Applying to 20 schools, crazy or not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your child has a well structured list, with genuine spread of likelies, matches, and reaches there is no reason to apply to more than 10 schools. 20 schools is just wrong. If someone is serious doing that they should rethink whether they are looking at college for the right reasons.

Tell me without telling me you’re not Asian 😆

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends.

A) Need a large aid package and applying to a mix of schools (not crazy)

B) shotgunning 10+ highly selective schools (crazy)

This is OK, if you've got lots of time and money to waste on applications.

DD wanted to apply to a large number of reaches, but we pared it down to two. There's a less than 5% chance she'll get in, and I don't want her wasting her time on these schools where there are tons of applicants just as special and great and extraordinary and gifted and smart and talented with high grades and test scores as DD. Why bother with this crapshoot? She's great, but so are most of the other applicants. Her chances don't improve by much if she applied to 10 such schools. It's 5% at each one, so she might win, but more likely than not, she won't, and all that time and money will go down the drain.

Thank you. Soooo many people don’t understand this.

5% at each, 40% at one of the 10. Not too bad

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your child has a well structured list, with genuine spread of likelies, matches, and reaches there is no reason to apply to more than 10 schools. 20 schools is just wrong. If someone is serious doing that they should rethink whether they are looking at college for the right reasons.

False! If I want to aim high, I'd include all HYPSM and then some as my reaches, because the chance to get in any of them is so small for most people. This easily makes my list longer than 10. Also, most colleges today practice yield protection to some degree. Your chance is actually at the mercy of those colleges who may or may not believe you would attend if accepted. And safeties these days are no longer safe for the same reason.
So if you really want to apply to less than 10 schools, go ahead and try your luck. But don't try to mislead people because it's a WRONG thing to do!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Kid applied to 3 EA, 1 ED and will apply to 6 RD. Fool is waiting till Dec 15th to see if he gets in to any school first because why waste time writing more essays?? All safeties and matches he says. But is Princeton a match? Fool.

princeton doesn't have ED....

Didn't say that Princeton was the ED. Princeton was EA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends.

A) Need a large aid package and applying to a mix of schools (not crazy)

B) shotgunning 10+ highly selective schools (crazy)

This is OK, if you've got lots of time and money to waste on applications.

DD wanted to apply to a large number of reaches, but we pared it down to two. There's a less than 5% chance she'll get in, and I don't want her wasting her time on these schools where there are tons of applicants just as special and great and extraordinary and gifted and smart and talented with high grades and test scores as DD. Why bother with this crapshoot? She's great, but so are most of the other applicants. Her chances don't improve by much if she applied to 10 such schools. It's 5% at each one, so she might win, but more likely than not, she won't, and all that time and money will go down the drain.

Thank you. Soooo many people don’t understand this.

5% at each, 40% at one of the 10. Not too bad

That’s not how it works.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends.

A) Need a large aid package and applying to a mix of schools (not crazy)

B) shotgunning 10+ highly selective schools (crazy)

This is OK, if you've got lots of time and money to waste on applications.

DD wanted to apply to a large number of reaches, but we pared it down to two. There's a less than 5% chance she'll get in, and I don't want her wasting her time on these schools where there are tons of applicants just as special and great and extraordinary and gifted and smart and talented with high grades and test scores as DD. Why bother with this crapshoot? She's great, but so are most of the other applicants. Her chances don't improve by much if she applied to 10 such schools. It's 5% at each one, so she might win, but more likely than not, she won't, and all that time and money will go down the drain.

Thank you. Soooo many people don’t understand this.

5% at each, 40% at one of the 10. Not too bad

That’s not how it works.

+1000 (minus the eye roll). Game Theory does not work in admissions.

Each admissions decision is an independent event. Each institution has different criteria. But most importantly: a 5% admissions rate does not mean your kid's chances are 5% because it is a one-time event, so they are either 100% or 0%, and you can't know in advance.

Do not attempt to use game theory in admissions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your child has a well structured list, with genuine spread of likelies, matches, and reaches there is no reason to apply to more than 10 schools. 20 schools is just wrong. If someone is serious doing that they should rethink whether they are looking at college for the right reasons.

Tell me without telling me you’re not Asian 😆

Because it sounds stupid?

[Anonymous]

These days, definitely smart