<p>Hi all,
I am in the process of finalizing my college list and I wanted a fairly even distribution of reach/match/safety. Does anyone have tips on how to determine. I was using SATs as a strong factor but a friend of mine said thats a poor choice. Anyone else have a 'formula' for this?</p>
<p>-% admit
-$$$
-prestige
-GPA/SATs
etc.</p>
<p>GPA/SATs. No need to post anything twice.</p>
<p>To decide if a school is a "fit," you want your sat/act and gpa to be in the middle 50% of accepted students (common data sets will tell you this, or search a college's website).
A "safety" in terms of getting in (not financial), would have you above the middle 50%, and a reach would have you below the middle 50% (except for schools that have acceptance rates of <15% or so- they're reaches for everyone).</p>
<p>you determine it by your probability of getting in. if you have a low chance of getting in, it's a reach. if you have a pretty good chance of getting in, it is a match. if you think that you'll get in fo'sho, then, it's a safety</p>
<p>what if you are a safety or a fit according to johnson181's criteria (which I really like for their clear specificity ), BUT</p>
<p>you had no good ECs (assuming playing video games is not considered good ECs)</p>
<p>or </p>
<p>and then you have a bad essay (gobbledeygook, spelling etc), OR</p>
<p>in your interview you come off ultra cocky, brazen, stupid, ill mannered, drugged up etc?</p>
<p>Of course, the last three factors would only apply to a college that considers ECs, essay and interviews.</p>
<p>If you have no other hook (URM, athelete, legacy, etc), a school is a fit if you are in the 75th percentile. People with a hook tend to bring down the norm (sorry if this offends people), but they also offer something to the school community that you don't have.
The best way to do it is to ask your school's counselor to show you a graph which plots all students' stats that have applied to those colleges from your school. It will show where you are relative to those kids from your school that have been accepted and rejected. See if they could exclude atheletes/legacies from the graph. Our school sends to send 35% of kids to the top tens, but half of them are atheletes or legecies. It's good to see this graph from your school because your school's grading system may be different than another school's.</p>
<p>To further clarify this nice synopsis -"you determine it by your probability of getting in. if you have a low chance of getting in, it's a reach. if you have a pretty good chance of getting in, it is a match. if you think that you'll get in fo'sho, then, it's a safety",
ANY college that only admits 10-20% of applicants SHOULD BE CONSIDERED A REACH, even if your stats fall above the 75% of SAT/ GPA. For instance, most of the students who apply to Harvard, just for example , statistically are qualified, but 90% will get a rejection letter, because there isn't enough space there for all who are qualified.
You need to factor in both the overall acceptance rate and your stats if you are trying to determine whether a particular college is a reach, match or safety.</p>
<p>Agreed. Any of top 20 schools should not be considered as a match for anyone. But I wouldn't say most of the students who apply to Harvard are statistically qualified. Many of them apply to HYPS because of "why not."</p>
<p>If you don't have EC's, bad essay, whatever, a top school is going to be near impossible to get into, whether or not you're qualified via sat/act and gpa.</p>
<p>An "even distribution" probably isn't the best approach. If you identify a true safety or two, that should be sufficient. Your main focus should be on matches. For reach schools, I wouldn't recommend devoting a huge amount of time and effort, though if you are targeting highly selective schools in that group (and if you are reasonably qualified) there is something to be said for applying to a larger group of schools just to increase the odds in the face of somewhat random and unpredictable decisions.</p>
<p>now when you are looking at the 25-75 percentage range for sat would you use your highest score for each section. do you use the scores from your highest respective sections or do you use your highest composite scores</p>
<p>When helping my kids apply to colleges, I found this approach was not useful. Both were accepted at several "reaches" and rejected at matches. The "reaches" were better fits, and even though their acceptance stats were higher and they were more selective, we had the best success with good fits. Therefore, my advice would be two or three safeties and schools that are good fits.</p>
<p>I agree with mythmom (if she's real and not a myth!). But then again, ALL the schools you apply to should be excellent fits. That's how you narrow down a college list.
Or at least they should be the best fits the applicant can find.</p>
<p>Safety: considering all factors (including legacy, URM, athlete etc.) 85%+ chance of getting in
Match: considering all factors (including legacy, URM, athlete etc.) 60%-85% chance of getting in
Reach: considering all factors, less than 60% chance of getting in</p>
<p>phonyreal, a school where your chances are about 50:50 is NOT a reach school. I like to use the categories of 90%, 75%, 50%, and 25%. You should apply to several first schools. The words safety and reach have a sort of psychological impact, as if reach schools are better schools than safeties. This can be damaging in getting accepted into match and "safety" schools.</p>
<p>phony- I've got to say that a safety should be a minimum of 95% chance of getting in, and would be best if it's guaranteed.
My safety is specific that I'm guaranteed in and I'm guaranteed nearly 100% or tuition, room, and board. And it's not a "bad" school.</p>
<p>oh well, that's just the way that I personally divide it.</p>
<p>ie. don't trust me in my chances posts :-p</p>
<p>how do you determine the percentages of getting in? is there a particular weighting on how much you consider an SAT score important v. other things?</p>
<p>For example, im looking at a school.. all of my SAT scores are in or above the middle 50%, good ECs, good essay/rec., acceptance 60% is this a match? safety?</p>