<p>So Ive had my guidance counselor tell me so-and-so university is a match. Does that mean I have a 50% chance of getting in there, or does that mean that its a school I fit into academically and can probably get into?</p>
<p>as for reaches, does that mean its "very possible" (20%) or is there no shot in hell</p>
<p>im so confused everyone is telling me different things! So if any of you could explain this it would be very helpful :]</p>
<p>I think your question should be: how does your councellor, or so and so, know a certain college is a reach/target, etc. I will give you my 2 cents. Look up undergrad profile/stat for a college. Most of them give 25%-75% profiles. If your is below 25%, it is a reach. If yours is 75%, it is a safety. In between is a match. Now every Tom, Dick & Harriet uses different percentages, and is it SAT profile, or GPA, weighted or uw, class rank,.. You get the picture. It also changes based on your gender, major, hook, etc. And that data is not published. And then some colleges are known crapshoots (or try to be) so that you keep guessing. It helps improve their selectivity. Throw in a bone or two to 5% profile, and lot more will keep applying for years. That is why it is a called a college game. For most colleges, I think it is straightforward to calculate.</p>
<p>High Reach 10%
Reach 20%
Low Reach 35%
Match 50%
Safety 70%</p>
<p>2cents,</p>
<p>you're totally right about the college game. It's very hard for me to gauge my chances from school profiles, because my sat score is higher than the 75th percentile of any school out there (but unfortunately for me, that won't dictate whether I get in) and my gpa is terribly inflated. Plus, my "reach" and "match" schools ARE known as crapshoots (Duke, Stanford, Northwestern, Rice, UVA...) so that makes it doubly hard to tell. But I already got into Michigan so I'm happy.</p>
<p>Anomaly,
Thanks, those numbers are very helpful</p>
<p>and one more question about college lingo: what does "bump" mean? people keep writing that on these threads</p>
<p>when one's thread gets too low on the forum board, then it won't be likely to get any more responses. if responses are still desired, one will "bump" their thread back to the top with a post on that thread, thus being able to get more responses.</p>