What's more important?

[CBG321]

So i've been working hard on my Graduate program list and have 2 programs with strong acceptance rates but the other 6-7 programs i'm looking at range from 8%-30%.  (The 8% is my biggest reach but I did research there and graduated from them so based on that i'm applying). 

 

I'm starting to get really nervous because when I started to narrow down my list, my plan was to have the majority of my applications be outside of my competitive home state and be 40% and higher.

 

Do I need to re-evaluate or is it better to keep these programs that I am incredibly interested in and can probably convey how much and why I want to go to their programs with more passion and detail than other programs that have better acceptance rates? 

 

Sidenotes: My gpa seems within ballpark for most of these schools and I haven't taken the GRE yet.  I'm planning on applying to 8-9 schools.  I'm going to have visited all programs in person by the end of this month and was able to sit down with 2 department advisers.  

 

Anyone have better luck getting into the schools they really cared about in their statement of purpose or is it better to do this based on the school's number of acceptances even though that program may not be everything you're looking for?

[Saila09]

So i've been working hard on my Graduate program list and have 2 programs with strong acceptance rates but the other 6-7 programs i'm looking at range from 8%-30%.  (The 8% is my biggest reach but I did research there and graduated from them so based on that i'm applying). 

 

I'm starting to get really nervous because when I started to narrow down my list, my plan was to have the majority of my applications be outside of my competitive home state and be 40% and higher.

 

Do I need to re-evaluate or is it better to keep these programs that I am incredibly interested in and can probably convey how much and why I want to go to their programs with more passion and detail than other programs that have better acceptance rates? 

 

Sidenotes: My gpa seems within ballpark for most of these schools and I haven't taken the GRE yet.  I'm planning on applying to 8-9 schools.  I'm going to have visited all programs in person by the end of this month and was able to sit down with 2 department advisers.  

 

Anyone have better luck getting into the schools they really cared about in their statement of purpose or is it better to do this based on the school's number of acceptances even though that program may not be everything you're looking for?

 

 

Apply to schools for which you can write strong personals statements. Feel free to have a few safety schools, but applying to schools simply based on acceptance rate seems misdirected. 

[CBG321]

The schools I currently have with better acceptance rates have been carefully chosen based on program content.  But I do agree that randomly adding others just because of a higher acceptance rate isn't beneficial to anyone in the long run.

 

I guess i'm just worried about getting into programs with the fierce competition, so don't want to make any mistakes in the application process.

 

Thanks for the comment!

[Yancey]

The higher acceptance rate is normally correlated with private schools that have high tuition. Students who receive no financial aid from a private university may have gotten financial aid offers from other institutions or into state schools with lower tuition and therefore may decline even their first choice due to finances. So in a way I think applying to a few well selected private schools can benefit applicants. Private schools often have more wiggle room when selecting a class size and what admission aspects they focus on to obtain a diverse class because their funding is dependent on the state. A lot of the known private schools in our field do get a lot of applicants so maybe selecting a few that are looking for students with diverse backgrounds would be most effective. The thing I learned is to take risk because you really never know exactly what schools are looking for!