That information is available. You may have to dig. Sometimes it requires a little out-of-the-box thinking. But it’s out there.
But you have to start from figuring out what distinguishes the applicant and then target – it’s not about which college the applicant likes best, it’s the other way around – which colleges are most likely to appreciate the unique qualities the applicant offers. Harvard isn’t a good example because when a college gets down into the single digit admissions, then it really does get to the point where the ad coms are looking harder for reasons to reject than for reasons to admit.
But with my daughter it was pretty clear to me how to target. My D wanted to apply to Brown - but I refused to pay the admission fee, because I knew she didn’t stand a chance of admission. She applied anyway (got a fee waiver). And was rejected, as I expected. (Out of two kids and more than 20 college apps it was the only outright rejection we ever saw … waitlists were a lot more common.) But if my daughter had wanted to apply to Yale, I would have encouraged her. It would have been tough, but I think that her essay and her lopsided transcript/experiences would have been appealing to Yale. Why? Because my daughter had a background and interest in studying an area where Yale was having a problem attracting students & majors, whereas Brown was not experiencing similar difficulties. I could identify which colleges were under-subscribed in that particular discipline fairly easily. Some were so seriously under-subscribed that they were dropping the department – but that wasn’t an option with a university with an already strong department with tenured faculty and PhD students. So I went to web sites and counted up faculty and compared that against enrollment figures.
In addition to academic interests, my DD was a dancer with a very strong background, very talented, but she didn’t want to major in dance. A long time ago, when she was still in high school, I asked on a CC thread for suggestions of schools with dance departments that were mediocre – that is, schools were my DD would be viewed as someone whose ability was impressive (as opposed to audition-based BFA programs where my DD’s talent would be unremarkable). (Ended up I misjudged on that one – turned out that my DD was quite welcome at an LAC with a very strong dance department – I now know that a strong dance background is an admissions plus for just about any applicant to that particular school.) But this strategy is essentially the same as an athlete who is not really good enough for Div I recruiting, but strong enough to attract attention at Div III level schools.
Now I certainly can see the possibility that even though your DD is tremendously capable and accomplished that her particular talents might not be ones that are so readily translated into a college sales pitch. So that does make a harder case for you-- but it still doesn’t translate to admissions being random and unpredictable.
When I am saying it is not unpredictable, I don’t mean that it’s a lock. If there is a 90% chance of admission, that’s still a 10% chance of not being admitted. Here I am talking about the student-specific chances – not the published across-the-board data – that is, Harvard might admit 5% of applicants, but a student with a 2.9 high school GPA and 1160 SAT has a 0 percent chance of admission – whereas all of those class valedictorians with SATs over 1550 are coming in with significantly better than 5% chance (let’s hypothesize 15% chance), even though the majority will also probably be rejected. My DD is a Barnard grad. At the time she applied the admit rate was roughly 25% - thought her chances were 50% or better (even though someone in the business of college advising told me that she didn’t stand a chance with her test scores – but I knew that person was mistaken simply from CDS data – my daughter ended up being one of the 25% of entering students with test scores in the bottom quartile. Math is math.)
Back to my Brown/Yale example. I thought D’s chances at Brown were 0. Her test scores sucked and she didn’t have anything to offer that would have made her special in Brown’s eyes. She applied and was rejected. I thought her chances at Yale would have been in the 20-30% range of admission. Her test scores still sucked, but she had something shiny to dangle in front of the ad com-- something that the school really wanted. Would that have been enough – probably not, but at least worth the cost of the admission fee. But DD wasn’t interested in Yale, so my theory remains untested.
So what I am saying is that you can figure out which college offer better odds of admission to a particular individual – and focus on applying to those colleges. If your DD only applies to colleges where her particular odds of admission (based on factors you can articulate) are 50% or better, her chances are going to be better than if she applies to colleges where her chances are no better than 10%. Your DD’s test scores and GPA put her in the top quartile wherever she applies, and gap year is another plus factor – so right there she is a leg up on published admit rates. I see her biggest problem, outside of the schools with single-digit admit rates, is the yield protection I mentioned above. Would she really attend Bowdoin if admitted? From the college list she submitted, I don’t see it happening… and Bowdoin doesn’t care about her test scores. All it tells them is that they’ve got an applicant who is likely to be cross-admitted to a dozen of its peer institutions. For them, an applicant with strong academics but no scores or an iffy submitted score (such as a weak score on one subtest) is more likely to be a future enrollee in the RD round – some great student who is likely out of the running at Williams.
Fooled everyone. And only because it’s my alma mater. She has no choice, I’ve been brainwashing her since age 2. It’s not her first choice though. She LOVES Pomona and the other LACs. They really do offer a superb undergraduate education. I wouldn’t trade my four years in Cambridge for the world, but I think I would have liked going to a school like that.