<p>Is is really that unwise to apply to about 4-5 top colleges? Not all Ivies but Lower/Public Ivies and Top LACs?</p>
<p>Are you saying that 4-5 is too many or too few?</p>
<p>This is the way I looked at it: If I don’t apply, I’ll never know. No one knows how competitive admissions are going to be, and no one knows exactly what those people are looking for, so why not compile a list of fairly realistic (yet still definitely not safety) schools and apply to all of them? If you have the time and the money, I and my family believe that the $60 application fee is worth the opportunity to know my choices.</p>
<p>With that being said, you have to be semi-realistic. If you’re not a top kid academically or with extracurriculars, my advice to you would be different. There’s no point applying to a school with a 15% acceptance rate if you don’t seem like a viable candidate (based on released data with SAT scores, GPA, etc).</p>
<p>I am wondering if it is too few? I am rank 3/392 in my class. 7 APs so far (5 more at end of year) Latin and Ancient Greek SAT 2300–everything else is consistent, 2 sports, ecs.</p>
<p>4-5 top colleges is a good number of top colleges. However, you should add one safety. If you’re going to apply mostly to top colleges, you should pick at least one top college that you think you have a pretty good chance of getting into. If that’s not true for any of the top colleges, then your applications shouldn’t be weighted so heavily towards top colleges. Don’t apply to <em>all</em> top colleges, as you never know what could happen.</p>
<p>I am applying to Harvard, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, Berkeley, and UCLA (intended biochemistry, molecular biology, or molecular engineering major)</p>
<p>Well definitely throw a safety or two into the mix, but it looks like you’re definitely a competitive applicant for some top colleges. I wish you luck, and again, apply to as many schools as you want/can! It seems like the hardest part is applying and getting accepted, but really, making a choice is the most difficult part of this process.</p>
<p>Are you a resident of CA? If you are and you are an ELC qualified applicant (top 4 % in your class), you have UC Davis, UC Santa Barbara, and/or UC Irvine as your safety schools. At that point if you want to “test the waters” by applying to more top-tier schools go ahead. Just make sure that one of these safety schools is a school you will be happy attending, just in case.</p>
<p>[University</a> of California - Applying for fall 2012?](<a href=“http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/freshman/applying-fall-2012/index.html]University”>http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/admissions/freshman/applying-fall-2012/index.html)</p>
<p>There are new requirements. I believe that starting next year, they will be guaranteed admission to “a” UC campus, not a list of them like they told us ELC kids last year. Things are changing! So basically, if you’re ELC, your safety would be somewhere like UCR or UCSC and you’d probably have a good chance at UCSB, UCD, etc.</p>
<p>While that’s a fine list, I would throw in a school that you are very sure you can get into (if you’re ELC, it can be UCD, UCSB, UCI, UCR, UCM, etc.) as a backup. While you most likely won’t have to attend it, it’s best to be safe (and it’ll save a little stress)</p>