College applications are stressful, though the Common App has made it easier than ever to apply to multiple colleges. Indeed, Common App allows you to apply to up to 25 colleges at once. This is a hard upper limit, not a requirement, but there is a vast difference in applying to one college and twenty five.
This then leads to an important question: how many colleges should you apply to to maximize your chances of admission? Unfortunately, as with so many questions in college admissions, there is no single straightforward answer. This depends on your own academic profile, where you want to go to college, and several other factors. In this article, we’ll go through the various permutations, so you know how best to achieve your goals. Let’s get started!
How Many Tier 1 Colleges Should You Apply To?
The major difference in how many colleges you should apply to is how difficult it is to get into these colleges. For shorthand, we use tiers to differentiate these, with tier 1 colleges being the hardest to gain admission to. These are not strict barriers like stairs, but more of a gradual ramp. The line between tier 1 and tier 2 is fuzzy, but generally the schools ranked in the top 20 count as tier 1.
If your primary goal is to attend a top ranked college, then you should apply to a lot of schools. Admissions rates have been dropping steadily for some time, but they absolutely cratered post pandemic, with tier 1 schools all having acceptance rates in the single digits.
How many schools exactly? We recommend twenty. The most aggressive strategies cover even more. This is due to managing risk. The lower individual acceptance rates are, the more schools you need to apply to to successfully manage the risk of applying.
Of course, you need to know whether or not your application has a reasonable chance of acceptance at these schools. We’ll let you in on a secret of the industry: colleges recruit applicants they have no intention of admitting. The amount of advertising colleges do, aimed at high school students, is intended to increase their own prestige, and has no connection to whether or not they think the students in question would be a good fit.
This is not universally true of course, but there is no way to know whether a letter from Harvard comes because they are interested in you specifically, or because an algorithm picked you as likely to apply if you got one, making their numbers that tiny but better. You should therefore examine the following to see whether or not you have a realistic chance of acceptance into these schools:
- Is your GPA and class rank in the top percentile of your high school?
- Are your standardized test scores within the average range for the school in question?
- Do you have significant extracurricular accomplishments?
These factors alone are not enough to get you in, but not having them is enough to keep you out. Of course, every situation is different, but we do not recommend pursuing such an aggressive application strategy if you don’t have the numbers to support it; that only leads to heartache.
If you do have the needed profile, and desire to attend a tier 1 school, we recommend the following for the number of schools to apply to:
- 14-20 tier 1 colleges. These are reach schools for all students.
- 1-2 target schools.
- 1 safety school. This should be a school you can definitely get accepted into.
This is a lot of work, even with cross-applying common essay types, but if your goal is to get into a top college, this is what is required.
How Many Tier 2 Colleges Should You Apply To?
Tier 2 colleges are even harder to define than tier 1; and as we’ve said before, there is no clear line where one tier ends and the other begins. In general, these schools are still very competitive for admissions, but have acceptance rates higher than the single digits.
This also depends on whether or not tier 2 colleges count as reach, safety, or target schools for you, and your overall goals for applications. Assuming you’re a top applicant, who could apply to tier 1 schools but doesn’t want the added stress, we recommend the following number of colleges:
- 1-3 tier 1 colleges as reaches
- 5-10 tier 2 colleges, as a mix of reach and target schools
- 2-3 safety schools.
Overall, you should be applying to around fifteen colleges; fewer than if you were applying to the most competitive schools, but still a significant time investment. Again, this is about managing risk more than anything. Tier 2 colleges are less competitive than tier 1, but there are still far more applicants than seats available, which greatly increases the risk involved for applicants.
If tier 2 colleges are a reach for you, but you still wish to attend one, then you should increase the number you are applying to. The more risk there is in your application strategy, the more schools you will need to apply to in order to balance it out.
How Many Tier 3 Colleges Should You Apply To?
The definition of tier 3 colleges is again vague, but generally schools which are selective with applications, without being the most selective, count as tier 3. Generally they have acceptance rates over 20%; which doesn’t necessarily make them easy to get into, just less competitive than some of their compatriots.
This doesn’t mean that they are lesser institutions, merely that they are less popular or prestigious than some other schools. Top applicants can treat these schools as low targets or safeties, depending on their official admissions policies. UT Austin is a great school for example, but its automatic admissions policy means that many students get to treat it as a safety school, knowing that their admission is guaranteed.
As the risk is lower when applying to tier 3 colleges, you usually do not need as many of them on your list if they count as target schools. We generally recommend an organization like this:
- 1-2 reach schools in tiers 1 or 2.
- 6-8 target schools in tier 3
- 1-2 safety schools
This organization allows you to safely manage risk while applying, and maximize the chances you will get into a school you like. Taking a long shot on a higher tier school is nice, but not all students need to do so. If you have no interest in attending a school, don’t apply; it’s just more work for both you and admissions officers.
How Many BS/MD Programs Should You Apply To?
This is a concern for a smaller number of students, but is still relevant. BS/MD programs are even more competitive for admissions than tier 1 universities, as the number of students they admit is much smaller. Most admit fewer than twenty students each year; some admit fewer than ten.
Thus, an even more aggressive strategy is generally called for, to mitigate the even more heightened risk in these admissions. Generally, BS/MD applicants pursue one of the two following strategies:
- The first is applying to every BS/MD program possible, and taking the most aggressive approach. There are far fewer of these than standard undergrad programs, but this can still lead to thirty applications or more. The goal of this strategy is to maximize chances of acceptance to any single BS/MD program.
- The second applies to a number of BS/MD programs, usually 10-12, and then a number of undergraduate programs with strong pre med prospects. This usually leads to 20-25 applications filed in total, slightly more than the standard tier 1 applications we suggest.
In this, as in many ways, BS/MD applications are just like regular college applications, only more so. This is a lot of work, as these applications require even more essays than standard applications. For more on how these applications specifically work, see our article on BS/MD application strategy.
Final Thoughts
College applications are always a stressful time, and the first question, of where to apply, is often the most stressful. As acceptance rates continue to drop, this becomes even more stressful, for students and parents alike. We hope this article has given you insight into the strategy behind how many colleges you should apply to in order to minimize your own risk.
Of course, every situation is different, and there are specific routes you can take to increase your chances of acceptance at specific colleges. If you want more information on this, or how we can assist you with other aspects of your college application, schedule a free consultation today. We have a deep understanding of every angle of college application strategy, and are always happy to hear from you.
