Average # of colleges applied to?

[Yolanda in Mass]

I'm interested in knowing how many colleges kids apply to and why. It sounds like lots of kids apply to many schools, and some sight unseen. It's all I can do to get my son to even look at another school. He wants to apply to 2 schools: the one he really would like and a back-up. He's looked at, meaning he visited, a total of 5 schools and he says he's done. I'm going to try and convince him to visit one more school. On the other hand, lots of kids I know apply to only one. :001_huh:

 

Yolanda

[Sandra in NC]

My son applied to 4 colleges. Two are extreme-reach schools!

[Carmen_and_Company]

Taz applied to 5, but several of his friends applied to more than 8-10 schools.

[Jane in NC]

Six here. My son applied to four LACs which in some ways are comparable yet different. I suspect that he'll make his decision before hearing from the one large private uni that does not send regular admissions letters until April. The sixth school was a public uni here in NC--not his dream school in any way, but the back up in case the economy went to heck.

 

He has yet to visit one of those LACs. After he does that he will probably make his decision.

 

By the way, someone should probably set this up as a poll. I have never figured out how to do that so some would say this is a perfect educational opportunity. But I am in a Luddite frame of mind at the moment so I'll leave these techno-capabilities to those who are more savvy than yours truly. ;)

 

Jane

[creekland]

My son applied to 3. We looked at several more and contemplated applying to two others, but when we thought deeper about it, we asked ourselves if he would really go to either of those two if he got accepted. Since our answer was no we figured we'd save the effort, fees, and postage. In the end, he's going to what has always been his first choice school, so I suppose we could have just applied to the one.

 

We'll need to do this all over again with middle son in two years. I think I'm going to set a limit of 4 schools for him to apply to. Right now he'd probably like 50 based on flyers he's gotten in and kept. He should get in everywhere he applies (since we aren't Ivy or similar people and he will have Ivy type scores), therefore, it's just a waste of money to do more than 4 for us. Even if one didn't accept him, he'd still have 3 to choose from.

 

My youngest likes the school my oldest is going to and the major he has chosen. If he doesn't change his mind and my oldest does well there, he'll probably just apply to the one and go there. We've got time to see what happens. I think I'll let him finish Algebra before making him set his plans in stone. ;)

[Nan in Mass]

Mine applied to one each, the one they wanted to go to. The older one was going to go back to not going to college if he didn't get in. The younger one applied early decision and was going to think fast and apply someplace else if he didn't get in. The older one visited only the one college before he went. I made the younger one visit a big state university, a small state school, a small private LAC, a tiny alternative college, and a bigger alternative college, at the end of sophomore and beginning of junior year, just so he'd have some basis of comparison and to try to narrow down the type before we bothered searching further. The summer between sophomore and junior year, he and his brother decided to go to the college they are at now. It was rather scary only applying to one, but it made it simpler.

-Nan

[mcconnellboys]

Mine ended up applying to nine. He was eyeing others, but those are all the apps that went out, LOL.

[Kareni]

My daughter applied to ten colleges. She applied widely because we are fairly low income so financial aid offers would play a big role. Of the ten colleges she applied to, one was an Ivy League school. She was denied admission there; however, this school has a generous aid policy such that had she been accepted, it might well have offered the best aid. She applied to two highly selective liberal arts colleges (one offered admission, one put her on the wait list). Five other applications went to liberal arts colleges or small universities of varying selectivity. The final application went to our state university's honor college.

 

The financial aid offers of the eight accepting schools varied tremendously (up to about $14,000 dollars difference in the combination of out of pocket and loan payments for the academic year). Several of the private liberal arts colleges would have cost significantly less than our state university.

 

She did not visit all of the colleges to which she applied (some she visited during spring break of senior year while waiting for news of acceptances; two others she visited when she was being considered for scholarships). Since only a few colleges in our state have her major of interest, she applied to colleges nation wide. She wrote a letter of inquiry and sent it to about thirty colleges during her junior year; it was addressed to the chair of the department she was interested in. The replies she received and research online helped her determine the colleges she ultimately applied to.

 

Admittedly, it was a lot of work for her (and for her ... ahem ... guidance counselor) to apply to ten colleges. However, I think it was a wise plan as she was able to make a considered decision as to where to attend.

 

Regards,

Kareni

[cathmom]

My son applied to 6. One was a backup, one he really wanted to go and had visited it, two were reaching (but he didn't necessarily really want to go there), and the other two are very close to home. Six applications was a lot of work! So, of the 6, he had been to 3.

[Brigid in NC]

Is your ds a senior? We found it really hard to get my ds interested in visiting schools during his junior year.

