Ramira Alamilla, college counselor at Salt Lake City's Judge Memorial High School, said many students are still following the recommended formula of two "pie in the sky" schools, two medium schools and two safety schools, but others have been swept up in the anxiety of college admissions.

"The ones that are applying to 10-plus schools are a function of all the hype surrounding the college application process. There's a lot more insecurity," she said.

The proliferation of online applications and the common application have also prompted students to send in more applications with minimal extra work, she said.

Russ Huiskamp, also a West High senior, shipped his name to 14 out-of-state schools this year, relying on the ease of those online and common applications accepted by many of his schools. The common application is accepted by more than 270 schools, allowing students to cut down on essay time.

Huiskamp spent more than $800 on his college applications and is expecting to hear from most of the schools by the end of this week.

"At the beginning of the senior year, it's expected that you have everything figured out. For a lot of us, it's easier to apply if you think you might like it and then decide more specifically later," he said. "It's really just a way of delaying the decision process for us."

In addition to putting off the inevitable choice, Rao said getting acceptance letters from a dozen schools also increases her leverage for getting scholarships. Rao said she has received a scholarship from the University of Utah and plans to let admissions officers at her other top choices know that she'll need some financial incentive from them if they want her.

Alamilla said the anxiety over getting into the best college with a scholarship offer on the table has some students spending much of their senior year focused on applying to college. The surge of applications, however, may actually backfire for high school seniors as acceptance rates drop at colleges and wait lists grow.

That scenario quickly creates a cycle of lower acceptance rates, increased hysteria and more applications, particularly at private schools and among top-performing high school seniors, she said.

Brigham Young University received 1,000 more applications than last year, forcing the school to deny more students than ever. The school accepted roughly 5,300 freshmen for summer and fall enrollment out of roughly 12,000 applicants this year.

About 31 percent of those admitted this year were from Utah, with the second largest group from California at 12 percent.

The picture is the same at Westminster College in Salt Lake City where Vice President of Enrollment Joel Bauman saw a 37 percent increase in freshman applications. Westminster admits students on a rolling basis up until May 1. If the slots fill up before then, qualified students are relegated to a wait list.

"It's really important to not feed the hysteria. What happens is that the more they fill up the applicant pool, the more selective schools will get," Bauman said. "Don't put in fake applications just for the sake of it. It's going to start forcing students who want to be there onto a wait list."

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E-mail: estewart@desnews.com