Naviance does the same thing. They had absolutely bonkers examples of categorized schools that are reaches for everyone being listed as matches for our S23. You had to totally ignore it or it would set false expectations. And to be clear, theirs wasn’t a generic definition they would tell you school-by-school if you were a reach, match or safety, so they were giving specifically bad advice.
Reach, match, and safety aren’t just about how a kid’s test scores and GPA match up to the school’s range among admits; these definitions are also a function of the admit rate of the school, or the major (if kids are admitted by major).
So if your grades and scores are in the middle of the range at, oh, Harvard… you are not a match for Harvard, since their admit rate is about 4%.
I’m sure I regurgitated what’s already been said, but it bears repeating in case those new to admissions are reading this page.
Kickstart, which our HS uses for preliminary list exploration, uses the following definitions:
Likely: the admit rate is over 50% and your academic profile puts you in the top quartile of students from the previous year. These are schools where you have a high probability of gaining admission and merit aid, and it’s ideal to have at least two in your list.
Target: the admit rate over 25%+ and your academic profile puts you in the mid 50th percentile or higher of students from the previous year. These schools represent your ‘sweet spot’ since your academic performance is in range and the admit rates are reasonable. We recommend having 3-5 targets in your list.
Reach: the admit rate is less than 25% or your academic performance puts you in the bottom quartile of students from the previous year. These schools admit very selectively, so the risk is higher of being denied, even if your academic performance is strong. We recommend having at least two in your list to give yourself some upside.
Unlikely: the admit rate is less than 25% AND your academic performance puts you in the bottom quartile of students from the previous year. Statistically speaking, these schools are likely to be out of reach unless there are unique circumstances that set you apart from the applicant pool (underrepresented minority, first to attend college, special talent, etc.).
All this is still way too crude to be truly reliable, and we ultimately rely instead on counselor advice and detailed investigation. But my point is even in a crude model, there is no excuse not to at least factor in admit rates.
And yes, this means some schools at least start out as reaches for everyone, because their admit rate is under 25% and such schools cannot ever qualify as less than reaches given these definitions. Which again can be subject to modification given further special circumstances (everything from recruited athletes to legacies to just colleges where we send a lot of kids and so can refine our sense of what they really look for). Same deal with unlikelies.
But it is WAY better to start very conservative with the definition of a reach (or unlikely), and then modify as warranted, rather than starting with an overly generous definition.
The other “conservative” thing is no school starts off as a “safety”, just a likely. Again, we can move schools into the extremely likely/safety category eventually, but not before specific investigation.
Colleges with pre-announced automatic admission criteria (including for the desired major, if applicable) that the student meets would be safeties for admitting the student. If they are also assured to be affordable, then they are safeties overall.
However, what you write above is applicable to colleges that do not pre-announce automatic admission criteria, particularly those using subjective criteria in admission (particularly “level of applicant’s interest”).
Right, and that would presumably be a “short” investigation!
But in the context of our HS, the point of these definitions is just to give kids the opportunity to play around with different hypothetical application lists to get a sense of how building a balanced list will tend to work for them, given their (assumed) qualifications when applying. Using a very limited set of information–all available on the CDS, in fact–makes it easy to do that in an easily substitutable way for a very long list of colleges.
When we are finalizing lists, though, we will absolutely know if any school has an auto-admit policy, restricted subdivisions and majors will be taken into account, our high school’s experience with different colleges will be taken into account, special circumstances will be taken into account, and so on.
My point was really just at that first, very crude, exploratory stage, it is easy enough to be conservative in how the schools are classified. And therefore it seems unjustifiable to me when some entity is not suitably conservative.
But if it could reliably track and apply auto-admit policies, that would be fine too.
