<p>I’m sure DadII’s formula has flaws because any formula will. And I imagine he well realizes that.</p>
<p>But I think any proposals for some sort of quick-and-dirty quantifying mechanism are worth looking at, because I know we all want some kind of shortcut - as reliable as possible - to figuring out which schools will be in the reach/match/safety for our kids’ applications.</p>
<p>I know my S’s school had a guideline for stratifying a kid’s list - I don’t have it at hand, but it used SAT scores only and was something along the lines of +60 points over the benchmark score (don’t recall if this was the 75% mark or mean) is a safety, within -60 to +60 of mean is a match and -60 below is a reach. Now this was a few years ago and is obviously flawed. But the school has good results with kids’ admissions to all levels of selectivity.</p>
<p>My point is that people are out there using <em>something</em> to make a first cut at reach/match/safety. Everyone knows final decisions are holistic at lots (not all) schools. But different proposals for a numbers-driven method for the first cut are worth looking at, imho.</p>