On Shotgunning (Yes, This is About College Admissions)
There's a term students are using to describe a specific approach to college admissions.
Shotgunning.
College applications are probably not what you think of when you hear “shotgunning.” You likely think about guns. There is also a very specific drinking term, which is what Wikipedia has as the definition of “shotgunning.” It also recommends looking at a form of cold reading used by mediums and psychics. Shiogunning would seem to be an incredibly inappropriate thing to discuss with teenagers on any number of levels. Yet alongside guns, beer drinking, and television psychics, “shotgunning” applies to college applications.
Shotgunning–v. To apply to as many colleges, especially extremely selective ones, as possible to up the odds of getting into at least one.
This is not a new term. It is almost entirely used by students themselves, rather than anyone in charge of any part of the admissions process. Advice from The College Board, Common Application, or NACAC will never use the term. (And good thing, too, considering its multiple other meanings.) The oldest Reddit post mentioning “The Shotgun Method” on r/ApplyingtoCollege, titled “What’s the Shotgun Method?” is from eight years ago. There were more discussions during this last application cycle, both in favor and against shotgunning. These are self-selecting groups–students so nervous about applying to selective colleges they seek advice on Reddit to air their worries to anonymous strangers with similar concerns.
But let’s address the question “shotgunning” is supposed to answer:
How many colleges should a student apply to for freshman admission?
This question is not as easy to answer as it seems. There’s all the usual caveats with college admission. Any general question can be replied to with “It depends on the student and what colleges they apply to.” The number of college applications facing any “rising senior” is a different beast. We might not even be asking the right question.
Perhaps it should be: How many schools should a student have on an initial application list?
Or maybe: How many colleges is too many to apply to?
Or possibly: How many college applications guarantee getting into a college?
Or really: How many applications will a student complete in the college application process?
These are all slightly different questions. Any initial application list from June after Junior year should have more schools than someone should end up applying to by January of Senior year. Additionally, for any selective school, and especially the highly or extremely selective colleges, there is no guarantee of getting in.
And then there is the difference between what is generally advised for students to do and what students are actually doing each and every year. The College Board, administrators of SAT, AP, and PSAT Exams and self-styled authority of all things college admissions, gives the advice that “five to eight applications are usually enough to ensure that a student is accepted into a suitable institution (depending, of course, on the individual student's record and circumstances).” There is a lot going on in the sentence, and none of it is helpful as advice.
First, “five to eight” means the standard advice involves doubling the amount of work. Also nothing really can “ensure” an acceptance to “a suitable institution,” depending on how a student or parent defines “suitable institution.” Then the parenthetical noting that it depends on each students individual “record and circumstances” is a get-out-of-jail-free card for the previous assumptions. This advice is prepared for the valedictorian and the kid scraping to graduate, which means it’s good for neither.
The real issue is that suggesting students should complete “five to eight applications” is not reflective of how the process actually works. The number of applications a student will complete is not necessarily the same as the number of colleges a student will apply to. All nine University of California schools share one identical application, with the same requirements and essay prompts. The 23 schools in the California State University System all share one application with NO essays required. A student applying to all 32 schools in the UC and CSU systems would only be completing two applications. And they’re fairly similar applications.
Then there is the Common Application. Over 1,100 schools are on the Common Application, including many outside the US. In theory, the Common Application exists to make applying to multiple colleges much easier. And it does that. If a student ONLY applies to Common App schools, they will be completing things like Name, Address, High School, GPA, High School Courses, Test Scores, Activities, and even the Personal Statement just once. That is all a massive benefit.
Not all Common App schools are the same, however. The range of supplemental essay requirements is extremely broad. Stanford requires a number of short answer questions (50 words or less) and three short essays (250 words or less.) Columbia asks students for a “List a selection of texts, resources and outlets that have contributed to your intellectual development outside of academic courses,” plus four other shorter essays (150 words or less.) And the University of Chicago has famously off-the-wall “Extended Essay” requiring students to write 500 words on unusual prompts.
Applying to those three schools alone takes a lot of work, even though they are all on the Common Application. If a student also wants to apply to the University of California, Berkeley, they’ll also have to write the four “Personal Insight Questions” required on the UC application. Now extend this match for students applying to 15 or 20 selective schools. The workload
And its probably not working. The idea of a shotgun burst is to hit a variety of targets with one blast, hitting them all with roughly equal force. Writing a thousand words for supplemental essays for each school isn’t really shotgunning, it’s creating a ton of extra work.
Here is how to build an application list:
Find one or two schools you absolutely love. There probably aren’t more than that for any student. No one equally loves a dozen highly selective schools. These can be classic “reach” schools, but remember that any school with an admit rate below 15% or average test scores in the 95th percentile is a reach for anyone. Also, don’t decide you love a school just because it’s hard to get into.
Identify five or six schools you really like and stand a good chance of getting in. “Good chance” is somewhat subjective, but your test scores should be near the school’s averages and their admission rate isn’t wildly low.
Pick one or two schools you are perfectly happy attending, with high admit rates, and average test scores below yours. These are by no means “safeties,” because that doesn’t really exist. They are schools with much better chances for you.
And then you can add on extra schools—just not as a shotgun blast. They should all follow these rules:
The extra school is on an application you are already completing.
The extra school does not require any additional supplemental materials.
The extra school is not a wild reach based on GPA, test scores, and admit rate.
Once you have a list, then comes actually filling out the applications and writing the essays.
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