<p>Son is a junior in high school this year and we are starting the college research process. I have been using Princeton Review, College Data and College Powler to see what schools he may have a shot at. Princeton Review invariably says most colleges are a reach for my son, while the other two show more favorable odds results for the same schools. I have used the common data sets, but I was hoping to receive some personal stats/stories. Thanks!</p>
<p>What information are you using for the chances? What are his stats? According to those sites my DS has NO match schools anywhere–mainly because of his major and even at schools that offer his major, for some reason it doesn’t show up on those sites. What schools is he considering that all of them are reaches?</p>
<p>It depends on whether they are just looking at the CDS data to determine if your stats are in the right range OR if they are using student-reported data of applicants GPA/test scores and their admissions results.
Those scattergrams based on the latter are totally invalid. What percentage of college applicants log into college data and enter which schools they got into/rejected from/waitlisted at? It must be a tiny minority. Of course it is tempting to look at those scattergrams, I know we did 
Go with the results based on the CDS data.</p>
<p>One example is Dickinson College. I use the same stats on all sites, and PR says the school is a reach and the other two make it appear that this is a reasonable choice.</p>
<p>BeanTownGirl–if you are referring to sites like Cappex, why does it matter if they are student entered or not. It’s not like someone is going to put that they have a 4.0 and 2300 SAT to see if they can get into a school when they really have a 3.0 and 1500 SAT? Also, unless admissions is strictly based on GPA and test scores, none of the sites matter, including CDS, because in the end, each student has something the college likes in their application and no one knows exactly what that is.</p>
<p>spritle–lesson to learn is there is no “right” answer to this. If his numbers are inline with the midrange or higher, he has as good of a chance as anyone of getting in. What ever else he brings to the table is what will make the difference. The goal is to have some good, solid extra curricular activities that he has been in through high school, 3 or 4 quality ones is better than 10 things he has one for one year, for example. Solid grades with challenging classes in high school and test scores that reflect that.</p>
<p>Again, what is his GPA and test scores an EC’s and people here will probably give you a very good, very accurate idea of what is a good match. Also, acceptance rates play a huge part in this. As a male, that gives him a little boost but Dickinson has a 42% acceptance rate–not bad, but not a sure thing either. Compare that to say, Harvard, with a 6% acceptance rate and there are a lot of 4.0’s, 2400 SAT’ers that are getting turned away from Harvard. Sure, their numbers are “matches” but the acceptance rate plays against them.</p>
<p>I’m unfamiliar with those chance sites. One way to conceptually see which might be more accurate is to look at the data the site requires. If it’s just grades and scores then it can’t possibly be very accurate for a school like Dickinson where volunteer work and ECs have a greater weight than scores.</p>
<p>For any school that uses a holistic admissions process chance sites are virtually useless at best, and more accurately can be harmful. I’ve seen a very specific example where someone relied heavily on the accuracy of this type of thing and applied to reach type schools that appeared as very safe bets on these websites due to using a weighted GPA and very high test scores. There were NO safety schools on the the list. This ignored poor grades in the sophomore year, lack of course rigor, no leadership, no standout ECs, and lackluster essays (as told by admissions after rejection). Come April this student was in a virtual panic with no school to attend save their local cc. Luckily they were able to apply late to a state school who offered merit based on stats alone, however it was not the outcome they were expecting at all. The university is fine, but they would have had many, many more options had they been realistic about what was an actual reach, match, and safety, and covered their bases accordingly. You want to have options to choose from come April, not be settling, or worse yet scrambling.</p>
<p>Now if you school has Naviance, that is a tool that can be very useful to determine whether or not your child has a shot. It is based on data from your high school, so it will can be helpful to know that every kid with 3.5 that has applied to X college has been accepted but only 50% with a 3.3 gain admittance, or every kid from our hs that has applied to random Ivy over the last 6 years has been rejected. Talking to your guidance counselor (if they are good) will help you get a feel for your initial list. That said, a lot of people don’t aim high enough so if you want to reach for a couple go for it. </p>
<p>I agree with blueiguana that grades and SAT scores are only part of the equation, as you will see from disappointed posters as the rejections and waitlists start to pile up. It is important to fit in a school’s student body, and that means that they will often take the community organizer with trumpet skills over the 4.0 2400 SAT math bowl leader.</p>
<p>^ I’m a big fan of Naviance for building a list when used in conjunction with advise from your GC. There are weaknesses as MizzBee notes. One in particular that I noted when using it with my 2011 grad, and will be very mindful with my 2014 student, is to keep in mind if your school is primarily an ACT or SAT taking school. </p>
<p>For instance, our school is primarily in SAT territory. Kids try that first and if they don’t get the results they want (or even if they do) they’ll take a stab at the ACT. If you look at the scattagrams for the schools where my son was accepted and toggle from SAT to ACT it’s pretty easy to see where his datapoint is with ACT because there aren’t that many, you would incorrectly think that my son was accepted to schools X, Y, & Z with an ACT of 30. Not his best effort, no prep, and much lower statistically then his SAT. This isn’t a problem with schools X & Y as you are in the ballpark with an ACT of 30, but with school Z you would be misled to think you are competitive with that score. Bottom line is he didn’t submit his ACTs, the schools didn’t consider them, and yet Naviance reflects both SAT & ACT datapoints if the student took both. This is a drawback and where your GC can help out, to confirm what your are interpreting is correct.</p>
<p>I did look at those sites, but more out of curiosity than anything else. What I ended up doing was making a spreadsheet in Excel. I made a column for the average SAT math score, the SAT CR score, the % in the top 10% of the class, and the acceptance rate. Then I could sort my colleges by each column and see how things lined up with my son’s stats. I didn’t do GPA because I had the rank and felt it would probably count more in his case. (Top 6%, about B+/A- unweighted). I figured a school where both math and CR were in top 25% AND had an acceptance rate over 50% were pretty good bets. I figured any school with less than a 20% acceptance rate was a super reach and less than 30% was a reach. In the end for him the schools he got into or rejected from lined up exactly by acceptance rate. (And the fact that he applied to Chicago EA was critical in this regard.) His CR score was in the top 25% at every school he applied. His math score was never in the bottom 25%, except at one school where he was a legacy, but it was very close to the bottom. He didn’t get into any super reach, but got into half the reach schools, he didn’t have any real match schools, he got into his safety. I think in his case the soft parts of the application were important. The stats only really make sure that the application gets a serious read, but I don’t think at the selective schools a 690 vs a 670 in math makes any difference at all. A teacher who says you wrote the best research paper that year in APUSH will be a lot more important.</p>