[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.
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…