Matches, reaches and safeties Redux

Parents Forum
1

<p>I know this has been discussed before but I want to pick the minds of the smart folks here.</p>

<p>How important is it to consider the percentage accepted in determining what is a match, safety and reach?</p>

<p>In other words, if your stats are towards the bottom of the 25-75 percentile but the school has an overall acceptance rate of 65%, is that school a reach or a match?
What about if you are in the middle percentile and the school has an acceptance rate of 70%? Is it a reach or a match or a safety?</p>

<p>I would appreciate any and all thoughts on this because right now it looks like my daughter's list is shaping up this way:</p>

<ul>
<li><p>a school where she is towards the bottom of the 25-75 percentile with an acceptance rate of 65%</p></li>
<li><p>a school where she is smack in the middle of the 25-75 percentile with an acceptance rate of 72%</p></li>
<li><p>a school where she is towards the top of the 25-75 percentile with an acceptance rate of 70% for EA applicants, 56% for RD</p></li>
<li><p>a school where she is just outside of the top of the 25-75 percentile with an acceptance rate of 80%</p></li>
</ul>

<p>I'm thinking this way: the first school is a reach, the second a match, the third (if she applies EA) a safety/match, and the final school a definite safety. We will not be applying for financial aid (but two of the four schools are need blind) She may have a bit of geographic advantage at the third school. One note: all of these schools have slightly higher medians for admitted females.</p>

<p>Any thoughts?</p>

2

<p>Can she ED/EA the first school?</p>

<p>I'm thinking its a matchy reach, because being toward the low end of the middle percentage is different when they accept 65% rather than if it were, say 25%. I also have a feeling that intangibles would push her toward the acceptance pile--rec, tough school, her ECs, and the personality that comes through when you write about her.</p>

3

<p>That was my thought too Garland. They do have an EA option but the admissions counselor told us the standard line: that even though their EA acceptance numbers are high (70%), they get the more qualified students during EA. That made it sound like her chances wouldn't improve by applying EA. Don't know if that is really true however. A plus is that the college is very familiar with her school and does recruit there every year so maybe that would be a bit of a boost.</p>

4

<p>We have always tussled with this question as well. I do think that your position (top, middle, or bottom of the range) has a lot to do with it regardless of the % accepted. We've pretty much concluded that once you dip below 40% acceptance all bets are off and those intangibles play a larger role, even if you are towards the top of the applicant pool. Maybe we're just more nervous than most.</p>

<p>It looks like she has a good range there, I would say she would be in at all of them, worse case three of the four.</p>

5

<p>Carolyn,
I don't know if my approach helps you, since your question focuses on acceptance rates. I find acceptance rates can be deceptive, except on the extreme ends of the specturm. An overall 30-70% acceptance range can be difficult when it comes to predictions, i.m.o., because acceptance does not necessarily equal selectivity.</p>

<p>As to the familiar 25-75% score & GPA range, that also does not give the applicant the critical info about the <25% and >75%. This has come up as an issue on the various Ivies & Chances threads, as well. I just see it (as some other people also do) as a balancing act. Someone below the 25% has a compensating impressive factor (better grades, essay, recs, e'c' + lower scores, or the reverse), & the problem is that an applicant has no idea what that compensating factor is (or factors are), esp. in relation to the applicant's own assets, nor any idea as to the weighting of the 76%+ factors by an admissions committee.</p>

<p>Here's what we've tried to abide by, as simplistic as it sounds:</p>

<p>A Safety = a school where the applicant is more qualified than most of those who are accepted. You can look at that in one of 2 ways:<br>
(1) the applicant should have a considerably better GPA than the incoming freshman GPA average or median (whatever is published by the school).
(2) the applicant should be slightly higher than the high range (the 75% range, if you're going to go that route) of the grades & test scores accepted.</p>

<p>I find the Incoming Freshman Profile page on a college's website one of the most informative places to go. First of all, they're usually more specific, often going into some detail about level of accomplishment of <em>recently</em> accepted students, including e.c.'s, leadership, class rank levels accepted, percent accepted with [3.5, 3.0, 3.8 -- take your pick] and above, etc. I find this to be a much truer way to define reach/match/safety.</p>

