How many colleges did your DC apply to?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC ED Chicago and got accepted. I’d rather him applying to 20+ schools and had the better options.

Same. If I could do over, I would say no to Chicago ED. I hadn't discovered DCUM yet so I didn't know it was a scam.

A scam? If your kid is going to Chicago, how is that a scam?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC ED Chicago and got accepted. I’d rather him applying to 20+ schools and had the better options.

Same. If I could do over, I would say no to Chicago ED. I hadn't discovered DCUM yet so I didn't know it was a scam.

A scam? If your kid is going to Chicago, how is that a scam?

Chicago is a bit of a scam in terms of its so-called selectivity. It really should be outlawed the way they bully kids and parents into early commitments. Whether it not it's a good school, it's just not cool.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC ED Chicago and got accepted. I’d rather him applying to 20+ schools and had the better options.

Same. If I could do over, I would say no to Chicago ED. I hadn't discovered DCUM yet so I didn't know it was a scam.

A scam? If your kid is going to Chicago, how is that a scam?

Chicago is a bit of a scam in terms of its so-called selectivity. It really should be outlawed the way they bully kids and parents into early commitments. Whether it not it's a good school, it's just not cool.

I had a lot more respect for U Chicago back when they were a niche school with a self-selecting student body and took something like 60%

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC ED Chicago and got accepted. I’d rather him applying to 20+ schools and had the better options.

Same. If I could do over, I would say no to Chicago ED. I hadn't discovered DCUM yet so I didn't know it was a scam.

A scam? If your kid is going to Chicago, how is that a scam?

Chicago is a bit of a scam in terms of its so-called selectivity. It really should be outlawed the way they bully kids and parents into early commitments. Whether it not it's a good school, it's just not cool.

I had a lot more respect for U Chicago back when they were a niche school with a self-selecting student body and took something like 60%

I think this feeling is ubiquitous. We will see how this pans out for them going forward. I wouldn't be surprised if people start recognizing this and taking a pass.

[Anonymous]

SDSU admitted early and offered Honors program; so safety locked

1 EA admitted and finished before Xmas break

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC ED Chicago and got accepted. I’d rather him applying to 20+ schools and had the better options.

Same. If I could do over, I would say no to Chicago ED. I hadn't discovered DCUM yet so I didn't know it was a scam.

A scam? If your kid is going to Chicago, how is that a scam?

Chicago is a bit of a scam in terms of its so-called selectivity. It really should be outlawed the way they bully kids and parents into early commitments. Whether it not it's a good school, it's just not cool.

I had a lot more respect for U Chicago back when they were a niche school with a self-selecting student body and took something like 60%

I think this feeling is ubiquitous. We will see how this pans out for them going forward. I wouldn't be surprised if people start recognizing this and taking a pass.

Chicago is the more selective version of Tufts/Northeastern/Tulane.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DC ED Chicago and got accepted. I’d rather him applying to 20+ schools and had the better options.

Same. If I could do over, I would say no to Chicago ED. I hadn't discovered DCUM yet so I didn't know it was a scam.

A scam? If your kid is going to Chicago, how is that a scam?

Chicago is a bit of a scam in terms of its so-called selectivity. It really should be outlawed the way they bully kids and parents into early commitments. Whether it not it's a good school, it's just not cool.

I had a lot more respect for U Chicago back when they were a niche school with a self-selecting student body and took something like 60%

I think this feeling is ubiquitous. We will see how this pans out for them going forward. I wouldn't be surprised if people start recognizing this and taking a pass.

Chicago is the more selective version of Tufts/Northeastern/Tulane.

Yes, except Chicago parents think they're signing up for an Ivy, when they're actually signing up for...Tufts.

[Anonymous]

We choose 7 but the counselor suggested 10. She was accepted by 7, so we should have stuck with our original plan.

[Anonymous]

Our schools says 8-12
Son (2024) applied to 10, accepted to 9 (this was unexpected)
Daughter 2026 will also apply to 10

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:2023: 1 ED, 1 Rolling, 1 EA (both safeties). In at all, didn’t have to keep going after ED admit to SLAC.

2025: ED Ivy reach (reject), ED2 T20 reach (deferral), 1 rolling safety and 4 EA Safety (accepted all), 3 EA Target (accept 2, defer 1), 2 EA Reach (defer both)
RD (included deferrals from above): 1 Target (WL), 12 Reach (accepted 3, WL 5, rejected 4)

We classified schools based on their acceptance rates, over 50% was safety, 26-49 was target, and bellow 25 was reach. But all
The reaches on the list were under 20, most under 15%.

Total applications: 22, accepted 11, WL 6, rejected 5

Where did your DC end up going?

Also, looking back at the list, we could and should have cut some of the safeties and some of the reaches. They applied to, I would say, 10 schools with really had no interest or intention of attending. Got into 4 of them (all of the safety/targets, none of the 6 reaches in that group).

Cutting those would leave a list of 12 schools. Of those 12, the stats would have been 2 safeties (accepted 2), 3 targets (accepted 2, WL 1), 7 reaches (accepted 3, WL 3, rejected 1). Total acceptances would have been 7/12.

I think once they got rejected from the ED1 reach school, they and we had a bit of doubt and started adding schools, both “just in case” and “why not” because they had lost of essay variations written and it wasn’t a ton of extra work to do so.

This is easy to say in hindsight though. When you are in it, it’s hard to not add a school because you don’t know what the outcome will be and you want your kid to have choices. We could afford the application fees, so we said okay when they suggested adding a school and they said okay when we suggested adding one.

We are all happy with the outcome, and they are excited to start in a few weeks.

This. Admissions is unpredictable. Having choices is our goal. At my child’s school there isn’t a lot of Naviance data on many of the schools they are applying to, so they must cast a wide net.

Same. Glad they applied to 20+ schools bc of this. It wasn't that hard or that much more work.

How can it not be a lot more work? Most of these colleges have 2-6 essays each. Adding 5 colleges means 10-30 more essays.

The essays are generally across a few topics and once you have one essay for that topic you can very easily adapt it to a similar topic at another school. For example:
“Why major” and “why school” sometimes this was one essay covering both but at a few it was 2 shorter essays separated out.
“Diversity”
“Community”
“Adversity”
Once you have an essay for these topics you can adapt them to be longer, shorter, and/or more specific to a school as needed.

[Anonymous]

15, got into 10. He got into a lot more UC schools than expected.

[Anonymous]

18: 9 acceptances, 6 waitlists, 3 rejections, attending an Ivy

[Anonymous]

5, got in ed2 to Chicago.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:2023: 20 (including 12 reaches, after ED1 deferral). At ivy.

2025: 22 (including 14 reaches, after ED1 deferral). Enrolled at T10.

Also in the 20+ club in 2025 as a high stat, public school candidate seeking highly competitive admission. Headed to an Ivy.
Why so many?
- Such a crapshoot, fear of being shut out with goal to get into best, best fit college possible
- Large class meant same-school competition with 50+ in the top 10% where, unlike private, no one has any clue who is applying where
- the superstar kid in the class was applying to 20, including all of the ivys
- indecision, major was offered everywhere, kid unable to narrow options well, calling an institution a likely or safety made it almost immediately unpalatable
- wanted to keep financial options open

I strongly recommend narrowing things down.