Accuracy of the Princeton Review Counselor-o-matic?

Parents Forum
1

<p>Since D1 now has PSAT and ACT scores, I popped her rough stats into the Princeton Review Counselor-o-matic....and am now thoroughly depressed with what it's spitting back. 3.5 GPA (I used the unweighted), 231 PSAT, 32 ACT, and UC Riverside is a reach? WTBleepityblip? No other California publics listed in the results. Why on earth wouldn't Santa Cruz (more her style) and Merced show up, let alone any Cal States?</p>

<p>I'm a big believer in the "love your safety" philosophy, which in California in recent years means playing whack-a-mole. I don't expect to see selective schools showing up given her GPA, but this just seems utterly nuts to me. Should she be massively recalibrating her expectations, or are the PR recs FUBAR?</p>

<p>(OK, that's really amusing that WTSixthLetterOfTheAlphabet gets censored by CC but FUBAR is just fine :) )</p>

2

<p>I just did the Counselor-o-matic thing again for the first time since very early in our son’s search. Three thoughts:</p>

<p>–The reach/match/safety designations are all over the place, at least with respect to what Naviance is showing us.
–There are schools among the results that make absolutely no sense for him, given his preferred majors of music, languages, and IR: a bunch of polytechs (RIT, RPI, WPI, Stevens), Albany College of Pharmacy, and the Merchant Marine Academy.
–A slew of evangelical schools is showing up even though we specified that we had zero interest in religious affiliation.</p>

<p>I think Counselor-o-Matic is, indeed, FUBAR.</p>

3

<p>[My</a> student workers tested the Counselor-o-Matic years ago](<a href=“http://uvaadmission.blogspot.com/2007/07/is-prs-counselor-o-matic-another.html]My”>http://uvaadmission.blogspot.com/2007/07/is-prs-counselor-o-matic-another.html). UVa wouldn’t show up for any of these test profiles:

</p>

<p>Even putting the geographic location as Charlottesville, VA (where UVa is located) didn’t return UVa as a match.</p>

4

<p>Agree Fubar. I tried it a couple times 4 years ago and just tucked that one into the “never visit this again of no value” file in my brain.</p>

5

<p>LOL, it says American is a reach, I KNOW it’s a safety. Maybe they wanted the weighted GPA? </p>

<p>Hasn’t suggested anything besides American that son is considering.</p>

<p>I tried giving him a 4.0 still gave very silly suggestions.</p>

<p>USE CC!</p>

6

<p>Any web-based college selector tool that puts top 10 LACs as “matches” is full of hot air, IMO. (It did for my DD a few years ago.)</p>

7

<p>Doesn’t the Counselor-O-Matic have some kind of link with “sponsoring institutions”? I seem to remember that certain colleges would show up as “featured” and were often school which, as nightchef indicated, should have been ruled out based on preferences listed. It sounds like there may be some marketing dollars exchanging hands there.</p>

8

<p>Yeah… my list of reaches are surely below what I’m aiming for. Syracuse? A reach? For a 3.8 UW and a 30 ACT? You’re funny.</p>

9

<p>IMHO, Counselor-O-Matic is generally worthless.</p>

10

<p>I’ve used that before. It gave me Yale as a match. I don’t think it’s very useful.</p>

11

<p>No, I can’t even recalculate something for S, won’t let me put in new numbers, still has no fit for some reason, just a blank line! I noticed when we picked certain states that schools he is interested in & are matches do not show up! Waste of time!</p>

12

<p>Well, that’s a relief. Thanks, all.</p>

<p>The College Board version of recommendations was even sillier, starting with every name brand school you could shake a stick at.</p>

13

<p>^I found the college board suggestions better.</p>

14

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<p>I have always wondered about this, not just with Counselor-O-Matic, but with college guidebooks in general.</p>

15

<p>I cannot believe I am going to suggest this, but DD has been going through the "should I transfer? mode and has found the College ******* college search function to be helpful. It is very different than Counselor-O-Matic - ** when our kids were entering data we were getting Harvard as a reach and UVA as a match…
DD likes the College ******* program since it tries to match a number of interests as well as academic profile info. We also entered data into Cappex, run by the FastWeb organization and got some thought-provoking information/data.</p>

16

<p>Well, that was amusing. My high school was not an option for the first question, so that may have something to do with the results, but several of the schools that were my safeties were listed as reaches when I entered my information.</p>

17

<p>Georgiatwins,
It’s OK to spell out the CB (I use the abbreviation because I type it so frequently), it’s a fact of life around here and you shan’t get a violation for using it. At least not from me ;).</p>