Interviews

Interviews were extremely important to this section of answering the essential question.

Parents, teachers, college students, seniors, and juniors were all interviewed in our rigorous

search for the answer to the essential question: How many colleges should I apply to and why???

Parents: 

Lee Adams: "I think a student should apply to at least 5 or 6 schools. This ensures that they will have lots of choices--at least more than one."

Ann Eiden: "I only applied to one college because I knew I would go to OSU. I grew up in Corvallis, so it was my first choice since childhood."

Greg Eiden: "I applied to at most five schools after talking to my high school counselor."

Teachers:

Mrs. Belgard: "I would say 5 schools because it is too expensive to apply to more. You need two safety schools that you know you can get into. There are so many colleges and schools that can be safety schools for students. The safety schools are those that some students might not want to go to, but they could get in."  "If you get rejected, call. Beth [her daughter] called UW and was put on the wait list. She got a 3.8 GPA her senior year, and she was accepted."

College Students (currently enrolled):

Ms. McMurray: "Apply to at least 3 schools that way you have one you really want to go to and two safety schools. You should have a safety to back up your other safety school. If you get rejected from a school, go to your safety school for a quarter and semester and then transfer."

"WSU Tri-Cities, WSU, and CBC are all safety schools. Eastern and Central are also fairly safe schools."

Claire Naulty: "I applied to three schools, two safety schools and one desired school. I honestly felt like I could get into all three, however I felt the need to simply be safe. I applied to Central and Eastern as my safe schools and Western Washington University as my desired school."

Seniors (just graduating, just accepted):

Alex Vo: "I applied to three colleges. The three I applied to were the ones that I wanted to go to. I applied to Eastern, UW, and WSU, and now I am attending WSU next fall."

Zach Hanson: "I applied to about six schools, including UW, Gonzaga, and Portland U. After financial aid was determined, I decided to go to Gonzaga next fall."

Juniors (have yet to do anything):

Will Richey: "I'm going to apply to eight schools, just to be safe."

Ashley Christensen: "I'm applying to six schools to have a good backup system." 

Rachel Anheier: "Five schools, that way it's not expensive. It's just a good number."

Joan Qafoku: "At least five. Any more would be too expensive, and I'm only interested in that many." 

Ben Sullivan: "Five, to keep my options open."

Eric Molina: "I'm applying to five or six so I'll get into one." 

Lynn Holm: "I'll apply to at least five; I have lots of reasons!" 

Matt Hu: "Four or five. I'm only going to one, so there's no point in applying to a bunch."

Kristin Liu: "Seven to ten. I don't know what I will qualify for at certain schools, so I'm applying to a wide spectrum."

Eric Parchen: "Five schools--I'll have a better chance of getting accepted."

The Bottom Line: Have a Plan! Don't be caught not getting accepted to any schools, or wasting tons of cash applying to too many: find a happy medium for you and stick to it!