<p>Looking for a quantitative measure to use as a rough quide to assay colleges as reach, match or safety.</p>
<p>Depends on the individual really. If you want to base it on SAT scores, and many do, then a reach school would be (for an individual person) one in which your score fits into their bottom 25% to midddle of the 50% range of accepted student scores (sometimes this is given as applicant scores). A match school would be where your score fits very comfortably in their mid to upper 50% range, and a safety is when you fit into their top 25% range of scores.</p>
<p>What is a match for you could be a safety (or a reach) for someone else.</p>
<p>It depends on what you bring to the school in terms of diversity too (and I don't just mean race). If you are a run of the mill kid, a match school would be if you are more like 65-85 percentile. Reach school is under that obviously, assuming that they are a selective school (admit 40% or less). Match school is- you meet the requirements for the Honors program or they admit almost everyone who applies.</p>
<p>Reach - admissions rate under 40%; or GPA and test scores lower than the middle of the range.</p>
<p>Match - admissions rate at or above 40%, and GPA and test scores in the 50 percentile or higher.</p>
<p>Safety - admissions rate at or above 40%, and GPA and test scores in the 75 percentile. Doubleplay's definition of a match is my definition of a safety.</p>
<p>Would a school be a match if the admit rate is 60-70% and the applicant is within the 25-75% sat range (1110-1320) applicant scores are 1160. Everything else is good applicant is in top 10% good ec's and GPA etc.</p>
<p>I do not like defining reach/match/safety on the basis of test scores or acceptance rates, mostly because it completely ignores any personal qualities which matter very much in admissions.</p>
<p>I define a safety as a school that the student is almost certain to get into, a match as a school that the student could very well get into but may not, and a reach as a school that the student may or may not get into. </p>
<p>This is very hard to tell, especially for parents who have no prior experience with college admissions. Test scores and such can be used as a guide, but I would avoid depending on these statistics for your answers. Most families, after reading about and touring the school, will be able to get a good sense of whether a school is a match or reach or safety. A good college advisor, especially one who knows the student well, is also a good source of advice. I caution against using guides such as Chedva's because a safety school may admit <40% (which would put the school in her "reach" category) while still being a dependable safety for that student. There is also a lot of personal differentiation that goes beyond scores. Some students shine on a piece of paper while other students look ordinary or scattered. Some students are personable and will get great recs and will ace the interview. Some students have special skills or talents that are needed at particular schools. Some students are legacies. These are things that the family should be able to have a good sense of that they can take into account. It's difficult if you don't have experience in college admissions, but I honestly do not have better advice. The most important thing is for the student to apply to a couple of schools that he will almost certainly get into that he really, really likes. The rest, such as breaking down between a match and a reach, isn't so important. I never looked at the colleges I applied to in those terms, though I did apply to two schools that I was almost certain I would get into and one other that I felt pretty sure I would get into.</p>
<p>I agree with Chedva about the importance of admissions rate. </p>
<p>Consider Brown University for example.</p>
<p>Its SAT middle 50% ranges are CR 670-760, M 680-770, W 660-760. </p>
<p>So should a student whose SAT scores are above the 75th percentile in all three cases (say, 780, 800, 780) consider Brown a safety?</p>
<p>No way. Brown admits only 14% of its applicants. According to the university's own Web site, 74% of applicants with SAT CR scores between 750 and 800 were rejected, as were 75% of those with SAT M scores between 750 and 800.</p>
<p>Brown is not a safety for anyone, and I wouldn't even consider it a match for anyone on the basis of SAT scores alone (although it might possibly be a match for a student with extraordinary qualifications in all categories). </p>
<p>At the upper ranges of selectivity, you can't judge a reach, match, or safety by SAT score ranges alone.</p>
<p>corranged, I do agree that there is much more to the admissions process than grades and scores. However, since the rest is out of our control and impossible to evaluate, you have to start somewhere. And the only objective measures we have are grades and scores. I know, and I'm sure we all know, kids who got into schools that on paper seem way too high a reach, and kids who got rejected from schools that on paper seem very safe for them.</p>
<p>But to ignore GPA requirements, SAT/ACT ranges and admissions rates is, to me, foolhardy. And if you cannot define "match" or "safety", how do you build a list "from the bottom up"?</p>
<p>That fact is that the terms "reach", "match", and "safety" mean different things in different sectors of the market. With the most competitive schools, you can't use the SAT/GPA range of accepted students as a guide, because they still accept less than 50% of the applicant pool in the upper reaches of that range. For the strongest students, all their "matches" may be "reaches".</p>
<p>Generally, I would say that a "safety" is a college that historically accepts significantly more than 50% of the applicants in a student's GPA/SAT range from his or her school (or similar schools in the same region). A "match" is a college where the applicant is in the upper half of the stats range for admitted students and that regularly accepts about 50% of the students in that range from the applicant's school/region, and with which the applicant has some objective affinity (the college's strengths match the applicant's interests, legacy status, etc.). A "reach" is a college for which you can't make a case that it's a safety or a match.</p>
<p>Obviously, the edges of any category are fuzzy, and things like URM status or unique qualities of a student may shift one's judgment half a step.</p>
<p>Did I say that stats should be ignored? I actually said:
[quote]
Test scores and such can be used as a guide, but I would avoid depending on these statistics for your answers.
