IE, at what point (competitiveness scale) can you be reasonably certain that you will get into a certain college(assuming you haven’t done anything like win nobel prizes or start a billion dollar business or something crazy)?
What school? For some schools, they are always reaches no matter what.
If the college is considered “reach for everyone”… There’s no point at which it’s not. That’s the whole idea.
I agree that it depends on the school, but if what you’re asking is “at what selectivity percentage is it reasonable to assume that if my stats are at the higher end of the range and I have been thoughtful and thorough with the supplements”, I would say acceptance rate of 30% or higher.
Not a hard and fast rule by any means, but based on our experience and that of friends, it seems a little more predictable at that level. Most schools that have sub 20% acceptance rates will be harder to predict.
In my mind anything sub 10% is truly a reach for everyone.
Was that what you were asking?
Are you asking about schools that aren’t a reach for anyone at all? Community colleges.
Not a reach for someone with a 4.0? A 3.5? A 3.0? See the admitted class profile.
Schools that accept more than 50% of applicants are not a reach for everyone, but you’d still want your grades and scores above the 25th percentile or have a different school as your safety. If a school is need-aware and you need aid, you’d want scores at the 50th percentile and preferably higher.
Admission rate outside the context of how strong the applicant pool is does not tell the whole story. For example, College of the Ozarks recently had a 12% admission rate, but its incoming frosh class had an average HS GPA of 3.62 and average SAT scores of 500/534/516 (old three part SAT) and average ACT scores of 23.
http://www.collegedata.com/cs/data/college/college_pg02_tmpl.jhtml?schoolId=1804
Fort Valley State University and Liberty University also have low admission rates, but not especially high stats for their incoming frosh classes.
Those schools are called “reaches for virtually everyone”. The “virtually” means that if your family donates $50 million plus to the school, you are the child of the President or have won a Nobel Prize you have a really great chance of being admitted.
^^^ Or you are an athletic recruit of that institution who has gotten a positive initial read from the AO. But you have to have the athletic ability and high enough academic achievement to be recruited, which is different kind of a “reach” in itself.
@BKSquared beat me to my point. In my opinion, Caltech and MIT, which eschew athletic recruiting, are the only colleges which can be accurately termed “reaches for everyone”. For the academically strong recruited athlete, if the coach wants them and has pull with admissions, any college is essentially a safety.
I think some may have misunderstood my question. I did phrase it poorly
I it was a question about the college, not from an individual standpoint.
I guess I should also limit it to just academics, I’m not a sports person and have never seen it from that perspective.
here’s the original question, rephrased. sorry:
which college should rarely, if ever, go on an applicant’s list anywhere under “reach”? at what threshold is it less absurd to put a college in match?(this is for any applicant short of nobel prize winners and whatnot)
I am asking this from the viewpoint of a strong, but not part of the ‘exception’(so yeah… no million dollar donation scheme, etc.)
@ucbalumnus I did avoid the words “admission rates” for that very reason
@gardenstategal got my question(more or less)! hooray!
I think OP is asking where we would draw the line between “crapshoot, lottery, reach for everyone” and “reach for most.” I would say any college with a sub-10% to 10-15% acceptance rate (the Ivies and almost-Ivies) are an absolute crapshoot and a reach for anyone who is not Malala or Malia. Colleges with acceptance rates in the 15-25% range are also a reach for almost everyone but aren’t quite as unpredictable as the former group. Colleges in the 30%~ range are, in my opinion, where the “reach for literally nearly everyone” rule sort of fades out.
I would say outside of the top 20 for National Universities and Top 7 for LAC.