Listing other schools you're applying to?

Chicago has that question and so does Darden.

In my opinion, apart from the reason mentioned by pelihu, the schools want to see whether you are just applying to schools ranked better or whether you take the pain to research schools and apply to schools that have something similar to offer.

Texas as well. Its funny all these schools (and presumably more) are in fact standard 'fall back' schools. They're fighting back.

Even if you haven't done in depth research, its not hard to list similar schools for the area(s) you want to concentrate in.

So what are you guys doing? Listing the schools you are really applying to even though it may hurt your chances at this school, or providing false information??

Hey guys,

I went to a free session of Kaplan and the admissions counselor there mentioned that most of the top schools are looking to increase their “yield %â€

Yes, that's essentially the same thing I heard about Kellogg (as a back-up to Harvard, Wharton).

Yield is directly related to admission percentage, which is even more closely tied to the perception of quality and prestige. Harvard, for example, has a student body of 900 and must admit about 1000 people to fill their class (yield of about 90%). Chicago, on the other hand, has a class size of 550 and must admit almost as many people to achieve their much smaller class size. Thus, the admit rate at Harvard can be kept mighty low, given the volume of applications.

I believe that it is a good suggestion to not list other schools that the school you are applying to has a natural inferiority complex to (NYU to Columbia, Berkeley to Stanford, etc.) Of course, you must back it up by showing in your essays that you have good reasons why this particular school is at the top of your list. If someone from San Francisco lists Berkeley or Stanford as their first choice that makes sense, but Cornell as their first choice, they will have to explain why and convince the school it isn't just a back-up.