If you search “How many colleges should I apply to?” on Google, one of the first options to appear is a snippet of the College Board’s article.
As you can see, they recommend 5-8 college applications consisting of a mix of safety, match, and reach schools to ensure acceptance.
However, as of 2023 and the current college admissions climate, we can confidently say that 5-8 schools are no longer enough.
So, how many colleges should you apply to? Is there a magic number?
Is applying to 20 colleges too much? Is 12 a good number? What about 13? Is applying to 16 colleges overdoing it? Like most things in life… it depends.
Spoiler alert: if you’re impatient and just want a fast answer, you should apply to 15 schools. But, we HIGHLY recommend you get to the very end of this article to understand WHY.
In order to know how many colleges you should really apply to, you need to understand this one rule: most students don’t understand risk.
Well, most people in general don’t understand risk. It’s not just students.
They like to talk about it. But, they don’t get it.
“Applying to an Ivy League school is risky!” “Applying to too many schools is risky!”
Often, these judgments are a misunderstanding of risk.
If you do not understand the nature of risk, you cannot know how many colleges you should apply to.
So, what’s wrong with the way students see risk?
Well, it’s far too simplistic.
We’ll discuss the logistics of this later.
But, to understand the problem briefly: students are too risk-averse. This is not ideal, and here’s why:
You want to apply to a lot of colleges to grasp as many potential outcomes and maximize the number of colleges you can choose from. The more you apply, the more choices. The more choices, the more freedom. And, freedom is your biggest asset.
Throughout this entire article, you need to keep this principle in mind:
Freedom is your biggest asset.
So, apply to more. Not fewer.
There’s a bunch of other complex “stuff” like whether applying to a lot of colleges will reduce admissions chances, application costs, etc. Again, we’ll discuss the nitty gritty later.
This article will be split into two sections:
- Understanding risk in college admissions.
- Knowing how many colleges you should actually apply to by using principles of risk.
Without further ado, let’s get to it.
Table of Contents
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Principles of Risk in College Admissions.
“Risky” and “Safety” Are Not Mutually Exclusive.
Everyone is afraid of applying to colleges.
“What if we get rejected?” “What if they don’t want us?” “What if I applied for nothing?”
These are all very valid concerns; and, they’re often rooted in the idea of avoiding the risky path. We want to apply to the right number of schools and the right number of them to avoid risk.
However, this is not possible.
In fact, you’ll actually notice that no matter what you tell anxious students, they’ll always be anxious. There is no path that will not make them tremble in fear. Apply? Don’t apply? Sit and do nothing? They all make students fear what the future will hold.
Students want to avoid the risky path. But, it seems as if there’s risk EVERYWHERE!
And… well, that’s exactly right.
You see, this brings us to a very interesting principle:
“Risk” and “safety” are not mutually exclusive.
In the world of college admissions, there is technically no “safe choice.” All college app lists are risky because the pluripotential risks exist outside of acceptance rates. You risk being in an environment you don’t like. You risk attending a school where you’ll be far from home. You risk wasting time getting rejected. You risk application fees. But… if you don’t take the risk of applying, you risk the OPPORTUNITY COST of potentially attending your dream school.
Thus, there is NO safe path.
There is ONLY a path.
Even those applying for only “safety schools” take the risk of potentially losing out on great opportunities for schools they would never otherwise know were perfect for them.
They could miss out on a great career opportunity from a school they never applied to.
Or, they could miss out on making friends they would have never otherwise met.
Or, they’d miss out on their “true love” —if you’re the type to believe in that.
Thus, trying to make a “safe” college list to apply to is a losing game.
So… that’s quite a lot of pessimism. But, that brings us to an important question: if college admissions risk and safety are not mutually exclusive, then what do we lose from applying to a lot of schools?
What Do You Lose From Applying to A Lot of Schools?
We’re going to be very transparent about this.
You don’t lose much from applying to a lot of schools. Here’s a list of what you lose from applying to a lot of schools.
- A decent sum of money from college application fees.
- Free time.
- Extra time spent perfecting other applications.
- Being stress-free.
- The comfort of relaxing.
This sounds like a good number of things… right?
Well, to be fair, yes. It’s a good amount.
No one likes paying for a lot of college application fees. No one likes to lose out on free time. Everyone wants extra time to spend on making their other applications perfect. Everyone wants to be free of stress and have the time to relax.
But, this is a small price to pay.
Why?
It’s because of what you have to gain from applying to a lot of schools. What you gain is going to outweigh those five points a lot.
What Do You Gain From Applying to A Lot of Schools?
Now, what do you gain from applying to a lot of schools?
