How many applications are too many (or too few)?
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Anonymous
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My cousin has 4 kids. They all got in ED to one east coast liberal arts college. Sports.
Neither cousin nor their spouse has any ties to the school. Now they're all '28 '28 (twins), '29 and '30 |
Anonymous
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If your student is willing to complete 15 apps, then 15 apps is fine.
Most do about 9 with 3 reaches, 3 matches, and 3 safeties. To be blunt, once one has identified and applied to at least 2 safeties, then the rest doesn't matter as much. |
Anonymous
| Ten seems like plenty |
Anonymous
Very confused. What makes this relevant to OP's question? |
Anonymous
| My dc will likely apply to around 20, but we're seeking merit aid and he's not a tippy-top student, so we need to compare offers. Only 5-6 of these schools are really top choices, and the list includes some financial safety in-state schools. If we were full pay and/or could quality for need-based aid, the list would probably be more like 10-12. |
Anonymous
There’s a difference between having 15 on the list and applying to 15. My 2 high stats kids only applied to 6-8 each and had good results. For fall EA/ED/rolling you want to have - 1-2 rolling/safety - 1-2 target in-state public schools EA - 2-4 out-of-state EA/SCEA - 1 ED if kid is really sure You hear back from rolling, ED, and some EA/SCEA before RD deadlines. If you’ve planned well, you’ll have a 1-2 acceptances. Any defers/declines help you know if you are in the ballpark for competitive schools. Then adjust the remaining RD application list. My kid with strongest profile only did 4 EA/SCEA (no ED), accepted 2, deferred by 2 (both very competitive). Then only 4 RD to ivies, accepted to 3. Doing 15-20 applications is really just a recipe for stress and not necessarily better results. |
Anonymous
I’m PP. missed saying +100 on this. |
Anonymous
I agree with both of these comments. DC sounds very similar to your DC. Deferred ED, so they ended up applying to 15 additional schools. A few were EA and already in. They finished a few targets in October/November and felt there was a benefit to getting them in early, so those were done. But the rest required a ton of extra work. Regarding PP's comment about your kid being willing to do the work, know it might be substantial and time consuming. Unfortunately, DC's RD schools all had 3+ "optional" (but not really) essays, including the targets and safeties. Some essay questions overlapped for sure, but even when the questions were similar (tell us about your academic interests etc.), the specifics were each a bit different, as were the word counts. Up to your DC how they want to handle that. Some kids pretty much cut-and-paste from other applications and chop out a paragraph or two where needed to fit the word count (which can range from 100-600 words on the same topic.) DC tends to be all-in and chose to answer the questions exactly as asked, which meant different focal points. And they were advised not to repeat information in the essays for a single school. So that ended up requiring reworking, too. I share all this ridiculous detail because a year ago we genuinely did not understand what it meant for DC to "do the work" of 15 applications. We thought it would be a relatively easy cut-and-paste situation. DC would write a few reusable supplements and then swap in different details for the "Why Our College" essays. That's not what they wound up doing, and they're genuinely exhausted as a result.  Never been so grateful for winter break.
Finally, I have massive empathy for every kid and parent going through this process. We know tons of kids who are much more targeted in how they apply. They love their safety and plan to go there, and then add a couple of targets and reaches to see what happens. Or they get lucky with schools that don't have additional supplements. We're hoping DC2 is one of those kids!!! But if your DD is shooting for T25 schools, the outcomes truly are unpredictable. Yes, their stats are excellent (congrats!) and make them a contender for pretty much any school. But from there, it's near impossible to predict what will happen, even using Naviance as a guide. So that can mean more applications with a lot more work involved. Good luck, and have your DC start writing essays early. |
Anonymous
This! The supplementals all fit into a few topics, word limit may be different. If they look through all of the prompts before jumping in they can brainstorm and write essays that can be adapted. The most work is the "why us" prompt as those require them to go deeper on each university, find particular classes/professors, traditions, clubs etc- a spreadsheet is helpful. Note, "why major" requires individualization as well as it can be quite different school to school |
Anonymous
Can you tell us the 4 EA/SCEA schools? |
Anonymous
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Deferred. 3 total so far…
10-11 to go. God help us the next 2 weeks. 2nd and last kid applying to college. Thank goodness. |
Anonymous
Sending huge hugs to you all!! |
Anonymous
| ^ with my firstborn, sons of his best work was completed in same timeframe - lol. He’s at an Ivy now- submitted 12/31 on a whim. |
Anonymous
Thanks so much. Not the way I wanted to spend my vacation…oh well |
Anonymous
It sees like it’s harder to recycle kid’s essays like my older one was able to do in 2024. Prompts are more varied this cycle |