 

My ds applied to five. Two were "reach" schools. Four out of the five applications took a lot of work (for me -- transcripts, course descriptions, etc. and for my ds). We found that it was a challenge to apply to even that many, and do a stellar job on each of the essays. We visited four of the five. The one we did not visit was in CA (we are in NC). We told our ds that if he got accepted, we'd fly out. He wasn't accepted, so we didn't. :001_smile:

 

One of the reasons my ds applied to five schools was to see what scholarship money he was offered. Scholarship offers did help him solidify his choice.

[Guest Katia]

In our family, it's one of those things that you learn more with each kid, kwim?

 

First ds applied to 1 college. He had been there and didn't even want to look for anything else. It worked out 'ok', but he only stayed there 3 semesters because they really didn't have good instructors/professors for his major. He transferred to a state uni that had a good rep for his major (sight unseen) and it worked the best for him.

 

Dd applied to 5 colleges, and then went to visit them. After the visits, it was very easy to narrow it down to 2.

 

We learned from that experience, and we took youngest dd out this summer to visit 5 colleges. Like her sister, she easily narrowed it down to two from the visits, so.....she only applied to the 2 colleges that she liked the best.

 

I really liked youngest dd only applying to 2 colleges. That was nice for me (not so much 'counselor' work) and it gave her both time to write good essays and didn't detract so much from her school work.

[Chris in VA]

We have a new saying in our house--"Pull a Christopher."

It means putting all your eggs in one basket, so to speak!:lol:

 

He applied to one school.

Ds18 will be "pulling a Christopher" and applying to one, also.

[Kate in FL]

My son applied to two. It would have been more but he went ED to one and therefore had a binding agreement with his first choice and had to withdraw all other apps.

 

We visited 5 schools during the spring last year and 4 more during the summer when we were on vacation. He has seen several state schools for sports competitions. He saw big, small, rural, urban.....He is a recruited athlete so went on to visit schools on official visits this fall without us. Fell in love with two, made a decision and went ED.

 

I have a junior as well and I think it will be different. I would guess he will apply to 3-5 schools.

[Yolanda in Mass]

Is your ds a senior? We found it really hard to get my ds interested in visiting schools during his junior year.

 

No, he will have close to 40 credits from cc so is a transfer student. I think he's been bored with school for so long that he can't get past that no matter how much I tell him that the next school will be different. Fortunately, his grades do matter to him so he has always maintained a high GPA. Unfortunately, he's used to expending little to no effort to achieve these grades.

 

Yolanda

[LaJuana]

...for my dd who is a musical theatre/vocal performance major. That field is really competitive, and it's tough to get into a good program, so she applied to seven different schools. The others were pretty sure they would get into the two schools they wanted to attend, so they kept the applications to just those two. Senior year was a lot more stressful for my musical theatre major. With auditions at seven schools plus all those applications (and high school musical theatre performances), that was a very stressful year.

[Brenda in MA]

for the same basic reasons Kareni stated. For him to be able to attend a private college, we knew he would need merit aid. We deliberately selected a range of schools where we thought he had a decent chance at merit scholarships, but since you can never be sure who will get the merit scholarships, we felt it important that he apply to a lot of schools.

 

In the end, things worked out pretty well. He is at a good school for his field, and he received a merit scholarship from them.

 

Brenda

[TravelingChris]

My son applied to six or seven, I think. He hadn't visited any since we were living overseas and it was too expensive especially when he didn't care that much. He didn't visit after he was accepted either. He based his decision between two on the basis of financial aid.

 

I am not sure how many my upcoming junior will do but unless she does ED, it will be more than 2 or 3 for sure. Actually even if she does ED, she will probably do 3 or 4 since at least two on her probable list are rolling admissions.

[Susie-Knits]

My son applied and was accepted to 4.

 

We visited schools starting fall of junior year. Initially, he had no idea of how to critically look at a school so I considered it a "training period." We started close to home with me asking the questions and pointing out things. They were schools that I felt he probably would not be attending (training visits). After the first few, he knew how to look, what questions to ask, and so forth. Then we hit the schools that we thought were real possibilities. He now had more of a vision of himself not at home and at college. I think it was the best thing we did for him - to start looking early and often. He attended a 3 week summer program at the school he was most interested in - furthering his college vision between junior and senior year.

 

He is now waiting on final financial aid pkgs in March. Should be interesting how it all turns out!

 

Susie

[JFSinIL]

11. 12 if you count the one he did NOT apply to, that accepted him and gave him a scholarship anyway.

