HOW MANY COLLEGES SHOULD MUSIC STUDENTS APPLY TO?

Eastman Article 2014

[Some great advice from the Eastman School of Music that is worth a read! – ed.]

By Christina Crispin

As high school seniors are getting their applications underway (or at least thinking about getting started!) a question often comes up: how many schools should I apply to? What is the right number for your “short list”? The answer to this question is as individual as each student, but I would like to offer some guidance here that may be useful.

Darts_in_a_dartboard

The standard advice that you will hear from many sources (such as here) is that seniors should be applying to between 6 and 8 schools. These applications, seniors are counseled, should fall into three categories:

  • Two or three “reach” schools, which the applicant would like to attend, but where admission is not a sure thing due to higher selectivity
  • Two or three “match” or “probable” schools, which are schools where it seems likely that the student will be admitted
  • Two “safety” schools where the student is nearly certain of being admitted…

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