<p>Obviously, there are high-safeties & low-safeties depending on the applicant, & only you & your D would know that for yourselves.</p>

<p>A Match = most of the acceptees are very close to the applicant's qualifications. Again, I believe that the stats published on the college's Freshman Profile is the best way to determine "most."</p>

<p>A Reach can be tougher to pinpoint, depending on whether one is cautious or risky by nature. Our own h.s. would probably define it as an applicant record below the 60% of acceptees range, so I guess it's just a matter of degree of reach.</p>

<p>The terms I see being most confused are safety & match. Too many people view a match as a safety. This has happened to several people we know. The problem is that last year's figures (which you might view as a safety going by your record <em>this</em> year) may end up being your match this year, making that school more competitive than you counted on. We know of some students who literally had no safeties on their list until their first ED rejection (which they thought, by the way, was a match; in their cases, these schools were reaches this year, being matches by last yr's figures). Now obviously you can obtain more current figures for the application year in question by applying RD everywhere, & using <em>current year</em> EA/ED published profiles as your guide. That would be safer, considering the usually higher, self-selected Early applicant round.</p>

6

<p>Epiphany,
Thank you so much. That helps. I am worried that we may be considering some schools safeties when they are really matches. The acceptance rates are deceptive like you say - it's so easy to think "Well, they accept 70% of applicants so OF COURSE you will get in" even if you don't have stats in the high range. In a way, it is more tricky than figuring out things for more selective schools - there it is obvious that pretty much everyone should consider the school a reach.</p>

<p>Any other thoughts or comments?</p>

7

<p>What you really want to know is the acceptance rate for the "average student". After all, there should be a group of scorers (if that is what you are measuring) with an almost 100% acceptance rate, they need to be subtracted out. I've started 3 different posts, so I'm grappling with this. There is more you need to know, I want to say the spread of SAT scores across the 25-75%, but it is more than that. Could the ranges be skewed by a few special scholarships for high scoring kids?
I'm not sure that it matters, in the long run, I think you have allotted your daughter's chances fairly well, if anything slightly underestimated them.</p>

8

<p>I agree with Cangel, Carolyn. The problem with the statistical approach is that it really just takes the SAT1s into consideration. The transcript is really the single most important factor in admissions unless you are getting into some specialty hooks. The courses your D has taken, her grades, the grade pattern , the school all go into that. With a high class rank I have seen kids with SATs in the lower 25% of the spectrum get into all of their colleges, until you start with the schools that are rejecting more kids than they take. If you throw in a good dose of demonstrated interest, most of these schools are matches. It's when you start up into the most selective schools, or are dealing with selective programs within a school that things get unpredictable.</p>

9

<p>Carolyn, I think it is good that you are looking at both the accepted student range of grades/scores AND the acceptance rate. We looked at both those sets of figures. And even then, it is just a guideline and not an exact science as it does not include all those other factors like recs, ECs, essays, yadda yadda. But I do think the acceptance rate is a factor that needs to be considered when rating one's chance of admission. For instance, at highly selective schools, you can be right in the range of accepted students' stats just fine but the admit rate is so low that it has to be considered a reach school on the admit rate alone. Anyway, in looking at schools, I would consider both factors in terms of chances. I would start with the stats range first and then view the rate of admissions in making the "category" call of reach, match, safety. I find some schools can straddle what we'd call Reach/Match, or Match/Safety. With that in mind and if I knew NOTHING else about your daughter but the stuff you posted in the original post above, I would have rated those schools as such: </p>

<p>1) Reach/Match (meaning easier reach, or harder match)
2) Match (easier Match)
3) Match for RD (Match/Safety if applying EA)
4) Safety</p>

<p>Overall, from your posts over time, I think you tend to be on the cautious side and underestimate your D's chances which I think are very solid at many schools based on whatever I know about her which granted is not the whole story. I think from the list above, she has a good list so far because even the first school is not a total reach but is an easier reach or harder end of match. </p>

<p>Susan</p>

10

<p>I agree with Jamimom too. I meant to also add that the range they give of stats is so much on test scores and not as much on rank and GPA and the rigor of courseload, all very important factors. That is why you can merely use the SAT range thing as a guide and the selectivity factor. It is a good starting point but not nearly the whole story.</p>

