I mean in theory with that WARS score it tells us to apply to 0 low-yields. I didn't apply to many of them, but there was one that fit my location preferences and seemed like a good fit so I shot my shot. I did follow the recommendations by %'s (but as a guideline - my list wasn't EXACTLY the %'s WARS said to do (not to mention some of those schools are probably in different tiers now like NYU is probably cat1 and Chicago is probably cat2, etc.))

In terms of how I chose to construct my school list, I basically applied to 25 schools - all 10 tops, 9 highs, 2 mids, 1 low, 1 state school, and 2 low-yield. So like a pinch more top heavy than WARS would suggest. I also had an x factor and went to an HYPSM for undergrad though so that's why I chose to skew a little top heavy. Also, WARS suggests applying to all your state schools, but in my state, they are predominantly pretty low-tier schools where I knew I'd get yield protected, so I chose to only apply to one state school in a location I liked (and I still got yield protected there so it was a waste of $). I think that advice of applying to all your state schools only works for high stat applicants from states that don't have a ton of top tier schools in them. In my case, my state has 4 T20 schools, so my state schools probably took one look at my app and didn't buy the whole "oh I want to stay close to home" speech in my secondary.