<p>I applied to 6. The kids at my school couldn’t believe how few schools I applied to, the average was about 10, if you didn’t get in early.</p>
<p>Personally, I think ten is too many only if you have to pay all the application fees. It adds up very quickly.</p>
<p>lol i applied to 20 schools. I didnt find it too hard and fee waivers helped me alot. I like to have options at the end so I applied to so many schools and I dont think that it is a bad thing.</p>
<p>wow! I knew that I wanted to go to yale in my junior year and effectively, that is the only college i applied to. thank heaven i got in.</p>
<p>Regardless of how many schools you apply to, if you’re going to apply to Yale early, make sure you have the applications for the other schools mostly done. If by chance you are deferred/rejected, you won’t be in the mood mentally to tackle however-many applications.</p>
<p>Yeah, good advice - if I hadn’t been accepted in December, I would have ended up with messy apps, because to be honest, I had only worked on two others before I heard from Yale.</p>
<p>I had planned to apply to 9 but cut it down to 4 after I got in Yale (didn’t really need matches or safeties after that). I actually did the apps to 7, plus scholarship apps to 2. </p>
<p>Pick schools that use the common app, and one’s with reusable essays make the process less stressful. Yale’s additional essay is easily tweaked to fit other schools, Harvard’s optional additional essay is totally open ended, Brandeis Blue Ribbon allows essay or graded assignment (and it’s free), and Wash U. has no additional essay unless you do University Scholars. </p>
<p>Also, I divided my nine-school rec letters among 3 teachers, so each teacher only needed to do 3 or 4 instead of 9. It may have made it easier on the teachers, though they probably just ran off the same letter, but it definitely looked like I was asking less of each teacher.</p>
<p>I applied to 15; 1 deferral and 7 accepts so far. This Thursday will tip that balance, I’m sure.</p>
<p>to those people who applied to 10+ colleges: why so many? is each one the ‘perfect college’ for you?</p>
<p>I didn’t, but I can say that when the “perfect college” for you is HYPSM, you have to apply to several other good (and a bit less selective) schools so you are sure you will get in somewhere.</p>
<p>10 schools is fine. My advice would be: have at least 2 safeties, and make sure they are **safeties<a href=“you%20should%20be%20absolutely%20certain%20you%20can%20get%20in”>/b</a>. Also, your colleges ideally should be spaced out over a spectrum. I think it’s unwise to apply to HYP then have a huge drop and the next school on your list is Podunk U. Finally, make sure the 10 choices are schools you know enough about and care enough about to show interest in your applications. Good luck!</p>
<p>Wow the mindset is so different at my school. One girl asked me where I was going for college. I replied that i was accepted to FSU but still waiting for Yale’s decision. She didnt have a clue what I was talking about. She thought that since i was accepted to FSU first, that THAT was where I was going…screw the other schools. Im the only kid in my school and probably county thats applying to Yale. I’m not sure if anyone has ever applied to yale at my school since its opening.</p>
<p>no one from my school has ever gone either!</p>
<p>If you have the money to pay for the application fees then go ahead and apply to as many as possible. Out of those ten, to how many would you REALLY consider going?</p>
<p>Good luck though</p>
<p>10 is doable, but don’t go much over. if you can, pick safeties that are on the common app (or, if you’re in california, in the UC system) ~ that really cuts down your work and lets you concentrate more on the schools you really want to go to.</p>
<p>i applied to mit, oxford, stanford, yale (as reach schools), and 3 UC schools (as safeties & match schools) and that was just fine - especially because all 3 UCs used the same app and i just tacked my essays for MIT and the UC system onto my Yale app, so it didn’t take any extra effort. really, i only ended up doing 4 apps - MIT, oxford, stanford, and UC system.</p>
<p>so i suppose my point is this: IF you can figure out ways to cut down on your work, and if you are fine with the application fees, financially, then go ahead and apply to 10 schools. if there’s no overlap between the application requirements of the schools you’re applying to (like, if you’d have to write new essay for each app), then you might want to cut down on the number of schools you’re applying to so that you can spend more time/do higher-quality work on the applications you really care about.</p>
<p>and doing too many apps is likely to be really stressful. know your limits, and don’t push yourself too hard :-P</p>
<p>I said in an earlier post than applying to 10 schools is fine. However, if applying to 10 schools isn’t good for you financially, then don’t do it. However, I applied to 9 schools, and I didn’t pay for any of my application fees. I got fee waivers from my college counselors. So, even if you financially speaking can’t apply to 10 schools, you may be able to anyway if you can get fee waivers from your college counselors.</p>
<p>Thanks guys! 
The cost is not so much of a concern, as the time or effort it would take to fill out 10 apps. I’m hoping the common app will reduce some of the stress, though (a couple schools out of the ones I’m applying to accept it). My counselor told us some stat about how the fewer schools someone applies to, the more, proportionally, they get into. So I guess narrowing down your chocies can work in your favor.</p>
<p>Think of it this way. You have a few months in the beginning of the year to decide 6 places where you really want to go. If you apply to 10+, then you only have a month to decide when you get acceptances. I applied to six, and my school has a 6 private school limit because of all the competition. You really only need one safety, considering a safety by definition means that you have no chance of getting rejected there. Good luck.</p>
<p>I think that 10 is a good number. It was the number I was aiming for when I was making my list but I’m too picky so I ended up with 7 (out of which, I only like 6). </p>
<p>I think that if you’re applying to schools like Yale where it’s so hard go gauge your chances, it’s a good idea to apply to a few more. </p>
<p>And nowadays, it’s so hard to find a good safety because so many schools have those “syndromes” where they reject overqualified people. There were some times when I feared I wouldn’t get into any college, but I basically have 4 reaches, 2 matches and 1 safety. </p>
<p>I also think it’s a good idea to apply to a safety school with rolling admissions early on, so that you’ll have an acceptance very early and can cement your list around that.</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s too many if you can handle all your applications well. If you can recycle essays (or have time to write 10+) and pay the application fees you should be okay. I’m looking to apply to around 8. I’m an American living in Italy, so the mailing costs can get pretty huge (DHL). But if you live in the US and it’s okay, then by all means apply.</p>
<p>What schools were you looking to apply to, honeyhazel? Applying to Yale early?</p>