Are you saying that your child’s needs really don’t matter, and only school rank does? This may work out fine for your family in the end, and if it does, great. But, this sort of approach is one of the big reasons that application numbers have arbitrarily inflated over the last 10 years, and consequently made it more difficult for qualified students to get a fair shake during the admissions cycle.</p>