The answer is simple:
Everything.
You have the world and more to gain from applying to a lot of schools. Technically speaking, the upside of applying to as much as you can is infinite. You MIGHT get accepted into a great university on the East Coast. You MIGHT get a fancy investment banking internship from it. You MIGHT meet the love of your life who shares the same intelligent passion as you.
You MIGHT get everything.
And, you MIGHT not.
But, it’s the chance that it can happen that is worth it. You’re paying for the chance: the chance for a great and exciting life like no other. It’s worth it!
When the upside of applying to a lot of colleges outweighs the downsides, the answer is obvious. Apply to a lot of schools.
To grasp this chance is to apply for a large net, which is also called shotgunning.
We’ll discuss more about shotgunning below.
Should I Shotgun Colleges?
The term shotgunning refers to, well, shotguns.
When you shoot a shotgun, pellets pepper the enemy. There’s a spread of shots. Instead of one single bullet trying to hit a target, you’ve got a wide surface area of pellets.
This works the same for college admissions. In the college app process, there’s no guarantee of success. So, you may end up in a school you’re not otherwise even interested in. To combat this, we move our admissions strategy from that of a singular dart to a shotgun.
By sending multiple applications, you cover a larger surface area.
If you’re shotgunning colleges, you typically are applying for anywhere above 8 schools.
Now, should you use the shotgun method when applying to colleges?
In the current year, when college admissions chances are the lowest they’ve been and only decrease with time, yes. Yes, you want to shotgun your college apps.
However, there are limitations to the shotgun method; and, there are important things that can potentially decrease your chances of admission. It’s a bit complicated; but, we’ll discuss it in depth below.
Does Applying to A Lot of Colleges (Shotgunning) Reduce My Chances?
Short answer: No.
Long answer: Applying to a lot of colleges will only reduce your chances if you don’t know how to create unique and compelling application essays for each school you apply to.
In other words, if you’re too busy/lazy/unmotivated to make great essays for a lot of schools, you can’t shotgun colleges. All you’ll do is waste application fees, the admissions officer’s time, and the effort that goes into copying/pasting information into a lot of schools.
This is something admissions officers are very much aware of. Often, they can detect when an essay is not specially catered to their school and instead has been copied/pasted to multiple colleges by simply replacing words.
They are easily identifiable because they’re usually very vague and not very specific.
You can find out more details through Michael Zhang’s article on the Saratoga Falcon here.
Of course, there comes a point when writing 50 essays for 50 schools is going to be a net negative return. You may have neither the time nor energy to write quality essays when you’re biting more than you can chew.
So, as a general rule of thumb: you should shotgun as many schools as you reasonably can before the ROI decreases. That means, applying to the max amount until you feel you truly have no more time to dedicate to writing quality essays. Find the sweet spot. Note though that most students can certainly write more essays than they think!
If you don’t know exactly how many colleges you should be applying to, you can also speak with us for a free consultation. We’ll help you determine which colleges to apply for plus how much time to dedicate to each school.
How Many Colleges Should I Apply to in 2023?
15 Colleges: The New Magic Number for College Applications.
Well, the title pretty much says it.
Considering current year trends, and the ever-decreasing rate of admissions, one should consider applying to 15 colleges on average to secure a good acceptance rate. This is if they are planning to use the shotgun method of application.
Now, are there exceptions? Sure!
There are some who prefer to apply to fewer schools to dedicate more time and effort to polishing their application.
There are others who prefer to apply to more schools because they have the time to send out more and cast a wider net.
The best method is to calculate how much time you have and try to apply to the max number of schools you possibly can. If you believe applying to 20 schools won’t give you enough time to polish up your essays, apply to fewer. If you can apply to 20 and still have time to write high-quality essays, consider applying for more.
Of course, there’s a way to cheat the system.
Well, not really cheat. But, it’s going to give you a great advantage.
What you can do is work with a college admissions professional who specializes in application essays.
After all, let’s be real: the most time-consuming part of the college application is often the college essay. So, it’s reasonable to save more time by working with a professional editor. That way, you can send your applications fully confident in your essays whilst also applying for a wide net of schools.
It’s a win-win strategy.
Now, you probably already know how many colleges you should apply to by now. With this advice, you should have a strategy that should set you up for success.
Good luck, dear applicant and future college student!
But… if you still don’t quite know how many colleges you should apply to yet, you should consider speaking with our expert college admissions strategists and essay editors. We’ve helped people get accepted into some of the most prestigious universities in the nation, including UCLA, UCB, NYU, Dartmouth, Cornell, Brown, UPenn, and a handful of others.