TOEFL: Students should apply for admission for their first choice or several schools?

Prompt: Some students apply for admission only to their first-choice schoole, while others apply to several schools. Which plan do you agree and why?

Essay: Although I completely understand students that apply only to one school, personally I support the idea of applying to several colleges at the same time. There are a few reasons for me to think so.

Firstly, you can never be too sure about your accepting in the one particular school. There could be some accepting requirements that do not depend on your skills or your motivation letter, for example. Some colleges search for a particular type of person and you may not be this person. This does not mean that you are not good enough, this can happen because you do not know the university from the inside. Furthermore, in spite of high grades and excellent recommendation letters, there might be limited possibilities to accommodate students.

Secondly, if you are applying not just for an admission but also for a scholarship, the competition between the applicants is really serious and tough. I understand that I won't be able to support financially my studies, so I will be looking for a full scholarship and in this case the best advice is to apply to no less than five schools. Thirdly, I would like to have an opportunity to choose where to study. For me the first-choice school simply does not exist, because there are a lot of interesting programs in different universities and I do not prefer one program to another. Financial support from the university may be a crucial criterion to choose between the wide varieties of these programs.

To sum up I would also like to mention my own experience about this problem. After graduating from high school I applied to 6 universities at the same time, both in my native city and in the capital of my country. I was accepted in most universities and I have chosen the university in Moscow and I think this was an excellent choice!

This task requires you to present an essay and not a direct answer to the question. So, it's better that you introduce the prompt first and then express your opinion in the introduction. For example;

Having accepted to a preferred college or university is a big dream of many students. However, students have different perceptions about applying for admission. Some believe they should apply only to their preferred college while some others believe it is a risky affair. Those students opt to apply to several colleges for admission. For me, I would choose to apply to several colleges and select the best one that comes through.

Thank you about your opinion! However, I do have some doubts. I am studying BARRON's Toefl ibt and they say there that the best first sentence is something like that : Although there are many advantages to living in the city, I prefer life in the small town. I was writing an essay according to their plan.