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I am applying to nine schools, all within my reach, because I have only gotten to visit two of these, and therefore it would be hard to narrow down.

But today, when i was getting the things to fill out that I have to hand in with my applications, the secretary lady in the guidance office kind of like rolled her eyes and thought i was insane or something because I was applying to nine schools

Now I feel funny about this and nine schools seem like a lot. Should I take three or four off the list before I hand in the applications tomorrow?

By John Thompson on Monday, November 18, 2002 - 03:34 pm: Edit

If you have the time and money to apply for all 9 I dont see anything wrong with it.

By Sean on Monday, November 18, 2002 - 04:51 pm: Edit

Ha ha ha. I'm applying to 18 colleges.

By stuff on Monday, November 18, 2002 - 05:40 pm: Edit

6-8 would be ideal, but 9 is certainly fine. 18 is way too many, and is not only a waste of time/money but it hurts other peoples chances too, especially those who may have slightly worse records but know they want to go to a particular college (vs. someone who has better records but is just applying to see what would happen and wouldn't go if they were accepted).

By pHuX j00! on Monday, November 18, 2002 - 06:17 pm: Edit

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By NYmom on Monday, November 18, 2002 - 06:40 pm: Edit

Krysten, don't even worry about the lady in the guidance office. Your future isn't hers. She's probably thinking about the work...for which she probably gets paid anyway. Do what you feel comfortable doing.

Our neighbor told us that her daughter (who has since gone on to get her PhD) applied to 10 colleges and got accepted at three.

By Dadster on Monday, November 18, 2002 - 10:18 pm: Edit

The number should probably depend on the colleges and the probability of admission. It would be foolish to apply to ten schools for which admission is highly likely - the decision process won't be helped much when ten acceptances roll in. Applying to eight ultraselective schools and a safety or two, though, may be quite sensible. Some high schools do enforce limits on students, by the way, although that could be fairly frustrating for the elite-bound applicant.

By krysten on Monday, November 18, 2002 - 11:15 pm: Edit

Thank you everyone for your advice & like you said Dadster- I figure that out of the nine I'm applying to - since i have a 1260 sat, 98.6 GPA and 7/380 rank, I'd figure that my "reach schools" would probably be Muhlenberg College, Penn State University Park, University of Connecticut, and TCNJ. Then I would have two safety schools like Albright, and the rest are sort of reachable, but not definite safeties- like U Scranton.

By Pwirth (Pwirth) on Tuesday, November 19, 2002 - 10:04 pm: Edit

muhlenburg, penn state,and u conn should be actually good match I would think not reach.

By Rooter on Wednesday, November 20, 2002 - 01:43 pm: Edit

I agree. Muhlenberg's a great school but, for you, not a reach. I don't know about the state schools.

I don't think it's wrong or stupid to apply to 9 schools. Like Dadster said, it all depends but don't let the office workers intimidate you.

By Chigetai on Thursday, November 21, 2002 - 10:08 pm: Edit

The jack-ass valedictorian of the senior class when I was a junior applied to friggin' 42 schools. Why? Because he could. He KNEW he could get into almost all of them (which he did, the louse... I think only Stanford and Caltech rejected him), and we knew he did it to a.) show off and b.) hurt everyone else's chances.

By Mo on Friday, November 22, 2002 - 06:56 am: Edit

42, that's a stretch.