<p>Nor does 12 x 20% = 100%. All students are not equally attractive to these schools. It is best to follow the advice given to college students–look to develop a list of schools in three categories, Reach, Match, and Safety. You should love every school you apply to, and be able to attend happily next year. Love your Safety. Don’t apply to a Reach if it gives you the creeps.</p>
<p>You’re likely to do a better job in presenting yourself as an attractive applicant to 6 schools than to 14. Researching, visiting, interviewing, filling out the applications and keeping track of your applications’ status takes energy.</p>
<p>I think that you should apply to an absolute maximum of 6 schools. Boarding school should be about fit, you should want to eat/sleep/breathe in a place that you’re going to absolutely love. How can six schools all be a perfect fit for you? I feel that it’s good for someone to be obsessed with getting into their one dream school, and to feel satisfied if you get into your second/third choice and not your first. Why waste your parents money on application fees and your teachers time on recommendations to go to a school that at the end of the day is not what you really wanted. Just because it’s one of the top bs’s and whatnot doesn’t mean that your life is going to end if you don’t get into it. Majority of kids never go to bs and they turn out just fine, and not to mention they don’t spend their high school years living in a bubble, oblivious to the real world.</p>
<p>So I guess we have to balance on the fine line between applying to too many to get higher chances, and applying to too little to get perfect fits…</p>
<p>In my dictionary that’s about 5-7 schools. :)</p>