<p>Hey, </p>
<p>I am new to college confidential, and I was wondering what some of the terms meant.</p>
<p>I vaguely understand the concepts of match, low reach, reach, and high reach, but beyond that I am not sure what they equate to (% chance of getting in?)</p>
<p>For example, I was told that Harvard was a high reach for me. Does this mean that it would take a miracle for me to get in? </p>
<p>Also, I am not sure if there are other terms.</p>
<p>Also, if there are any other terms on CC that I might not know, please let me know.</p>
<p>Thanks, and good luck to anyone who is reading this that will apply soon.</p>
<p>“Chance” is basically someone guessing whether or not you can get into a certain college. The best “chances” try to incorporate the SAT scores and GPA of people who have gotten in before. Most “chances” are just wild guesses based on anecdotes or stereotypes (you are a minority, so Harvard is your safety school). I wouldn’t worry too much about anything people say here; while in the broad strokes “chancing” can help, there is no earthly way that any random high school student can tell you whether or not you will for sure get into college.</p>
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<p>Basically, safety schools are the ones that you are sure to get into (not really, but that’s what people assume). Match schools are the ones that you have a decent chance of getting into. Reach schools are the ones that are hard to get into. These designations are unquantifiable; there’s no specific number that separates matches from safeties or matches from reaches, or divides reach into high- or low reach. The reason the whole system is useful is that people who apply only to high reaches (ie, applying only to Harvard, Yale, and Princeton, for example, tend to be the ones who either get in to their dream schools and are very happy or the ones who (likelier) show up at this site on April 29 screaming about how they have to go to community college and might as well be dead).</p>
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For example, I was told that Harvard was a high reach for me. Does this mean that it would take a miracle for me to get in? [/quote</p>
<p>Harvard is hard for anyone to get into. There is not a single person who can absolutely guarantee 100% that they will get into Harvard without any effort.</p>
<p>I am not a huge fan of those terms, as they are indeed rather ambiguous. Generally, though, this is how most people use them:
[ul][<em>]Safety: You will get in, unless the school makes a mistake or has Tufts Syndrome (i.e., a tendency to waitlist applicants who seem unlikely to attend because they are so highly qualified; done to protect yield, which is the percentage of accepted students who matriculate)
[</em>]Match: Generally describes schools that are likely to admit you, but they are not to be taken for granted. For “high match” schools, your chance of admittance is probably around 50-60%; for “low matches,” the chance is probably ~90%.
[<em>]Low Reach: Admission is unlikely but is within reach. Chance is probably 20-40%. Most Ivy League schools are low reaches for highly qualified candidates (usually 2300+ SAT, 750+ on Subject Tests, solid extra-curriculars, 3.8+ unweighted GPA).
[</em>]Reach: Similar to “low reach,” but slightly more unlikely. Usually ~10-20% chance.
[li]High Reach: Your stats are not in the range for most competitive applicants. Admission is highly unlikely, from ~1-10% chance.[/li][/ul]</p>
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<p>There are some informed posters who genuinely give out good advice and approximately accurate chancings.</p>
<p>Both of you, thank you very much.</p>
<p>Does anyone else reading this have any comments, or even stories about how accurate CC posts are, or how inaccurate CC posts are?</p>
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<p>They really run the gamut. There are some very experienced and knowledgeable posters who will give reasonable chancings, and then there are many who just regularly give out generic and occasionally false chancings such as, “Good chances at [insert state school here], but the Ivies are reaches for everyone.”</p>
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<p>The “chances” people give out are typically all over the place. I wouldn’t trust many of them.</p>
<p>If any one who gives a chance asks for a “chance back,” chances are their guesses are pure guesses. </p>
<p>People with higher post counts are sometimes slightly more informed than those with lower post counts, but there generally no significant correlation between information and post count.</p>
<p>I would listen the most towards people who HAVE gone through the admissions process the most – especially those people who were accepted to same school (or tougher schools) you are applying to.</p>
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<p>Be wary, however, of those who are overly biased by their own results – a sample size of one is not a very good source of data. The best idea is to read through previous decisions threads yourself.</p>
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<p>The advice is definitely good, especially in the Parent Forum. The chances are really arbitrary; yeah, you might get the handful of people who know what they’re talking about for a specific college, or you might get a couple of the vague random guessers before your thread winds up on page 3. Admissions is too complicated for a random guesser to be of much useful except as catharsis; you can probably use a Magic 8-Ball and get the same percentage of guesses correct. It’s not that the people responding are stupid; it’s just that it’s not possible, especially for the Ivy League, for someone to say for certain that any one kid will get in.</p>
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<p>Unfortunately, bias is something that exists with just about everyone. BTW, I didn’t mean listen to one, I meant listen to the general group of people who fit the criteria that I was talking about.
Obviously, the best way is the read through resumes of the accepted people. But that is only if you really know what to look for.</p>
<p>Previous posters have covered the basics, but I’d just like to add that I think the biggest benefit of chancing is coming in contact with people who have some sort of insight on the process, whether that be alum interviewers like NSM or those who know enough kids who’ve gotten in to a given school to draw reasonable conclusions about a given school’s admissions process.</p>
<p>There’s also something to be said for understanding how well your profile comes together in an application. Sometimes strengths (and weaknesses) aren’t evident to the applicant but come across to outside viewers.</p>
<p>Still, chances have a lot to do with race/location/high school, which is harder for someone on the Internet to gauge. Your best bet for chancing is to look at where students from your school and your area (preferrably of the same race) typically end up.</p>