Calmom wrote:
"So I think the best strategy is one or more safeties that the student is willing to attend – and every other college chosen on the basis of fit, with as many applications as the student fills comfortable with. Yes, the odds of getting into a “match” school are better than a reach – but that is small comfort if the reach is the preferred school – and no matter how you cut it, there is no guarantee of admission at the match school. (If there is, then it is a safety and not a match). "
I think you are saying you’d be fine with a list that is all reaches with one or more safeties. I agree that match schools have NO guarantee of admission. Match schools are in someone’s ballpark. But I am not into the kind of list you suggest because it becomes even more likely that the student could end up at their safeties/likelies, when there are matches in their ballpark that are between the unpredictable reaches and the near guarantee safeties. Many students land at their match schools, which makes sense because Match schools are reasonable/ballpark schools in terms of chances. A list with all reaches and then two safeties could turn out into attending the safeties (not necesssarily a bad thing) when the student had a decent chance of getting into schools in between. I see lots of students with lists on CC with reaches and then a safety and with nothing in between. That kind of list has an increased chance of ending up at one’s safety.
In my D’s case, she LOVED her match schools. I wrote elsewhere that her list of “most favorites”, “favorites that like a lot” and “least favorites but would be happy to attend” did not correlate with the categories of reach, match, safety. In fact, her three most favorites were Yale, Tufts, and Brown. So, she liked Tufts better than Princeton and Penn. Tufts was a match school. When her acceptances roled in and she had to decide where to attend, she picked out three schools to return to for the accepted student events and was going to decide from these three. They were Tufts, Brown and Smith. She knocked out Penn. She liked both Tufts AND Smith (two matches) more than Penn, a reach.
I’ve seen some students on CC call some elite schools safeties, because they just were not Ivies. I definitely disagree with that. My child’s safeties were very likelies. Nothing is guaranteed unless the school accepts every applicant. But these were quite likely. Her matches had a good chance but not nearly as good a chance as her likelies/safeties. But Smith’s admit rate is not that high and she also had a lot of good contacts there that were very encouraging. As well, while Tufts felt like a “high match”, she had in her “pro” pile of her profile that she was a double legacy. We never ever counted on getting in the matches. But her chances at her matches were better than at her reaches. Her chances at her safeties/likelies were very strong and much better than at her matches. We felt confident that of her 8 schools, she would get at least one acceptance…not because she applied to 8 but because of the continuim of chances she had at this continuim of colleges.
By the way, the 40% reaches, 40% matches, 20% safeties was a very rough example of a balanced list but I do not stick to it in any exacting way. It just demonstrates the general balance that is needed in a list. Some students seem to apply to a LOT of schools and in those cases, one can afford to add more reaches. In the end, I think my D’s list was more like 50% reaches, 25% matches, 25% safeties but it was hard to quantify because some schools border reach/match and one might have bordered more match/safety. It truly was a continuim and hard to categorize each in an exacting way. She also had the acceptance at her state U but as I said, her list was made without that and that school had not been considered when forming the list. If I add that, then her safeties comprised 30% of the list.
While MomWaitingforNew brings up a good point about how the odds also differ when you consider certain factors like geography…applying out of your region…that did not work for my kid as she wanted the east coast (her choice), not south, midwest or west. She also had a criteria that she needed to be within distance of skiing and that the college have a ski team that was either a club team or a varsity team. So, for instance, it knocked out a school like Washington U which may have fit some of her other criteria.
But when weighing someone’s odds at a school, many factors go into it including the stats of admitted students and the acceptance rate but also other less tangible things such as where a student comes from. At Lehigh, I have a feeling that there are very few Vermont students. Our assessment of Lehigh as my D’s most likely of her safeties was accurate, I believe and once accepted, they made the package pretty sweet to attract her.
By the way, my D was a financial aid applicant and all her schools had need based aid. We didn’t think that any of them had merit aid but learned that two of them did have merit aid, when she opened the acceptances and had won it! Those were Smith and Lehigh, which again demonstrates our estimation of where she stood in terms of odds at those schools. It seemed as though she was likely to be admitted and it turns out that she stood out in their applicant pools. If one ONLY goes by acceptance rate, then it is not accurate to access chances because for some kids, these schools are reaches. For her, Lehigh was a likely admit and Smith, while a match, had a very good chance. Girls from our high school have gone to Smith and my D’s profile was beyond the ones who had been admitted in the past and we had that indicator as well. Smith was the ONLY school on my D’s list who sent an adcom to visit the HS. My D met with her one on one because nobody else signed up to attend the session. Her GC even talked to the adcom about her. When my D went for the campus visit, it turned out that there were only two students in the info. session and the adcom remembered my D from seeing her at the HS. My D also had a campus interview with her. She also had an alum interview back home. She met with a professor in her intended major. She initiated meeting with all three coaches of her three varsity sports and while she was NOT recruited, she then maintained ongoing email contacts with these folks who were encouraging to her. One had my D meet the other girls on the team. Then she got in and got the Stride Scholar designation. After she got in, one team had every girl sign a card telling my D they hoped she’d come. Smith is one class act. My D was so drawn by them and it was a school that got onto her list later than any other school because she had not initially wanted all girls. Even NOW that my D doesn’t even go to Smith, she races in one sport against them and sees that one coach every weekend and he still is encouraging to my D! So, even though nobody recruited her, she had positive vibes from many at the school. While Smith was a match school, we felt she stood a better than 50-50 chance. Again, someone’s stats must be weighed in relation to the school, too, and even if the school accepts 53% of applicants as Smith did at the time, they accept at a higher rate for someone with her stats. I think this is clear by the outcome of being one of 50 Stride Scholars.
Also, when someone says Conn College may not be a safety as it accepts less than 50%, it must be put in context. My D also had Lehigh which accepts 48% and Smith which accepts 53% and so it is not like Conn College was tacked onto a list of all reaches. That would be an UNWISE list. Her list was a continuim of chances and when in total, seemed to indicate that she would not be shut out of going to college. As well, while Conn College accepts 32% of applicants, my D’s chances were greater than 32% given her profile and stats in comparison to admitted students at that school. Students with her profile are admitted at a higher rate there than some other students. Again, this estimation was accurate. The girl ranked sixth in her class did not get into Conn College. In fact, she did not get into any of her colleges BUT UVM (had schools like Vassar, Williams, Amherst, Conn College on her list). My D’s profile across the board was higher than this other girl who is strong but her list was unwise…I’d say her schools were all reaches and then one safety, UVM, where she ended up. Had she had some matches mixed in, she very well may have ended up at one.
I am noticing that students from competitive high school environments where a majority of students are applying to elite schools, tend to call some very selective schools safeties. I guess in their world, those schools sound “safe” because they expect to attend an elite school. When I hear people call Tufts, Georgetown or Rice a safety, I don’t agree even without knowing their stats because I can’t see any of these schools being a likely admit. For top students, they are probably a match. When one applies to Ivies and schools of that sort and then tack on Tufts or Georgetown, that is a recipe for trouble.
Smith and Brown have a lot of applicants in common.