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<blockquote> <p>As a general rule of thumb, try to think of reach-match-safety this way:</p> </blockquote>
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<p>Unrealistic reach - schools where your test scores, GPA, etc. are below the 25% median, regardless of how many students they accept </p>
<p>Realistic reach - schools where you are in the lower half of the 25-75 percentile medians OR where the percentage of students accepted fall below 30%. No matter WHAT your stats are, these are reaches for everyone.</p>
<p>Maybe schools (or matches) - these are schools where your stats fall in the upper 25-75 percentile but accept more than 30% of applicants.</p>
<p>Safeties - schools where your stats fall above the 75% or schools where you are in the 50-75% but the school accepts well over 60% of students.<<</p>
<p>Can you really distinguish schools by SAT and GPA? For several schools I'm looking at my numbers are usually around the 75th percentile but I doubt I could get into many of them because my ECs are very weak. However, could I still use this guide to determine match/reach/safety?</p>