FOR California Applicants

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ganesha123

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Seeing as we have the disadvantage of having super hard state schools to get in to..just curious how many schools each of you are applying to this year....?

Just a number is good..explanation if you want!

Thanks,

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I applied to 30 a few years ago when I went through it.
 
15 Schools

Apply where you want to live, don't worry about reach vs. safety (doesn't really work that way), don't apply to bad locations, and really research the schools before you write the secondaries and go to interview.

CA is tough, but lots of people make it work every year... just stand out from the crowd!
 
It all depends on how strong your app is. If your numbers or EC's are weak then you should apply to as many schools as possible if you can afford it. If you have a strong app then 20 is probably good. If you have weak numbers you might want to go to 40. You really don't know who will be interested in you and it is not a process you want to do over again. There is no problem in "over applying" other than the cost and the time required to do a good job on the essays. Schools don't know how many places you applied to.
 
More unsolicited advice:

Prioritize the order and speed with which you return Secondaries. At schools you're really enthusiastic about, drop everything in your life and do the most amazing job you've ever done. At schools for which you have less enthusiasm, get it done well with due haste but don't pull out all of the stops... save that energy for the ones you're really into. The reality of secondaries is that you will get dumped on all at once, and you'll need to complete them in some sensible order.

In my case, the schools I didn't get interviews at (or got a late interview at=UCLA) had much longer return times on the secondary. Georgetown was a month, UCLA was a month, Michigan was 3 weeks. On the flip side, Northwestern, OHSU, and SF/Berkeley-JMP were all 3 day returns where I worked for 4-6 hours/day perfecting the secondary. It seemed to work ok. The ironic thing of course is that UCSF doesn't even require an essay and that's where I ended up... so it goes.

-OFD
 
applied to 30.

when thinking about the obscene amount of money that went into pirmaries, secondaries, and interviews, i really wish i could have just applied to the one school i ended up matriculating into. HA.
 
I applied only to schools in California (all except the UCs). Many people told me how stupid I was for doing this =p but I have a scholarship that I can only use in state, so I decided it was a better idea to take the risk and potentially reapply rather than apply broadly and have to go out of state and pay lots of $.
 
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