Applied to only 1 US school, got accepted with funding

[avicus]

Anyone else got a similar experience? The program is quite decent, engineering PhD, not famous but in the top 20% (according to NRC 2010 rankings). Frankly did not expect to even get admitted at all. Or it could be because that I'm pursuing an outlandish field (remote sensing)?

[Pauli]

Do you mean applying to just one school? No, that's rare. I also applied to only one school, but that's because I had a back-up plan of going to industry if I wasn't accepted (I eventually did).

[ktel]

I only applied to 2 schools for my Master's, both Canadian. Luckily I didn't know about this forum back then or I probably would have had a nervous breakdown thinking I should have applied to 20 or something

[avicus]

Haha yeah! The peeps here are really gung-ho LOL.

[avicus]

Do you mean applying to just one school? No, that's rare. I also applied to only one school, but that's because I had a back-up plan of going to industry if I wasn't accepted (I eventually did).

Yeah I only ended up applying to 1 school. Initially planned to apply to ~10 schools, but the application fees proved to be too expensive for me to justify, seeing that I did not think I had good chances at those schools. So I only ended up applying to my backup, which turned out to be more selective and more prestigious (for my field) than I was given the impression of (by superficially skimming USNWR rankings).

[Pauli]

but the application fees proved to be too expensive for me to justify

Aaaaaaand that!

Average application fee: $50

Typical # of schools applied to: 10

Total application fees: $500

[POG0628]

Average application fee: $50

Typical # of schools applied to: 10

Total application fees: $500

It gets better though, you have to think about all the application costs. For example:

I applied to 12 schools. For me the average application fee was probably closer to $60-70. $23 per GRE score report. The community college I took some of my courses at during high school was $10 per transcript. One school required the materials be submitted through Interfolio, another $25. I had to submit inserts with two sets of my transcripts, so for those my current university charged another $10 per ($20).

I've often joked that graduate applicants must be good for the economy.

[hope4fall2012]

I wish I could have just applied to one school and taken a chance. Would have saved a lot of time and money.

Unfortunately, I applied to 7 schools, and the money I needed to pay for everything (GRE, TOEFL, reporting scores, application fees, courier charges) was crazy. Had to save for almost a year on my measly grad school stipend.

Looking back at it, I would be saying the same thing as the lovely girl in orange

[atiti]

Applying from outside the US can be much more expensive. APART FROM GRE "COSTS" and application fees

you might have to

1. do TOEFL- another expense

2. Evaluate Transcripts

3. Sometimes. translate transcripts

sometimes, the credit cards in my country cant pay application fees so you have to post a foreign cheque and that of course pay bank charges!phew

yeah, I applied to only one US school- Notre Dame and got in! I do not live in the US and didnt know whether ND was prestigious or not, its not known in my country! I just applied cos it had the course i wanted and i wasnt required to evaluate my foreign transcripts (which is an additional expense!) and i wasnt required to write TOEFL.. (It really all goes down to the expense..lol). Oh, i couldn't pay the application fees from my country (come from a developing country where we DO NOT use credit cards-believe me! and we cant send money abroad through western union in my country, we can only receive) and when i heard the cost of drawing a cheque and posting it i begged my uncle in australia to pay for me!

[coonskee]

I did the one school thing. It was because the school to which I applied was my top choice school (for a variety of reasons) and I am really unhappy in my current MSc program -- so, I applied as a transfer, thinking that if I didn't get in, I'd reapply next year and cast my net wider. The gamble paid off, which makes me happy

[Behavioral]

Aaaaaaand that!

Average application fee: $50

Typical # of schools applied to: 10

Total application fees: $500

$50 would be on the extreme low end for my field.

The average application fee was $75-$125/school (not counting GMAT/GRE, Transcripts, etc.).

[Hillary Emick]

I only applied to two programs, which seemed pretty reasonable at that time, but after I got rejected at one of them it produced some pretty hellish anxiety. I was accepted at my top choice with generous funding.

[cajunmama]

I only applied to one school and got in with funding. It was either the one school or industry.