What criteria (in a quantitative sense) should I be looking at to determine match colleges? I understand you should have some interest and compatibility with the college as well as basic match like intended undergrad major, but when using tools like SuperMatch and putting in x and y scores and GPA as well as other items and getting “reach” schools does not seem like the way to go.
Location is key, type of school, party school, diversity, Greek life, academics, alumni, campus looks, how good the school is, it’s ranking, graduation percentage, dorms/living, tuition are some to just name a few.
@prettygreat So not necessarily using your own statistics and matching it up? Lets say my scores and GPA make me competitive for top colleges, do I go lower in the rankings then to find matches (assuming I only use rankings which I will not be doing)?
@Verit4s Well when look for schools I’d say apply to 9 to 12
3/4 obvious ones you’d get into where your stats are above and beyond
3/4 high reaches that you won’t likely get into but could
3/4 low reaches that you could possibly get into
So yes that’s the most important thing I think is comparing and looking at your own stats.
@prettygreat Okay great (haha)! thanks!
@Verit4s yep no problem
I think it is very hard these days to identify “match” and “reach” school. You can obviously look at the Common Data Set-at the 25%-75% for scores. A match would be a school where you are on the high end of that continuum. But you also have to give it some thought. Consider if you are high on variables that the school seems to value. What is the school’s yield like? do they end up extending offers to many times the number of spaces they have in order to get enough people to come (which would obviously increase your chances). If you tower over their freshman profile though, you may end up not getting an offer if they think you are using them as a safety and won’t accept their offer. So your match or even your safety can actually reject you-then it wasn’t a safety at all. I think the comfort of your fit with the school is probably the best way to determine “Match”. If you are solid on the dimensions the school values and your objective profile is near the 75% point (but not way over it), it is probably a match.
Things to consider when trying to guess whether a school is a “match” in terms of selectivity:
- Some schools admit by major or division, with different thresholds for different majors or divisions. The overall school averages may be misleading in this case.
- If you need merit scholarship money to be able to afford the school, you need to consider the selectivity of the *scholarship*, not just admission. Unfortunately, there is far less information available on how selective scholarships are compared to admission (except for scholarships given automatically for stats).
- If you need financial aid, but your financial aid situations has unusual features like small business, real estate, etc. that can make the net price calculator less reliable, then you need to consider the chance that you will get a favorable financial aid offer as well as the chance for admission.
“I understand you should have some interest and compatibility with the college”
This first of course.
Schools with acceptance rates of ~25% or higher will admit the majority of fully qualified students who apply, at least if “fully qualified” is defined as being at least slightly above average in most objective and subjective factors. A well-constructed application and a showing of sincere demonstrated interest will be likely to see you through in these cases.
Should a school primarily rely on objective factors in their decisions, as may be more likely to be the case at public universities, then acceptance rate itself will be a less relevant factor, in that you will either be above a threshold or below it.
As a general rule of thumb, a match is NEVER a high selectivity school (one that admits less than 15% of the applicants - to pick an arbitrary cut-off). Those are reaches for everyone because they turn away multiples of students whose stats would place them in the top 25% of their applicant pool. Those schools are, by definition, reaches for everyone, including students with top grades and test scores.
So if you list of schools is full of the ‘high selectivity’ schools, make sure you have a few that are less selective and at least one that you are 100% sure you can get into, can afford, and would be happy at.