What do you learn by your 2nd, 3rd, etc... application?

that's what I did, mNeo. I had the Cornell one mostly done, but then held on to it. I worked on the other ones some, then finalized the Cornell one and sent it in. The others all went in in the following 5 days or so.

One thing to watch out for: your apps and the schools themselves will all begin to run together. It's a good idea to have each app at least MOST of the way finished before moving onto the next.

As far as what you learn, I don't know, really. But you get quicker, learn to articulate your goals more clearly, etc. I came up with nice little turns of phrase that I liked more than the first way. And you'll have had more time for introspection, which will lead to clearer, more thoughtful answers across the board.

You find that the last application is the one you think is best, and then get the worst result at that school out of all you applied to.

fun fun fun.

I thought my last was my worst. Mine all came due within a week of each other, and I was BURNED OUT. I just didn't care about it at that point.

I have the schools I am planning on applying to at this point arranged by due date. 3 or 4 R1, then 2 or 3 R2, and if need be a safety for R3. All the schools have different due dates so I am going to stagger them out. The first one due is probably not the first one I will finish since I want to visit that school. I think it also depends who releases essay questions and applications first. I plan on starting in August and having a couple completed by Sept, the ones I am not visiting. Then the schools I am going to visit I will have rough drafts that I can then add details of my visits to.

I want to spread out the due dates not so much for my essays but for the recs, I dont want to push someone to get me 4 recs within a two week period.

My first was definitely my worst, and it showed. Ding without interview.

I felt pretty burned out by my last one (I did 10), and I almost didn't turn it in at all. The only reason I followed through was because my recommenders had already submitted their recommendations, and I felt I owed it to them to hold up my end of the bargain. As it turns out, that was a good thing; I got an admit and a full scholarship and I'm headed there in the fall.

Of course, a few weeks after that last deadline and a few dings later, I was looking for additional schools I could turn in applications to. Funny how that works.