How many apps is too many?

juillet
Mon, 13 Jul 2009 13:04:16 +0000

“Too many” is a subjective question. Do you think it’s too many? Can your family afford to pay for the 15 application fees plus the other fees (postage, transcripts, SAT score reports, etc.)?

If the answer to the first question is no and the answer to the second question is yes, then it’s not too many. You can apply to as many schools as you want. Your son could apply to 30 schools if he wanted to. In the end, you can only choose one.

Personally I didn’t see the point of applying to schools that I knew I couldn’t afford and at which I had no chance of getting any financial aid (need or merit-based), but some people enjoy the intellectual exercise of applying just to see if they could get in (had I more money I might have done this) and others do so on the off chance that they get a windfall of unexpected aid.

People will give you “formulae” for how many you should apply to (usually 6-8) but I think the formula will be different depending on your family circumstances. A kid who really wants to attend a very top school at any cost should shoot for the moon and apply to many top schools. A kid who just wants to attend their local regional university may only apply to that school. It depends on you, your family, your circumstances.

Teacher recommendations shouldn’t be too much of a limit. Most teachers write one letter and slightly alter it for further schools. Also, you can always ask more than three teachers. I had a different set of teachers write recommendations for different schools depending on what school it was, and I only applied to five.