<p>??????????????????</p>
<p>Compare the average SAT scores and GPA of those schools to yours.
For example, if you have a 3.5 GPA and 2000 SAT, then a school with mean SAT of 1950 and average GPA of 3.4 would be a match. A school with a 3.0 and 1700 would be a safety, and a school with 4.3 and 2100 would be a reach.</p>
<p>a rule of thumb I've seen on here is if your SAT scores are above the school's 75th percentile, it can be a safety as long as the school admits more than 50% of its applicants. A match is when your SAT scores are in range with their 25th-75th percentiles, and a reach is when your scores are below the 25th percentile. I find the % of students in the top 10% to be useful also.</p>
<p>Is it likely that people apply very early during rolling admissions (talking like the first week the application is out) and get rejected when the school is a match?</p>
<p>"A match is when your SAT scores are in range with their 25th-75th percentiles..."</p>
<p>Oh, I hope this is true!!! =)</p>
<p>i disagree...my SAT is 1490 and the mean SAT score for Harvard is 1490 but by no means is Harvard a "match" for me. by general percentages, i would say safety is 90+% chance of admittance, match 40-60%, and reach <30%. Those in between are match-safety, match-reach etc. I think the rules mentioned above apply EXCEPT with universities that admit <30%, where the best possible condition is a match and for almost anyone it is a reach.</p>
<p>TOP TOP schools like HYPS are at least a slight reach for pretty much everybody unless you have great stats AND you're a URM, nobel-prize-winning, orphaned legacy with several patents and a kick-butt essay...</p>
<p>Does your school have a Naviance subscription? Their graphs are really useful for "classifying" schools, at least in terms of pure stats.</p>
<p>edited to add example: <a href="http://i2.tinypic.com/rasrvt.gif%5B/url%5D">http://i2.tinypic.com/rasrvt.gif</a></p>
<p>If you apply to any college and have anything less than an A on your report card, it is far more than a reach. It is a life-and-death decision. Likely, a squad of ninjas will be dispatched to assassinate ANYONE who applies to college with less than a perfect transcript.</p>
<p>^^ sure seems like that judging from this site.</p>
<p>It is like that on this site, and in the real world. I applied to community college once, and the admissions officers burned down the entire campus after looking at my horrendous transcript (I got all A's and one B)</p>
<p>It's true. I have confirmation from another thread and the stories match exactly, so there's proof for ya:</p>