Start Wide, Then Narrow Down

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Junior Time!

Juniors I have been neglecting you the past few weeks, and I’m sorry. You’ll understand next March. So this post is all about you!

I’ve discussed before that you should, at minimum, apply to 5 schools  (Generally: 1 true safety, 1 low match, 1 true match, 1 high match, 1 reach).

But that does NOT mean that you should only look at 5 schools.

In fact, I’d say that you should, at a minimum, do even a bit of research on 20-30 schools.

Wait, what?

There may not be, and probably aren’t even, 30 schools that fit your wish-list. And that’s normal and fine. Actually, that’s the point.
What you should do is, at least in the earliest stages, look at a lot of schools that don’t fill everything you want, but might have a similar feel or rigor to your more “ideal” schools.

You don’t want to pigeonhole yourself into your “ideal” school in these early stages. That’s doing yourself a disservice.

For example: I’ve discussed before that I had a top 3 when I started applying, which eventually narrowed to 1 when I applied ED to the school I attend.

2/3 of those top three schools are schools that technically didn’t fit everything on my wish-list (in particular, size and distance). But they had the feel of the small northeastern liberal arts schools I was really attracted to. 

Diversifying your options can give you some amazing or unconventional choices. And if you really diversify, you might even give yourself an admissions boost.

What huh?

A big factor that schools try to achieve is geographic diversity. Basically, this means they try to draw students from all over the country. If you are looking at schools that people from your area don’t typically apply to, you might find yourself with a huge boost for the sake of geographic diversity.

So, personally, even though I really liked the North East I looked at a lot of schools in the Midwest and the South East (though not deep south, I don’t think I could handle Texas or like… Alabama).

So there’s no reason not to use this to your advantage if you’re willing to think outside of the box. (Though, unfortunately, generally tri-state kids are always at a loss because we all go to college).

Similarly, even though you might have your size ideal, there’s no reason not to look at schools that are a little bigger or smaller than you think you want.

Why?

Because the types of resources you get at differently sized schools are dramatically different.

There’s more individualized attention at a small school, and more diverse options of learning at a large school.  

This isn’t to say that some schools don’t have both (mine is definitely a mix of those two things), but you might find that having first-rate research resources is more of a priority than small class sizes when you actually see the schools.

So if you’re someone who wants to go to… say…Oberlin, there’s no reason to NOT give a little peek to some Boston schools and see if there’s something that strikes your fancy.

Start out very broad, and then narrow when you’ve done a bit of research.