<p>I'm sorry if this has been asked before but,</p>
<p>is applying to many schools a turn off for colleges? Since I am applying for financial aid, they will most likely see it on the forms.</p>
<p>How do they judge applicants who apply to many schools? What if they see a "rival" school for example Harvard and Yale?</p>
<p>It often happens. Not a problem.</p>
<p>Don’t worry to much about it. Colleges know you’re applying other places. And I’m sure that plenty of people apply to both Yale and Harvard; they both know it and expect it, so it will be no big deal. </p>
<p>However, one concern is how safety schools might interpret your list. If one of your safeties looks at a list full of more prestigious schools and realizes that they are your safety (and thus you’re unlikely to actually matriculate there if they accept you), then they might view you less favorably. Just make sure they know you’re interested in them by demonstrating that interest.</p>
<p>Also (and this is just speculation), it might look bad if you apply to ALL the Ivy leagues or other prestigious schools. Then it looks like you selected them not because you care about their schools, but because of their name.</p>
<p>I applied to 12 schools last year. Wouldn’t say I would do it again like that, but it didn’t have much of an impact on whether I was admitted. How would other schools know? I don’t understand what you’re saying with the financial aid forms.</p>
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<p>Check the common data set, section C7, to see if “level of interest” is considered in admissions. If it is, do not consider the school to be a safety (find an actual safety that does not consider “level of interest”).</p>
<p>Can colleges even see which other schools you’re applying to? I assumed the common app would hide that information. </p>
<p>Personally, I applied to way more schools than most applicants, and the only schools that waitlisted or rejected me were my high matches/reaches. I got merit aid at all the schools where my scores put me in the top 25%.</p>
<p>Oh and OP, Harvard and Yale wouldn’t care if you applied to both of them (the cross applicant rate is probably well above 80%). They don’t consider level of interest in admissions.</p>
<p>You might want to post on the financial aid forum to be sure, but I don’t think when a school receives your FAFSA or Profile they get to see where else it got sent. And the Common App definitely doesn’t show that information. Some schools ask on their supplements, though.</p>
<p>The Common App does not show the other school information. </p>
<p>If you apply for Financial Aid you have to list 10 schools at a time and the schools on that list can see the entire list of 10 schools. If you apply to more than ten schools, you can make two different lists. </p>
<p>Apparently, almost every interviewer will ask in a roundabout way which other schools you applied to. You can decline the question but so many just answer the question because it feels awkward to not answer a question. I think you should give a short list of complimentary schools. Yale and Harvard make sense. Williams and Amherst. </p>
<p>Also, a girl I know applied to two small northeastern private schools Early Decision - which is against the rule for each school. Well, one school called the girl and told her that they were removing her application because they found out that she had also applied to the other school ED. The schools shared information between themselves. Fortunately, she was accepted at the other school ED.</p>
<p>I don’t think it matters how many schools you apply, it’s just the quality of your applications might suffer because you probably don’t have enough time to do research on all of them. Last year one mom wrote her daughter applied to 20-30, I think she was rejected at most of them and only got into the UCs.</p>
<p>If you need good financial aid, then IT DOES MATTER how many schools you apply because only 10 schools can go through the financial aid process (through the government) at a time and so your first ten schools listed are really important. Some schools, fin aid is a first come/ first serve process, so you wouldn’t want to be a late comer expecting a lot of help from the colleges. The government took weeks to process some people’s financial data last year. People were stressing. </p>
<p>On the other hand, if someone is applying to 30 schools (Dr Google’s post above), she probably doesn’t need financial aid. Then it is a matter of just trying to get accepted into a school with strong standing. </p>
<p>I know people who’ve applied to 15 schools, because they don’t know how to assess if the college is a ‘range’ school or a ‘reach’ school. It seems that all of the Top 15 National schools, and Top 5 LACs could be considered ‘reach’ if you know people with near perfect SAT scores and strong GPAs not get accepted to those schools.</p>
<p>Actually she did need financial aid. Her daughter was rejected ED from Penn so after that they add 20-30 schools.</p>
<p>On the FAFSA, after your first ten schools, you submit it and then once it’s been verified, you go back, remove however many spaces you need and add the rest. All of them will still have access to the FAFSA.</p>
<p>You are right… they all have access to the FAFSA, but some people were complaining that they couldn’t update the schools until the first ten go through the process and, unfortunately, some schools have February deadlines. FAFSA needs to be updated because it is unfair to the families that don’t know how to maneuver the online process.</p>
<p>Yeah, I had some of the same problems last year. Advice: submit the FAFSA for schools with the earliest deadlines first and then do the others! If you’re applying to more than 10 schools and they have similar deadlines, rank the schools in order of preference and submit that way.</p>
<p>Could you define “go through” please? What does that involve and how do you know when it is done?</p>