I’m a rising sophomore, and over the summer I’ve been doing some research on some colleges I want to go to. I narrowed a list down to about 8 college. I was wondering if that was too much.
I’m applying to 6 reaches
1 match
1 safety
I’m really too insecure to call one of those reaches a match let alone a safety. so maybe those 6 “reaches” aren’t actually reaches. I hope. So how many are you applying to? or how many did you apply to? or how many is your child applying to?
You better be super happy with your safety. It kind of sucks to only have one choice come spring of senior year. Most experienced posters would advise adding more matches. I think 8 is a good, manageable number.
Son currently has: (Cappex admission chance rating)
1 EA safety (public OOS guaranteed merit scholarship school - super affordable -90-100%)
1 EA safety/match (public in-state, affordable and top 10 program rated - 75-95%)
1 EA match (public OOS - more expensive -90-100%)
1 EA match (private- 75-85%)
1 RD match (private - 50-85%)
1 SCEA reach (private- 70-80%)
3 RD reaches (private a. 25-55%, b. 60-80%, c.45-65%)
His plan is to apply the the EA and SCEA schools in Sept/Oct so he qualifies for scholarships, then see if he gets into his SCEA school. If not, he will apply to the RD schools in December, or before the scholarship deadlines as needed.
Other posters have said Cappex is fairly accurate, but it appears to be a crap shoot for less data driven schools.
Not sure who has said Cappex is “fairly accurate”…
I’m applying to between 10 and 15 schools depending on how my EA’s go.
I’ll hear back from 2 of my EA’s by mid December - one’s a low reach, the other is pretty safe.
If I get into either, most of my other app’s will be reaches.
@TooOld4School are you sure the SCEA school will let him apply EA to another private college? I thought the whole idea behind “Single Choice” EA is that you can’t apply to other privates schools EA.
Im applying to 5 schools: 2 matches that are affordable, 2 that are not, and one safety…
I have to stay in state because of a scholarship but the only reach school in-state is notre dame but im sure i dont have the stats for that…
@Corinthian you are correct. That should have said RD , but before scholarship deadline which is just after the EA cutoff but before the RD cutoff… Anyway, Cappex seems to be fairly close to Naviance, and I think those sites are fairly accurate for schools that are not in the extremely selective category, where EC’s, legacies and holistic factors have more weight.
This fall I will apply to one reach school SCEA, and three public safeties/matches EA (this is allowed since they are public). If I am accepted to my reach I’ll probably just submit one or two RD applications, but if I’m deferred/ rejected I’ll probably apply to several others RD!
Since I live in California, I will be applying to all the 9 UC’s ranging from a reach (UCB) to a safety (UCM),
Probably 7 reaches and 2-3 more safeties as I do not qualify for merit aid at any match schools.
What I would recommend is just applying to those schools and maybe adding in another safety school if you’d like. I don’t want to hate on everyone else but I would suggest you take my advice as I have been though the process and made my mistakes. When I first applied to college, I applied to 16 schools, half of them i didnt even like but they sent me letters saying i could apply for free. What i failed to realize was the additional costs i had to pay for things such as sending SAT scores to all of them (like $13 per school) and all the apps. It really was a pain. I think your list is fine but if you were to give some more details as to your grades and activities you do then I could tell you what I personally think would be a reach school (from what you chose). I also thought many of my schools were a reach and i got into 14 out of the 16, the 2 of which I ddint get into were Harvard (i got an interview) and NYU.
Getting back to Cappex and Naviance… Naviance data is maintained by high school counselors regarding information on their students. Now it is not perfect… but generally the quality is pretty good because of that. Cappex is based on reports from individual students, who may or may not respond accurately, and is not a full sample of students applying. Naviance isn’t perfect, but I sure wouldn’t rely on Cappex.
I actually like Naviance a lot because it reports the Average GPA and SAT of accepted students from MY school from the past couple of years. This eliminates any sort of GPA fluctuation and I can better see how my chances are as I’m pretty sure a lot of schools compare you to your peers first (via their regional representative) which Naviance allows you to do. You can compare yourself to your peers who got in and better gauge your chances that way.
My D applied to 2 reaches (one SCEA and 1 RD) and 5 matches EA (include 3 low matches), but the safety planned for RD was skipped due to multiple admissions from the others.
While this is true, you generally don’t know what hooks those students might have had, since you can’t usually tag the dots to individuals. And even then, you don’t know the whole story about a given applicant. So even Naviance needs to be approached cautiously.
Two that are sort of in between match and reach, assuming I’m interpreting the terminology correctly: my academic credentials are in the upper half of their admitted students but they’re both top-tier universities so my chances aren’t great anyway.
One safety (85% admissions rate and I’m way above the 75th percentile there). I like that school pretty well though, it was formerly my top choice.
I’m a rising senior. I’ll be applying to:
1 safety
6 matches
2-3 reaches (not sure if I’ll be applying to one of them yet)
I’ll be applying to one of the reaches EA. I’m also hoping to apply to one of my matches ED, but with finances I just don’t think that that’s going to happen. I will be applying RD for the rest of my schools!
I’m a rising senior. It really depends on if my GC will help me get application waivers. I’m not done with my list, but currently:
2 Reaches. (1 will become a match when I retake the SAT, hopefully).
1 Reach/Match (GPA is in 75%, but SAT is in 25%. Not sure what this would be considered!)
3 Matches
1, Safety (Possibly 2, at a last resort CC, where applications are done in the summer.)
Naviance for schools that are less selective and rely mostly on test scores and gap. You should be cautious when looking up more selective schools (acceptance rate under 20%). Naviance with say you have a 75% chance of getting into harvard because your scores are where they should be but scores arent the only thing harvard looks at.