The Right Number of Business Schools to Apply to

When applying to business school, it’s a good idea to have a range of reach, target, and safety schools to send your application to. But how many is too many? And how do you go about finding the right number of B-schools to apply to?

Fortuna Admissions recently offered a few tips on how to determine the right number of business schools to apply to and how applicants can align their goals and priorities to figure what works best for them.

DETERMINE YOUR GOALS

The first step to finding the right number of  business schools to apply to is to ask yourself why you want to pursue an MBA in the first place. Asking yourself these questions will help you prioritize what you’re looking for in an MBA program.

“What business areas interest you? How do you see your career evolving? Many MBA programs degrees focus on areas such as entrepreneurship, real estate, luxury goods or non-profits,” according to Fortuna. “Schools also may offer specialized degrees or cutting-edge expertise in economics, finance, taxation or marketing, among other areas.”

Once you have a good list of what you’re looking for in an MBA program, you’ll want to then prioritize that list from most important to least.

“Usually you’ll come up with quite a few things, but at some point you have to narrow it down,” Evan Bouffides, the assistant dean and director of graduate admissions at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business, tells Fortune. “So I tell candidates to pick the two or three things that are absolutely the most important to you, and that’s how you try to determine the subset of schools to which you apply.”

RESEARCH SCHOOLS

After you’ve prioritized your goals, the next step is to research what programs are the best fit for you. Experts recommend considering a range of factors when looking at MBA programs, such as curriculum and even classroom dynamics.

“You’re going to be in the same classes for two years with a group of people,” Michael Waldhier, the director of admissions and interim managing director of resident professional graduate programs at Penn State University’s Smeal College of Business, tells Fortune. “How big of a group do you want? Do you want those people to be competitive or collaborative?”

RANK SCHOOLS

Once you have a list of schools you’re interested in, you’ll want to categorize your schools into three buckets: reach, target, and safety. Experts say it’s important to have a well-balanced list that encompasses all three buckets.

“You don’t want to overload that list with out-of-reach schools and then, at the end of the day, you may not get any admission offers,” Arman Davtyan, the assistant dean of enrollment management at the Pepperdine Graziadio Business School, tells Fortune. “You want that list of schools to be varied so that by the end of the cycle you have multiple offers to consider.”

Sources: Fortuna Admissions, Fortune