Six or Eight Colleges? What are you, CRAZY?
Yes. Yes I am.
Crazy enough to know what the heck I am talking about.
A parent asked me the above question recently and at the time i laughed, but later, as i thought about it more i realized he wasn’t trying to be difficult or unfair, he was unaware of how times have changed.
Since most of today’s parents’ applied for college 20+ years ago the world has changed dramatically when it comes to applying to college. Most of them applied to one, two or maybe three colleges and if they appled to three, their friends made fun of them.
Things are different now. We stand at what is the crest of the largest wave of new students planning to attend college in history and students need options. Six to eight schools is not that unreasonable when you break it down:
- 2-3 ‘aspirational’ schools
- 3-4 Schools that represent good, solid choices your child has a good chance of getting into
- 1-2 Safety schools. In short these should be a slam dunk on getting in.
Which brings me to real reason to apply to multiple schools even if your kid is SURE they want to go to school X.
Money. Money plain and simple. I’ve seen$10-15k gaps between the best and worst school for the exact same family. I will go into why in a later post, but the short version is that some schools will offer you more and others will likely offer you less regardless of how much you make. The amount depends on the student, your financial situation and the school and their policies.
Parents, just trust me-times have changed and go with this recommendation.