That sounds like fun! I enjoy attending my high school's annual plays, especially the musicals, where I can enjoy the performance instead of worrying about being on stage crew.

Okay, so I discussed things with a counselor and she said I need to narrow my stretch schools down to 3, and only apply to those 3. I guess I can see her reasoning (lot of money, time, effort to fill out all the applications), but I'm not sure if I should risk only applying to 3 schools of 9-14% acceptance rates because I really don't want to be forced to go to my local public university (not that it's bad, because it's actually pretty nice, I just want to go to something bigger).

Should I only apply to 3 stretch schools (if I don't mind the time/effort in applying for more, can I without it hurting my overall chances like my counselor seemed to allude to)?

Apply to every school in the top 500 list.

Yeah, I definitely agree with your guidance counselor, Beta7. Surely there's a compromise of decent state schools between your local public university and your stretch schools, no?

You should apply to at least 1 "safety" school just in case (for whatever reason) you can't go to one of your "stretch" schools.

Ultimate Dev'r, I do plan on applying for my local state university as my safety school.

Kerm, the "local" school statement was misleading I think; it would be the main public university in the state (and in my opinion the only one worth going to). There a couple private universities nearby, but I've only looked into 1 of them (and it didn't offer my major). I'll check up on the other decent schools when a computer is available.

Beta7, is it the state school, like U of State? I look forward to hearing your further progress on the college search.

University of Idaho.

Didn't you go to the South Harmon Institute of Technology?

Something like that.

Lulz, I get it

Awesome movie.

Yes; my state has 3 (UNKearney, UNOmaha, UNLincoln), though UNL is the main/most "prestigious" out of the 3.

Eh, I didn't think that was a superb movie; maybe I'm just not crazy about him as an actor. Anyway, Beta7, sounds good then, so do you have your list of schools, or are you still adjusting it?