[/quote]
You find safeties by researching the college admissions process, talking to experienced people, learning about the school's admissions process (test scores, acceptance rate, holistic or not, preference for OOS or in state, etc.), and then looking at how the student's profile compares. For parents who find themselves unable to get a sense of this, they will have to rely on SAT scores and acceptance rates, but they may find themselves mis-led in either direction.</p>
<p>It's difficult to come up with purely quanitative definitions that apply in all cases and across the entire spectrum of colleges. And I think the terms Reach, Match, and Safety aren't very helpful either. I prefer Maybe, Probably, and A Sure Thing.</p>
<p>Pockets--welcome to CC!</p>
<p>My definition of R/M/S would be similar to those already stated but would define "stats" as not only academic/tests but would also take the student's personal qualities, e.g., ECs or geographic location into consideration. If a student fits the profile of a student who's accepted into a school, then that school would be considered a "match." If there are items/areas lacking in the applicant's background, then the school would be a "reach." Likewise, if the student's profile exceeds that of the student body, then it would be a "safety."</p>
<p>Do remember two things, though:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Some "safety" schools may not be that if they feel that the applicant is applying just for the sake of applying; therefore, it's important for applicants to demonstrate interest in all the schools to which they're applying.</p></li>
<li><p>Love thy safety (as well as thy reach and thy match). Safety schools should be chosen because the applicant would enjoy going there just as much as going to the reaches or matches.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>I realized when I reread my post that I screwed up my last statement. I meant to say - a SAFETY school is- you meet the requirements for the Honors program or they admit almost everyone who applies.</p>
<p>Welcome, Pockets, you did kick over the anthill!</p>
<p>I think that numerical values for reach, match and safety have much more predictability for students and schools outside the tippy-top of the applicant pool, that's why you get such varied responses here, because there is such a large concentration of highly qualified applicants on this forum.</p>
<p>Very well qualified students may do well to adopt a "reach-match" strategy, particularly if there is a rolling admission safety school that is acceptable, and money is not an absolute limiting factor.</p>
<p>IN other words, apply to a couple of safeties where admission is essentially guaranteed, then apply only to "reaches", treating them as matches.
In this strategy, a safety has a 100% chance of admission (barring a lost application or student who has disciplinary issues or lacks one required class, etc), a match is a 50-50 chance and a reach is 25% chance or less. </p>
<p>If a student can determine they have a 50-50 chance at, say, 4 schools, then the probability that they will not be admitted to any of the four is 1 in 16 - in other words, it could happen, but the odds are reasonable that there will be at least 1 admission. The trick, of course, is making reasonable assumptions about the likelihood of admission. This may be impossible for HYPS, but will work in almost all other scenarios.
This method is helpful in deciding how many applications to send, and justifies the rule of thumb of 6 to 8 applications being enough. Remember that safeties are essentially outside the formula, a safety has 100% chance of admittance.</p>
<p>Looking back at this post I can see that for a newbie into college admissions, that the whole issue of reach, match, safety is, like most aspects of college admissions, still a crap shoot. A safety may deny you b/c they don't think you will actually attend! A reach may admit you for some particular indefinable aspect of your application even though your scores are far below their average! Scores and gpas are important but they aren't everything. A sparkling essay just may make you that hard to forget applicant that they come back to. That unusual passion demonstrated so well through ecs, classes, research, artwork, etc, may do the same and overcome low scores.</p>
<p>Whatever the particular aspects are that make you want to apply to a school (beyond prestige, name, program), just remember many of those schools are also looking for individuals with some particular something that may have nothing to do with standard scores.</p>
<p>Research your schools, ask questions, visit if possible (take the video tour at least), check out available blogs, make sure you will be happy at this school and that it can give you what you think you want educationally. If, after all that research, a few schools really stand out, concentrate your best efforts there. Make contact with someone in admissions. Make sure that even what you consider your "safety" knows that you really want to be there.</p>
<p>We found none of this that relevant. My son was accepted or waitlisted at all his "reaches" save one and rejected at three of his matches. He did not have safeties because of two EA acceptances. I don't know if this was because of match, yield manipulation or because most selective schools are need blind. Had we known this S would have applied to several more reaches </p>
<p>This result really surprised us because it runs counter to the conventional picture of reaches, matches and safeties.</p>
<p>I am a newbie.
Thanks everyone who helps with this important decision my D will make.</p>
<p>Our son was one of those great stats kids. Essentially all his matches were reaches because the admissions rates are so low. He got into two of the six. One where he had a legacy boost and also was interested in a program they are planning on expanding, the other the matchiest of the bunch and also the most obvious good fit. He had two safeties, one of which he heard about before the other applications were due. Both his safeties offered generous merit grants.</p>
<p>I agree with everyone else, but would add that if your high school keeps good records of past acceptences and/or subscribes to Naviance, you may be able to get a better sense of which colleges are safeties/, matches and reaches with respect to your school. For one of the safeties it was clear that everyone from our school with grades above ___ and SATs above ___ were accepted. Since my son's scores were well above both we figured he had virtually a 100% chance of being accepted. Looking at this particular college's website, you might have thought that it was a little harder to get into, but it turns out our school is well respected by this particular college.</p>
<p>Somewhere I read the wise advice to consider finances when determining what is a "reach." For some families, a reach might be a school where financial aid would be essential in order to attend.</p>
<p>Also, state universities that have percentage limits on out-of-state admitted students--I'm thinking of UNC's 18% law--turn the whole concept upside down. A student could be a match in terms of his/her stats, but in my opinion the OOS situation makes it a total crapshoot. That's where the quality of the application comes in.</p>
<p>In general, though, I think state universities are still pretty stats-driven in their OOS acceptances. The kids I know with high stats got accepted at all the OOS state universities to which they applied. But I'm talking about test scores well above the middle 50% range of enrolled students at the schools, and high class rank.</p>