The College Series: When Less is More

Campus of Colgate University

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Campus of Colgate University

     As a senior who is in the middle of the college application process, I’m familiar with the whole routine. “So what colleges are you applying to?” casually slipped into conversation over Thanksgiving dinner followed by the looks of combined shock and horror on the faces of my relatives when my list of prospective schools seemed to go on forever. And, comparatively speaking, I’m not even applying to that many schools.

    The college application process is a tough one, and with so many factors affecting a student’s potential for admission to any given school, kids tend to go overboard with applications. While it might be tempting to apply to an extra school -or twenty- to be on the safe side, don’t.

       From my point of view, the biggest push factor towards applying to an excess of schools is uncertainty. Sure, I’ve already applied to seven schools, but what if I don’t get into any? While this argument is completely understandable, it is invalid. First of all, nobody really wants to go to twenty schools, at least not twenty schools that they are capable of getting into. Take my experience for example: I have toured around thirty colleges, but I have only applied to five. Depending on my Early Action results I may or may not apply to more. The thing is, there are realistically only about five schools that I could really picture myself attending and doing so happily. A lot of people would think applying to five schools -albeit I still have time to apply to more if necessary – is extremely risky. Sure, if you’re applying to five reach schools, then it is definitely risky, but I’m following a homemade formula.

Of my five colleges, two are safety schools, two are target schools, and one is my favorite school- my reach. By limiting myself to this combination of colleges, I have guaranteed that I will be accepted somewhere so the fear of being left without any options is eliminated. More importantly, by only applying to a few schools, my reach school doesn’t seem like as much of a reach as I initially thought. Since I wasn’t bogged down with applications for fifteen other schools that I didn’t really care about, I was able to take my time in perfecting all of my applications. I had time to prepare for my interviews adequately, and I even had the opportunity to do some research on little quirks about my favorite schools that the average applicant may not know about.

        By applying to fewer colleges I actually increased my chances of being accepted into the schools that I really love. So before you apply to yet another school just because it accepts the Common App, ask yourself if you could realistically picture yourself walking on its campus year round.