 

Since ds will need much merit aid, etc. to attend anywhere, I had him apply to a wide variety of private and state schools. The idea was, maybe half would accept him. Then of that half, maybe half would offer decent aid. That would leave about 3 schools from which to choose. Note, too, that in the fall ds was still "undecided" as to his major - he loves history, but did not know if he wanted to major in it. So his "guidance counselor" had fun looking for LACs that were not too small, plus public schools that had Honors programs. In-state public schools proved either too hard to get into (our premier school) or too "scuzzy". So for public schools we went with Minnesota-Twin Cites (the biggest), Montana State - Bozeman (location! and Honors) and Ferris State in Michigan (again- Honors - in fact he will be at the Honors essay competition on the 27th!). For private we picked three local LACS - Augustana, Illinois Wesleyan, and Carthage. Also - since I wanted a College That Changed Lives, Wooster. He also applied to Gettysburg (a long-time choice since we visited the battlefields there), University of the Pacific (Stockton, CA - closest college to Yosemite), and University of the South - Sewanee. When we visited Sewanee I had him also visit Vanderbilt, since it was on the way. Vanderbilt became our long-shot selection.

 

So far ds has been accepted and given big merit scholarships at nine schools (except Minnesota - they simply haven't done any awards like that yet, although they have given in-state tuition, as has Ferris).

 

The only schools ds hasn't heard from are Gettysburg, Pacific...and Vanderbilt, the least likely to take him...so of course he has decided it is his first choice college!!! Figures.

 

Even with the merit scholarships we can afford no place except Ferris, so we are nervously awaiting the March envelopes with any offers of further aid/work study. etc. Curse the FAFSA and the EFC 3x what we expected!!!!

 

Anyway - 11 colleges proved more than ds needed - but I honestly did not expect so many to accept him. That is what I get for believing what I read in the newspapers about how hard it is to get into college.

 

One college wrote a note with their acceptance saying how impressed they were that ds took AP World as a freshman. He did base one essay on how challenging that class was, how although he only got a C for the class he managed a 4 on the exam...and felt all the hard work made him a better student for the rest of his high school career. I think that made him stand out a bit.

Edited February 20, 2010 by JFSinIL

[Chris in VA]

Just want to say you all are so lucky that your dc has a major that is not hard to find. Only one school in VA has the major ds chose, so it was make or break!

[creekland]

Just want to say you all are so lucky that your dc has a major that is not hard to find. Only one school in VA has the major ds chose, so it was make or break!

 

We only found 3 schools in the eastern US that had the major my son wanted. One of those was really below his SAT/ACT scores, so we didn't bother with it. He got accepted to the other two - and we applied to one other anyway thinking he could take courses guiding him in that direction, but in the end, we opted for the major - esp when scholarships and aid were offered to make the private school affordable.

 

He wanted to major in International Development - to become a microfinance manager in third world countries by guiding their development, not by merely pouring $$ in in the form of aid as is often done now. Covenant (where he is going) has a program they call Community Development. Students choose either an international or domestic track. Calvin College has International Development. Eastern has Economic Development. The schools don't even call it the same thing - making it REALLY difficult to search for.

 

There are a couple of other schools that offer minors or certificates in similar things (like Wheaton), but we opted to go with it as a major since we liked the course descriptions and track record of the department.

 

At a few secular schools you can sort of take a Global Development track, but again, not as a major - not in any that we found anyway.

 

What major is your son looking at?

 

In a way, I think a limited number of schools was helpful once we found the schools. My middle son wants science research of some form or another, either Biology or Chemistry. He has gazoodles of schools he needs to consider. It's going to be a lot tougher wading through them.

[Blue Hen]

DS applied to nine. Early in the fall, senior year, when the letters came in from the schools with fee waivers he decided to apply to a few of them. If we had had to pay for each application he would have done 4 schools. One safety and three reaches. He's still deciding between those four schools.

 

 

Carole

[ereks mom]

He finally decided on one and has been there two years, and is now seriously considering transferring to the other one. :tongue_smilie:

[Mary in GA]

Due to financial constraints (those app fees are nonrefundable!), ds only applied to 2 schools. The school where he did dual enrollment (they actually reimbursed us for the app fee) and the university he transferred to (which fortunately is one of the best universities for his major.)

 

Mary

[LBS]

My daughter, currently a sophomore, applied to seven, and did not visit a single one...she did not want to be disappointed, so just wanted to visit the schools she got into. She got into all of them, and we visited five and she loved one, and is there. It is the second most selective of the seven, and the major programs were as important as the "fit" of the campus.

 

My son planned to apply to ten, mostly because he could not narrow the list, and I wanted him to try for two stretch schools in state, for financial reasons. He ended up applying to seven also. One national public U, is a stretch, three more are "NCAA schools" and my husband's and my alma maters, plus one private, way too expensive school, that had a free application. My husband's small LAC, local, gave him a VIP app, big scholarship, and when they replied early, I was just so relieved that my son would go to school SOMEwhere. I'm confident he'll get in one of the ohter big 'uns, but its so unnerving to put yourself out there, and hope someone will want your (wonderful) child....painful, really.

 

We're doing scholarships, just completed a honors college app, and will hope for choices on April 1 or before.

 

LBS