11

<p>I look at the list and see: reach, match, match/safety, safety.
Carolyn, as you know, sometimes people get into reaches and not into their safeties.
Although, I think she will get into 3 of those schools as a mimimum, I would add 1 more school where she is in the top 25%.
My daughter did not get into one of her safeties, UC Davis. I have no idea why to this day. Her counselor said over 90% chance. Well that 10% chance came through.
So things can happen.</p>

12

<p>My son's school college counselors add the following to the safety test: "It's not a safety unless you have visited it."</p>

13

<p>I'm not sure whether this information will be beneficial or not, but princetonreview.com has a section that concludes matches, safeties, and reaches based on a myriad of things including grades, standardized test scores, and area preference.</p>

14

<p>I'd like to throw in one other element to consider; often a reach-school is a school the student may feel uncomfortable with. That is to say, if the student views a particular school as a reach, after having factored in much of the good advice given above, it may be that the school is not merely a reach, but a bad fit.
Our daughter visited 13 schools. About half of them were in the same academic range. Only one of them felt good to her and because of that she also felt it was not a reach even though it was one of the most selective schools she visited.
She turned out to be right and was accepted ED to her school in December.</p>

<p>Sometimes, beyond the stats, a student will have an intuition afforded them by having spent time at a particular school and developed a feeling for it (if the recommendations given by previous posters have already been satisfied).</p>

<p>Don't underestimate the "magic-effect."</p>

15

<p>Thanks everyone. I see two potential problems that worry me. First, in her stat range (GPA of 3.5/3.6, SATs probably in the low to mid 1200s, so-so EC's but probably good rec's) there is a huge drop in academic quality between potential matches and true safeties. </p>

<p>The second is that she is getting more and more cemented in her ideas about exactly what she wants in a college - feel is everything to her and there just aren't that many schools that have the feel she wants. (She told me last weekend that I should do the due dilligence on the academics and let her worry about whether the schools are a fit in terms of her "psychic intution" so you aren't off the mark in your comments Woodword! :) ) </p>

<p>I know this will all sort itself out over time, but I want to make sure that she has a realistic chance if she ends up only applying to 4-5 schools (which seems likely as she is very stubborn about adding schools that don't have the feel that what she wants).
I do appreciate any and all thoughts on this.</p>

16

<p>Forgot to say thanks for the reminder about the median ranges relating to test scores. All of the schools she is deeply interested in do not seem particularly numbers driven - they weigh things like essays, recommendations, personal characteristics more heavily than test scores, according to their common data set info. Of course, those "intangibles" are pretty darn hard to predict. I guess I really do need to push her to add some schools to her list.</p>

17

<p>Carolyn,
I just want to say that you are not alone. My D and I also found a huge drop between matches for her and at least minimally challenging safeties for her. My suspicion about this is that the population of highly qualified applicants is quite high now, so that matches are becoming more like reaches for many categories of students. We have a friend from a great h.s., with a high 3.7 & some great e.c.'s. She was not accepted into one of her matches (ED). This is not to over-worry you; I know you're worried already, but more to empathize. I think the colleges you have been looking at are not unrealistic reaches or anything for your D. Also, to add to the mix, consider Whitman. This should be a match/safety for your D. (We know someone with the stats you just quoted. She's at Whitman now & very happy. She also wanted only West Coast schools.</p>

18

<p>If she applies EA/rolling to a few schools, you will have a litmus test as to where she stands by early December, still enough times to add some more schools to the list if things do not look good. My older son applied early to Georgetown, BC and Binghamton. Was deferred at GT but was accepted at the other two. Gave him a good idea what his range was, and really he could have stopped right there if he wanted to do so. Had he been turned down or deferred at all 3, we would have had to move to other schools.</p>

19

<p>Carolyn - I think you have classified the schools correctly. </p>

<p>However, I've always had trouble integrating GPA into a classification system, due to incomplete information on the GPAs of incoming classes.</p>

20

<p>Yes, the GPA also gives me problems. It is impossible to know if the "reported" median GPA is based on the GPA given by the various high schools or if the GPA median is based on the school recomputing the GPA's using their own system. That's why the first question I ask at every admissions presentation is if they recompute or use the actual reported high school GPA. It can make a big difference.</p>