Ah, summer -- the perfect time for soaking in some scorching rays to achieve that perfect golden-brown glow, catching up with the friends that school stress deprived you of, and, if you're a rising high school senior, finally starting on those pesky college applications that have ominously loomed over you as a not-too-distant threat for the past three years.
For many in this limbo between childhood and adulthood, the beginning of this process is the hardest: making the list. Despite the fact that I had been avidly researching different colleges since my freshman year when it came time to actually curating the final list on my Common App account, I felt just as lost as my peers who could barely differentiate between a major and a minor (trust me, they exist).
After scouring college websites and determining which ones you actually like, it comes time for the most difficult step: narrowing that list down. While guidance counselors and college prep sites will all give you a magic number, like five or seven, the truth is that there is no answer; instead, the number depends entirely on you. The only way to achieve this golden balance is to know yourself and your limits (and to be honest with yourself about them).
In my own college application experience, I chose to apply to 14 schools. As my dream was to leave my home state of Florida for college, I wanted to give myself as many options as possible. I divided the Final Fourteen into a few categories: in-state schools, safety schools, match schools, and reach schools. The in-state schools were considered my worst-case-scenario, backup schools while the safety schools were schools I believed that I was qualified for that still fulfilled my main requirement of being out of Florida. The match schools were schools I believed I had a decent chance of admission at, without the confidence I had in my safety schools. The reach schools were, as the name describes, schools which I thought it would be a miracle from above if I was admitted to.
As a lifelong procrastinator, in hindsight I think I should have assessed my limits more reasonably; instead, I wrote four college essays on the day of their deadlines, which I would definitely advise against. Consequently, I was rejected and/or waitlisted from all of those four schools despite falsely assuming that my writing abilities would be able to overcome any sloppiness that procrastination would inevitably bring.
While the amount of time you spend on an application does not by any means guarantee acceptance, efficiently managing your time does increase your chances of admission and allows you to make the most of your college list. I've known people who have only applied to five schools, with two reach schools, and been admitted to all of them while I've seen people apply to 20 schools and gain admission to all of them. Conversely, I've also known people who have applied to 13 schools and only gained admission to two.
As unsatisfying of an answer it may be, time management is one of the most crucial components to your college application process and, speaking from experience, it can make all the difference.
