HOW MANY SCHOOLS SHOULD I APPLY TO?

update begun: 6 March 2008

In brief: Applicants need to avoid two extremes: 1) wrecking their finances with mounting application fees; 2) applying to a number of schools that is so low that the applicant's chances for acceptance are reduced. Remember that if your grades, test scores, and experiences are strong your application is an investment. Think of what you want to do, take stock of your strengths, be realistic, and never shortchange yourself. The numbers below could be considered conservative.

In full . . .

DENTISTRY, MEDICINE, OPTOMETRY, PODIATRY, VETERINARY MEDICINE

In a short time, you will begin sending out applications to graduate schools of the health professions. One crucial question that you probably have is, "How many schools should I apply to?"

In the next few paragraphs, I hope to give you a sense of what the answer to that question might be for you. In some cases the number of "application schools" might be greater than you expected, in other cases smaller. We know that applying to graduate schools of the health professions is an expensive, time consuming process, and completing all of that admissions paper work is not exactly "exciting." When you remember, though, that the number of schools you apply to as well as the quality of your applications can have an impact on when and if you enter the career of your dreams, you realize that devoting time and attention to your applications is an important step in building your future.

Well, let us move on to the numbers for the graduate health professions. Remember that although these numbers can give you a general picture of what to do, this information is no substitute for sitting down and discussing your application plans with your prehealth advisor.

AVERAGE NUMBER OF SCHOOLS BY PROFESSION

• Allopathic Medicine (MD degrees)-- 15 schools is a reasonable average for most students, applying to anywhere between 15 and 25 schools is reasonable and acceptable. Applying to just 8 or 10 schools is low.
• Dental Medicine--On average, each applicant for the 1998 entering class applied to 8 schools. Feedback from the AADS indicates that this average could be viewed as a somewhat high number. Depending on how strong your grades and DAT's are, as well as upon where you want to practice dentistry, you might apply to 4 or 5 dental schools.
• Optometry--The average number of colleges of optometry to which students apply is between 4 and 5.
• Osteopathic Medicine--For the entering class of Fall '99, the average number of osteopathic medical schools to which each student applied was 5.74. Basing your application numbers on this figure, you might apply to 5 or 6 schools.
• Podiatric Medicine: For the last entering class, the average number of AACPM member schools to which students applied was 3.5. Remember that this number does not include the New York College of Podiatric Medicine, so depending upon your grades and upon how much you take the average applicant numbers into account, you might apply to 3, 4, or 5 colleges of podiatric medicine.
• Veterinary Medicine--Nationally applicants to colleges of veterinary medicine apply to between 6 and 7 schools. If you are a New York State resident and if you opt to apply to a mere 4 schools, the best picks--the schools which are kindest to New Yorkers--are Cornell, Ohio, Penn, and Tufts. The schools which will tend to give the hardest time to New Yorkers are Virginia-Maryland, Colorado, and Tuskegee.

Well, on the basis of the paragraphs above, you at least have an idea of "what the rest of the market is doing." In some cases, a student might opt to apply to a low number of schools--lower than the average figures. As a strategy, applying to a low number of schools is most effective when an applicant is exceptionally strong, and would most likely be able to have their pick of schools no matter how many applications they put in. For an applicant who does not have the luxury of resting his or her hopes on a record that is absolutely outstanding in all ways, applying to a low number of schools can often be a counterproductive factor.

IMPORTANT POINTS TO REMEMBER

• A lot of students have to be careful with their money. You might benefit from looking at last year's application materials, or getting this year's materials early and estimating the cost of your application.
• Read materials from centralized application and testing services as well as from individual schools to see if you are eligible to take advantage of any fee waiver or reduction programs.
• Establish an application time line for yourself so that you are aware of crucial deadlines. There is a good amount of important date information out there which can help you keep on top of the application process:
  • Stony Brook's "Instructions for the Autobiographical Packet"
  • ADEA (American Dental Education Association
  • American Medical College Application Service (AMCAS)
  • Association of Schools and Colleges of Optometry (ASCO)
  • AACOM (American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine)
  • AACPM (Association of Colleges of Podiatric Medicine)
  • Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges
  
  
• It could be a good idea to set up a file for each school you are applying to, so that you can keep track of important correspondence.
• Keep in mind that your application strategy functions on two levels: qualitative and quantitative. That is, you are likely to apply to a certain number of schools, and apart from geographic considerations (for example, I am a New York resident, and will therefore apply to SUNY schools as opposed to schools in Florida's state system), you want your selection of schools to reflect the character of your goals and how you believe each school can accommodate them. To accomplish this, you need to know about the particular strengths of each school that you are considering.