For high school seniors, college application season has arrived. If you’re a senior, you’re probably in the process of filling out your applications, which means compiling the list of schools you want to apply to and gathering the materials you’ll need for each one.
One of the key elements and first steps into the college application process is deciding what schools and how many in total you want to apply to. There are so many factors that go into finalizing your selections. Is there a magic number of colleges that you should apply to that will ensure your acceptance and allow you an adequate amount of options?
The realistic answer is no, because everyone’s circumstances are different and you can apply to as few or as many colleges as you’d like. However, college admission consultants and experts do have a suggested recommended amount, and the breakdown of what that list should look like can serve as a helpful guide.
How many colleges should you apply to?
Different sites have different but similar numbers. According to the College Board, five to eight applications will ensure that a student is accepted into a suitable school. Princeton Review suggests that a list usually comprises seven to 10 schools. Both sites agree, though, that this list should comprise what’s called “safety,” “reach,” and “target” schools.
How many safety schools, target schools, and reach schools should you apply to?
A “safety school” is a school you are pretty sure you have a good chance of getting into, because your academic credentials such as GPA and SAT/ACT scores are higher than what the student typically needs to get accepted. A “reach school,” on the other hand, is a school where your academic credentials are below or on the lower end of what a student needs to get in, and it may be considered a long shot. Lastly, a “target school” is where your grades and test scores fall right in line with the average for what a student needs to get in. You should build a balanced list with a mix of mainly target schools, and some reach schools and safety schools.
According to The University of Michigan’s undergraduate admissions website, you may gain more scholarships from the safety schools if you’re academically on the higher end of applicants and they offer merit-based scholarships. Reach schools may look beyond your academics when reviewing your applications, such as any awards you’ve earned, extracurricular activities you were involved with, leadership opportunities, volunteer work, etc., and you could still get in, even if your academic scores fall on the lower end of their scale of applicants.
So it’s always a good idea to apply to a few reach or “dream” schools. The worst that could happen is you get denied, but you never know what could happen.
other factors to consider when building your collge list
It’s also important to remember when creating this list that the stats for “getting in” is only one part to take under consideration. You need to get more specific and think of other criteria, too. Your list shouldn’t be aimless, meaning it needs to consist of schools that fit all the different reasons why you’d actually want to go there.
Some examples of questions to keep in mind that will help you determine these factors are:
- Do I want a school where I commute back and forth every day or do I want to live in a dorm?
- Is the school in a state where the climate is warm or cold?
- Does the school offer the programs that I am interested in, and is the school particularly known for those programs?
- Is the school mostly made up of buildings in a metropolitan area or is everything spread out on an actual campus?
- Would I be attending a small school with a few hundred to 1,000 other students where the class sizes are 15 to 20 students or could I be in a school with 100,000 other students where I would be taking classes with professors in lecture halls with class sizes of a few hundred?
- Is it a religious school?
- Is it a co-ed school?
- If I enter as undecided or if I want to change my major, does the school have a vast array of programs to choose from?
- If I want to potentially study abroad, are there opportunities for me to do so at this school?
- For student athletes, what’s the sports like at this school for a specific sport (Division I, Division II, Division III)?
- Are there clubs for me to get involved on campus (specifically clubs that could pertain to my area of study and allow me to get hands-on experience outside of the classroom)?
These are only some of the questions you could ask yourself when looking for what school to apply to. Once you know if a school meets all of your individual needs as a potential student, then look and see how selective the school is and what your chances are of getting in. Then you will know in what category the school falls on your list.
should your application list be affected by tuition cost?
One question that I left out above which does play a part in selecting what school to apply to is… cost.
Realistically, cost does play a huge part in selecting (and eventually) attending a school. So while everyone’s situation is different, you want to apply to a school that fits within your price range for tuition or that offer great financial aid options or scholarships. If your reach school is an Ivy League or other older educational institution, those tend to be more pricey because of how selective it is to get in. And if you’re on the lower end of their admission class, you might not be eligible for some merit-based scholarships — if the school you’re looking into even offers any at all!
Look into what each of the schools on your list provide, because not every school offers scholarships just on merit alone, however. St. John’s University, for instance, offers scholarships for students who attended a Catholic high school, or have parents in the military or are firefighter or police officers. Other schools offer scholarships if you’re a legacy student and have a family member that’s an alum.
When compiling your application list, you can also separate your list into different types of safety schools, such as safety schools for academic safety (getting in) and safety schools for financial safety (financial aid, cost of tuition, etc.), as mentioned by the College Board.
At the end of the day, no matter how many schools you choose to apply to, just make sure the quality of your application for each doesn’t decrease because you’re stretched thin. If you’re applying to a greater number of colleges, such as 10 to 15, create a balanced list of schools that meet your needs or desires as a student. Keep track of which schools require an application fee, if they could potentially be waived, and don’t just apply for the sake of applying. You should truly envision yourself attending and being happy at each school on your list for the next four years. Remember to believe in yourself and, as I said earlier, never underestimate your worth!