Well, in my own posts I’ve started using the suggested language and it hasn’t seemed to cause any confusion (see posts here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here). I think when the terms we use mean what most people think they’re going to mean, without needing to have specialized knowledge, it helps minimize confusion and increases accessibility. And perhaps it can help students and families understand what is meant by reaches/matches/likelies/safeties, if they even have counselors who are using those terms (a recent thread mentioned how most public high schools get minimal to no college counseling from their school).
Granted, I’ve thrown in the percentages with the categories on an initial use in a thread to make sure that readers know how I’m defining the terms. I also tend to make a statement that the top X schools are unlikely for everyone because of the odds, not because a student would be a poor candidate. I’m fine adding in a guaranteed category as well.
With respect to which admissions rate to use when chancing people, I think that’s the beauty of humans typing in responses rather than a computerized system. Anyone can do a quick search and find the percentage that a university admits. But when we add that data and then see what a student’s GPA and test scores are (particularly if it’s a high/low situation or low-low or high-high) we can interpret that. We can look at a school’s admission breakdown by GPA and see where a student might fit. What other factors the student has that might improve or worsen their odds. It’s not an exact science, but human brains making their best estimates of someone’s chances. How many times have people posting about the chancing done by various websites/software and then seen very different results in real life?
Anyway, I don’t want to post too much, but I look forward to hearing others’ thoughts on the proposal.