How many schools to apply to?

Recently, the question that comes up every year at about this time has surfaced again: how many schools should prospective students apply to? As with every question directed to a huge group composed of people from all parts of the world and from very different life circumstances, my answers will be limited by the frame of the question. When it comes to advising a single student or family, there are too many variables in play for me to say what might be useful without knowing the individual details that living in the world entails. For some, finding a great place might happen quickly and with only a small number of schools investigated and then applied to. Most ‘experts’ say students are applying to too many schools now.

I disagree. A friend of mine, the provost for admission at a top 25 school, once gave a speech with me in which he advocated for students to apply to many more schools that what most people think is appropriate. His words changed the way I thought about the number of applications students should submit. The reasons below, however, are mine and not his. 

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The Indefinite Article: 
Replacing the search for ‘the’ with an ‘a’ makes more sense. In other words, there is far too much emphasis placed on finding ‘the’ one right fit instead of encouraging students to see there are many great schools that fit. Brain scans and a simple conversation demonstrate that most 17 years old students change dramatically in 1 year. Those who look at a few schools now and stop looking soon may not be the same person in six months. By then, they may have had a great teacher who changed their academic interest.  Or maybe their involvement in a senior experience in a club or service project (or even a significant other hook up or break up) will have changed they way they look at the world. 

Or perhaps the economic landscape at schools or in the household has changed. There are many other reasons I could list that would support at least some sort of cost benefit/analysis between more work and stress on the part of students applying to schools versus finding options that might save money or might provide a better fit for future long term success in life. It also seems to make sense to encourage keeping options open as students’ brains undergo rewiring. Several studies published in major scientific journals claim that brains change more at this point in students’ lives than at almost any point except for the first 4 years. This is scientific data, not my personal opinion. Encouraging more options allows parents, students, and educators to go with rather than against the neural flow. 

The internet has made it possible to come up with a large set of schools that match certain rubrics. At least the initial list of schools to be looked at should be long and deep. 

Uncertainty principle: 
Those students who are applying to the top 25 need to apply to a hefty number unless they are hooked in some way. I have seen students get in to Stanford and Yale but get turned down at Harvard, Dartmouth, and Penn. The essays and recommendation were exactly the same in most cases and the schools, when contacted said the usual, it is tough to get in. When schools have an under a 10% acceptance rate it is very difficult to predict who will get in to which school at the top. 

I help a few students get jobs and internships. Most of the ones I work with are looking at top shops in Silicon Valley or Wall Street. They apply for every big bank they know as the chances of them getting an internship (which is now pretty much a prereq for a job), makes getting into an Ivy look easy. Goldman, for example, for equity internships, does 11 back-to-back interviews of each candidate. Morgan does 14. Just getting the interviews is nearly impossible. I would never tell a job seeker to limit sending out resumes in the current economic climate. The competition for jobs or schools at the top is dramatically more competitive than it was even 4 years ago. A glance at the double-digit increases each year in applicants to the top schools is all the data one needs to see why.
Follow the money:

If a student is a star then I also tell them to apply to schools where they can get merit scholarships. Not only will it save money for those who actually have it, I believe more great students should turn down higher ranked schools and go to schools that will do everything in their power to make sure their experience is superior. They will get mentors, or lab access early and  then internships and other perks too that theyvery likely will not get at a higher ranked school. 

Follow the Money Trail—Financial Aid: 
No matter what, more schools are going to be creative with aid in the coming year. Just today, in an article in InsideHigher Education, a story profiles how radically different approaches to aid exist between schools like the University of Southern California and Vanderbilt. Some schools see the importance of raising funds for need-based aid; others are putting big money into merit scholarships.

In addition, if affirmative action gets struck down in its current form by the Supreme Court, and diversity then is redefined to mean income instead of or in addition to race, schools may have to accept more low income students in order to get the racial diversity they want (or risk getting sued if they don't give equal opportunity to low income whites and Asians). Many schools are already at aid limits now; many are currently gapping (gapping is the practice of providing some aid but not meeting the full need as determined on financial aid forms. And many are doing a lot they won’t share. For example, on the first page of the Common Application, the question “Have you applied for financial aid” is very located near the top of the form. Although some schools say in public they are need blind, even if they believe this, just looking at the answer to this question alters consciously or unconsciously how the rest of the application will be perceived. The cognitive science term for the way data likes this shapes opinions is ‘priming’.

The bottom line, to use this ugly economic phrase, is that students who need money need to look wider than just a handful of schools. There are already significant differences between what one school might offer in terms of grant money and loan compared to all the others. Applying to more schools may mean more work, but it could lead to huge benefits in terms of aid or in terms of debt load when a student graduates. The debt load for students as an aggregate figure is astronomical. Some ‘experts’ say this debt make the banking crisis look like chump change. More importantly for individuals is the fact that the debt never, ever goes away, even if someone declares bankruptcy. Is it worth going into debt at a higher ranked school if a student can get money from other schools instead? Looking for the best aid package, either merit or need-based, is well worth the effort in my opinion. The landscape for aid at schools is already uneven and uncertain and it will likely get a great deal more unpredictable should the Supreme Court decision change affirmative action significantly.