<p>I'm helping my senior S create his final list for college applications. His ACTs are stronger than his GPA suggests, so he is not clear cut in terms of which schools are reach/target/safety and I want to make sure he has a little of each in his list. Somewhere on CC a person suggested to look at cappex.com for admission chances, so I did. Assuming he's not going to an Ivy or super selective school, how accurate is cappex.com in predicting acceptance? I'm am confident that my son's EC's will help, but it doesn't require EC's and leadership details in order to tell you chances at each college you select.</p>
<p>Was pretty good for my D. Probably underestimated her chances a bit, but she had some disparities in her record.</p>
<p>The Common Data set for each colleges prior admissions was a better indicator if it is published for the institutions you are considering.</p>
<p>Yes, I’m worried if it’s underestimating his chances, then he’s not applying to enough target and reach schools… good for merit aid chances but maybe not as good for stretching himself to his potential.</p>
<p>The only ones who can give you a realistic assessment of your chances are the members of the admissions committees at the schools where you apply, and then only when they have your complete application package in front of them.</p>
<p>This message is MIT-specific, but the principle applies to all selective colleges:</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/10581800-post1.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/10581800-post1.html</a></p>
<p>Make sure your college list includes some safeties - schools where your stats are well above the norm, that you can pay for under most pessimistic FA assumptions, and where you’d be happy.</p>
<p>I’m talking about a B-student here … MIT is not even a remote chance, nor would it be a good fit. This is my 2nd to go through the college process … first one had mostly A’s, tons of AP classes, 700ish on SAT. My S is more B / 600’s / 27ACT. Both have excellent leadership and ECs. I understand what it takes for the highly selective schools, but don’t know if it works exactly the same for the types of schools that are appropriate for my outdoorsy son. I also hear from friends/family that boys mature later, so a B student in HS could mature into a serious A student in college, so I want to make sure I encourage him to reach high, but not so high that it’s discouraging.</p>
<p>I think the lower down the selectivity scale you go, the more college decisions can be predicted based on stats, so the chancing at cappex may be reasonable. I think the less-selective schools admit or deny based on stats, occasionally rejecting someone with admit-level stats because of red flags elsewhere in the app (such as serious disciplinary issues) and occasionally reaching down to admit kids with either “hooks” or special qualities that are evident from the essays and recommendations.</p>
<p>I just tried this site (Cappex) and the results didn’t make any sense. Seems to be more driven by ad promotions that actual data. The site mychances, which seems to be called Parchment now, was way better. Lots of data in their system, scatterplots and graphs plus real student outcomes.</p>
<p>thanks … I do agree now that I’ve looked at more schools. For schools that are not highly selective, you can almost see a GPA or SAT cutoff line with who gets rejected. I re-looked at a few schools that my daughter applied to a few years ago and that makes sense based on her outcome and stats. I’m assuming if there is an ‘accept’ data point below what appears to be a cutoff, that is because of some hook or diversity slot they were trying to fill (American Indian, for examle). For schools that expect a high GPA and above 2250 SAT and that are highly selective, it would appear that other parts of the application are equally important to differentiate amazing candidates. Thanks, all!</p>
<p>I don’t know about you, but I think it is data from real kids. As soon as I changed my status to accepted, it reflected on the real charts.</p>
<p>You, and anyone else, must keep in mind that colleges weight the grades a different way while cappex just does it based on the unweighted GPA. So if a person has any AP, honors, or IB courses their chances will be better than what cappex says.</p>