Match schools?

I have posted a few times about my list of colleges, but everyone constantly tells me to add some more safety/match schools.

I’m not gonna post all my grades again but in summary…

My weighted GPA is a 104.564
Rank: 1/231
SAT: TBD (Hopefully a 1450+)
ACT: 32 (hoping to bring this up to a 33+ in September)
Extra curriculars: NHS, WLNHS, ENHS, President of the Social Political Awareness club, treasurer of Mock Trial, class Secretary, took some summer classes at Phillips Andover and Harvard relating to math (interested in math and politics), trying to get a research paper published in the field of statistics (these are the major things that I am actually going to put on my application).

I am applying to ivies and other top schools, but I want a few more target/match schools (if you look at my last post, I posted my list as of now). So far I have Providence and Colby (also Tulane but this might be a high match/low reach??). Does anyone have any suggestions??

There isn’t really much here to go on. You have great grades and good, but not exceptional scores, and ECS that show involvement but are non-differentiating. Assuming you want to major in math? Size? Urban? What do you want to do outside of classes? Northeast? Financial aid or merit needed? Your stats will get you past the screen at many, many schools but picking ones where you can contribute will be part of the process for you, especially at smaller schools.



Union? RIT? WPI?


Colby now has a 14% acceptance rate. It is not a match for anyone. For match schools, you should be considering schools in the 25-40% acceptance rate range. Just because your stats work on paper doesn’t mean they will get you into schools with holistic admissions and low acceptance rates.

@Lindagaf okay sorry

Indeed, admission rates alone only tell part of the story. Some schools with relatively high admission rates (30+ percent) are also very self selecting where almost the applicants have very high stats

What state are you from? In many cases a good safety for a very high stat’s student is their in-state public flagship. For students in California typically an in-state other than the top 2. Note that safeties also have to be affordable, so you need to find out what you can afford, run the NPC and find schools that fit the budget.

As was already mentioned Colby is not a safety for anyone.

There is no list of “matches” we can just throw out there. You need to provide some of the information @gardenstategal mentioned for us to help you find matches that are good fits.

Looking at your (incredibly long) list from your previous thread, there is no commonality among the schools you are applying to except prestige. You need to think about what kind of environment you will thrive in if you actually get into one of these excellent schools. You can then narrow down to the reaches that will be good fits, as well as adding matches and safeties.

Think about:

  1. Geographic location: Northeast, Midwest, South?
  2. Geographic location 2: urban, suburban/college town, rural?
  3. Intended major
  4. Size of school: small/LAC, medium, huge university?
  5. Financial aid needed?
  6. Other activities/extracurricular opportunities

@Lindagaf you usually have good advice but a “match” is determined by the combination of the applicants resume and the college being applied to, colleges by themselves do not determine match reach or safety.

@CU123 , I do not believe a school with a 14% acceptance rate is a match. Sure, maybe in terms of stats, but the acceptance rate is too low to be confident about.

@CU123, I would absolutely agree if one had higher test results; our twin DD’s had 1540+ SAT/35 ACT, 750+ SAT 2’s and 3.8 UW / 4.2 WGPA w/ 6-7 AP’s and were accepted to every #13-27 ranked school they applied to - they didn’t apply to any lower ranked schools as a #27 was viewed as a safety for them.

That said, their results with #1-12 ranked schools were much more mixed.

@Lindagaf I view matches as more than a 50% chance to be accepted, reaches are less than a 50% chance accepted, and safeties are almost assured acceptance. So we know top schools reject perfect stat students at a 2/3’s rate, but that is for us “ordinary” folks, I can give you a profile that makes Harvard a safety. Applicant has great stats 35 ACT 4.0 UW and parent is contributing $100M for new wing of med school contingent upon acceptance of son/daughter. Harvard is now a safety for that student. Yes that is an extreme example but there are many other types I could give (these are not many of these type of applicants for each top school, but they exist). It is always a combination of the applicant and the college that determines whether or not the college is realistic choice for the applicant. Seems like a lot of advice on CC is “its all a reach just give up now”.

@CU123 Those are called developmental admits: huge donations, child of a president or senator etc. That’s why we say Harvard etc. are reaches for virtually everyone.

Yes but they exist and I haven’t seen the word “virtually” used here before.

We can argue until the cows come home. I would never tell someone with confidence that a school with a 14% acceptance rate and holistic admissions is a match. The problem with matches is that you just can’t be certain. My D was waitlisted at two schools where her stats were solidly in the top 75th percentile. This was for the 2016 cycle. One had a 33% acceptance rate, the other had a 21% acceptance rate. She always regarded the former as a match and the latter as a low-reach. She got into one low reach and several other matches, and got off both waitlists, as it turned out. If I had said to her “hey, your stats are high at both schools, so you don’t need to worry about any other matches” she may have ended up with no school to go to except her safeties. That might be fine for some people, but she wanted choices. Stats matter a lot, of course, but so does the acceptance rate. I prefer to err on the side of caution.