I’m relieved that our school limits applications—having just gone thru this, 10+ apps gets exhausting for the student.

I will share, if you are super low key about it, I suspect school will allow some wiggle room if you are truly in need of merit. The challenge will be that you probably cannot say you need merit so you need to apply to more schools, then apply to expensive schools that don’t give merit because you’re willing to pay more for HYPS, etc.

At our kids’ high school it’s 12. Most of the private schools in our area have a limit. In my experience 12 is sufficient. We had an initial list of 11 and just threw another one on. There gets to be a point of diminishing returns when looking at schools/compiling a list. Also, I’m not convinced that kids that are applying to 20+ schools are putting their best effort into their essays and applications. I wouldn’t describe a limit as classist at all. It’s practical and realistic. if you’re concerned about merit aid, your list should focus on that.

At my DS's school kids who apply early, even SCEA or non-binding, and get into a top school early are not allowed to apply RD. This applies to mainly HYPMS.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^Added to say they encourage fit and balance: no one applies to ALL ivies or ALL private T20s--that is actively discouraged because it makes no sense. Many of those top kids do have 4-5 ivies and other T15 privates, plus 3 match and 2-3 likely/safeties. Merit chasers apply to 15+ lower tier, and it is NBD

What happened at ncs is you had the top3 girls apply to all top20 schools (including all ivies) the top girl applied to schools 1-25.

How many did she get into?

like 20? not sure. Pretty much all schools in the top 15 except for maybe 2. Clearly she was not going to attend all of them. this was just trophy hunting and it blocked a lot of girls.

This is a huge failure on the part of the NCS CCO. They needed to shut this down and have a meeting with her parents, advisor and CCO. Ridiculous.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^Added to say they encourage fit and balance: no one applies to ALL ivies or ALL private T20s--that is actively discouraged because it makes no sense. Many of those top kids do have 4-5 ivies and other T15 privates, plus 3 match and 2-3 likely/safeties. Merit chasers apply to 15+ lower tier, and it is NBD

What happened at ncs is you had the top3 girls apply to all top20 schools (including all ivies) the top girl applied to schools 1-25.

How many did she get into?

like 20? not sure. Pretty much all schools in the top 15 except for maybe 2. Clearly she was not going to attend all of them. this was just trophy hunting and it blocked a lot of girls.

Anonymous wrote:Our school allows more apps if you need merit. Quietly go to the CCO and discuss your situation. Most importantly, don’t discuss with other families and tell your kid not to discuss the number of apps with friends. You don’t want to piss off the CCO. Good luck.

+1

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can they enforce this, especially if you are applying to schools that don't require letters of recommendations?

They won't send the transcript.

Also, you’ll piss off the CCO, and they are writing your kid’s counselor letter.

Correct. And they have relationships with the regional reps of certain colleges--in some cases quite close relationships as most of them were once reps themselves. So good luck being the kid they advocate for if you piss them off.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ugh. Naviance dots aren’t telling at my kids’ stem magnet with over 2000 students. This thread is amazing me happy my kids are at a public that lets them apply where they want. And also allows them to remain anonymous on Naviance. Yikes.

The naviance dots are definitely telling at the large schools.

The kids talk about their SAT scores and GPAs, especially the top kids.

Middle level students don't, but the top 10% or so kids definitely do. (I have kids in both groups, at a very large high school)

You can definitely look at the naviance chart and figure out roughly who the dots belong to at the top, especially knowing the acceptances

Ah. Ok. Maybe I just don’t care enough to know enough to identify individual students! Grateful for that!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:^Added to say they encourage fit and balance: no one applies to ALL ivies or ALL private T20s--that is actively discouraged because it makes no sense. Many of those top kids do have 4-5 ivies and other T15 privates, plus 3 match and 2-3 likely/safeties. Merit chasers apply to 15+ lower tier, and it is NBD

What happened at ncs is you had the top3 girls apply to all top20 schools (including all ivies) the top girl applied to schools 1-25.

How many did she get into?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How can they enforce this, especially if you are applying to schools that don't require letters of recommendations?

They won't send the transcript.

Also, you’ll piss off the CCO, and they are writing your kid’s counselor letter.

Anonymous wrote:How can they enforce this, especially if you are applying to schools that don't require letters of recommendations?

They won't send the transcript.

How can they enforce this, especially if you are applying to schools that don't require letters of recommendations?

Anonymous wrote:^Added to say they encourage fit and balance: no one applies to ALL ivies or ALL private T20s--that is actively discouraged because it makes no sense. Many of those top kids do have 4-5 ivies and other T15 privates, plus 3 match and 2-3 likely/safeties. Merit chasers apply to 15+ lower tier, and it is NBD

What happened at ncs is you had the top3 girls apply to all top20 schools (including all ivies) the top girl applied to schools 1-25.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ugh. Naviance dots aren’t telling at my kids’ stem magnet with over 2000 students. This thread is amazing me happy my kids are at a public that lets them apply where they want. And also allows them to remain anonymous on Naviance. Yikes.

The naviance dots are definitely telling at the large schools.

The kids talk about their SAT scores and GPAs, especially the top kids.

Middle level students don't, but the top 10% or so kids definitely do. (I have kids in both groups, at a very large high school)

You can definitely look at the naviance chart and figure out roughly who the dots belong to at the top, especially knowing the acceptances

How? My kid has 400 students in her grade. There are 80 or so students who are highly competitive. I certainly don’t know all of them!

Anonymous wrote:Our top private is unlimited. They in fact encourage more than 10 if reaching high and are in the top cluster of kids

so do colleges take a 3.8 from your high school if a 3.95 also applies? Have you actually seen the scoir/naviance dots on this?