{"id":7626,"date":"2011-12-13T09:12:05","date_gmt":"2011-12-13T15:12:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/?p=7626"},"modified":"2011-12-15T08:39:47","modified_gmt":"2011-12-15T14:39:47","slug":"mission-admission-applying-to-the-right-number-of-schools","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-applying-to-the-right-number-of-schools\/","title":{"rendered":"Mission Admission: Applying to the Right Number of Schools"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday. <\/em><\/p>\n<p>These days, as candidates consider their strategies for the coming MBA admissions cycle, many have a logical question in mind: <em>How many business schools should I apply to?<\/em> The answer, of course, varies dramatically from applicant to applicant, but the golden rule is that you should only apply to an MBA program if you have enough time to make your application the best it can be. So, if you have time to \u201cperfect\u201d only three applications, then you should focus on applying to just three schools\u2014and <em>not<\/em> consider submitting five &#8220;average&#8221; applications.<\/p>\n<p>In terms of a target number\u2014assuming that time is not a factor and you can commit yourself to all of your applications\u2014five or six is generally optimal. With five or six applications, candidates can apply to a mix of reach, competitive and safe schools and can thereby truly cover their bases. Of course, each applicant has his\/her own risk profile and timing to consider, but for most candidates, applying to too few schools can increase the risk of not being admitted, and too many can be overkill.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday. These days, as candidates consider their strategies for the coming MBA admissions cycle, many have a logical question in mind: How many business schools should I apply to? The answer, of course, varies dramatically from applicant to applicant, but &hellip; <a class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-applying-to-the-right-number-of-schools\/\">Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;<i class=\"fal fa-sm fa-angle-right\"><\/i><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7626","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mission-admission"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Mission Admission: Applying to the Right Number of Schools | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-applying-to-the-right-number-of-schools\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Mission Admission: Applying to the Right Number of Schools | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday. These days, as candidates consider their strategies for the coming MBA admissions cycle, many have a logical question in mind: How many business schools should I apply to? The answer, of course, varies dramatically from applicant to applicant, but &hellip; Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-applying-to-the-right-number-of-schools\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2011-12-13T15:12:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-12-15T14:39:47+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mbam-yoast-fallback-image.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"675\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jeremy Shinewald\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jeremy Shinewald\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Mission Admission: Applying to the Right Number of Schools | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-applying-to-the-right-number-of-schools\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Mission Admission: Applying to the Right Number of Schools | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","og_description":"Mission Admission is a series of MBA admission tips; a new one is posted each Tuesday. These days, as candidates consider their strategies for the coming MBA admissions cycle, many have a logical question in mind: How many business schools should I apply to? The answer, of course, varies dramatically from applicant to applicant, but &hellip; Read&nbsp;More&nbsp;&nbsp;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-applying-to-the-right-number-of-schools\/","og_site_name":"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","article_published_time":"2011-12-13T15:12:05+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-12-15T14:39:47+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":675,"url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mbam-yoast-fallback-image.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"Jeremy Shinewald","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jeremy Shinewald","Est. reading time":"1 minute"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":["Article","BlogPosting"],"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-applying-to-the-right-number-of-schools\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-applying-to-the-right-number-of-schools\/"},"author":{"name":"Jeremy Shinewald","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/74216774a1761e746e2426c9c8171f5f"},"headline":"Mission Admission: Applying to the Right Number of Schools","datePublished":"2011-12-13T15:12:05+00:00","dateModified":"2011-12-15T14:39:47+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-applying-to-the-right-number-of-schools\/"},"wordCount":208,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#organization"},"articleSection":["Mission Admission"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-applying-to-the-right-number-of-schools\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-applying-to-the-right-number-of-schools\/","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-applying-to-the-right-number-of-schools\/","name":"Mission Admission: Applying to the Right Number of Schools | mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-12-13T15:12:05+00:00","dateModified":"2011-12-15T14:39:47+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-applying-to-the-right-number-of-schools\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-applying-to-the-right-number-of-schools\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/mission-admission-applying-to-the-right-number-of-schools\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Mission Admission: Applying to the Right Number of Schools"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/","name":"mbaMission - MBA Admissions Consulting","description":"World&#039;s Leading MBA Admissions Consulting Firm","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#organization","name":"mbaMission","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mbam-yoast-organization-logo.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/mbam-yoast-organization-logo.png","width":696,"height":696,"caption":"mbaMission"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"}},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.mbamission.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/74216774a1761e746e2426c9c8171f5f","name":"Jeremy Shinewald","description":"In addition to being Founder and President of mbaMission, Jeremy Shinewald is a Darden MBA, published author, and the recipient of Poets&amp;Quants\u2019 Lifetime Achievement Award in MBA Admissions Consulting. 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