I'll tell you one thing that will reach a breaking point - how expensive it is just to apply. My son applied to 11 schools, between application fees, taking the SATs, taking a couple of AP exams, and paying to send the scores to all the schools, it cost about $2000 to just apply. Wanker that. And that's just for this kid. He's my third. The oldest applied to 10 and the second one applied to 13. I've got one more. I plan to steer him towards schools that don't require the SAT. I will also keep tabs on admissions statistics. We're not throwing a lot of money at schools that accept less than 10% of applicants. That's no longer a gamble worth taking.