![\"1280px-Cary_Quad_and_Spitzer_Court,_Purdue_University\"](\"https:\/\/magoosh.com\/toefl\/files\/2015\/04\/1280px-Cary_Quad_and_Spitzer_Court_Purdue_University-300x192.png\")
The previous post helped shed some light on how to choose universities to apply to. Initial screening generally leads to a list that includes quite a large number of universities. It’s important to trim that list to about 10-15 schools. Applications can be quite expensive; most universities charge an application fee plus there’s the added cost of score reporting and sending transcripts.<\/p>\n
Trimming the potential list down to the \u201crealistic\u201d list can only be done after some meticulous research. University and departmental websites carry sufficient details of everything that a prospective applicant is looking for. Another approach is to give each university points based on the list of preferences (discussed in my\u00a0previous post). Those that accumulate the maximum points are the ones to apply to. It’s very important\u00a0to keep one crucial question in mind: is the university a realistic one for you and do\u00a0you actually stand a chance of being accepted there?<\/strong><\/p>\n Take up each school on your list and try answering these questions about the program of your choice. If the answer to most of the questions is yes, that’s a good\u00a0school for you. Go ahead and include it in your realistic\u00a0list! Work your way through your entire probable list and trim it to a manageable number of universities. An applicant can apply to a few ambitious or target schools (these are more selective and competitive to get into but it’s still worth a shot) and to some safety schools (where the chances of acceptance are high and you would always have this to fall back on if all ambitious ones reject you).<\/p>\n A secondary factor that can help in deciding which universities to ultimately apply to is to talk to current students and professors. They can give authentic information about classes, courses, ongoing research, life in the school and living in the area.<\/p>\n Such intensive research is time consuming and must be completed at least a couple of months before the application deadlines, leaving enough time to complete it. Each university has their own deadline, some having earlier deadlines for financial aid consideration and international applicants.<\/p>\n Get down to finding\u00a0the perfect school for you. Best of luck!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The previous post on this topic helped shed some light on how to choose universities to apply to. Initial screening generally leads to a list that includes quite a large number of universities. It’s important to trim that list to about 10-15 schools. Applications can be quite expensive; most universities charge an application fee plus there’s the added cost of score reporting and sending transcripts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13607],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[13638],"class_list":["post-1857","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-student-life"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHere are some questions to ask yourself:<\/h2>\n
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