But College Vine does not take into account LORs, ECs, essays and hooks so take their predictions for highly selective schools with a large grain of salt. At less selective schools and schools that primarily admit based on stats, College Vine does a better job.
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The same could be said of Naviance, because it is hard to impossible to create data based on hooks and essays. The systems canāt judge essays, LORs, hooks.
The person above does not have access to Naviance. College Vine is a good stand in.
College Vine will go into detail on chance of acceptance based on gender. Example: Iāve noticed it is often more difficult for women to be accepted, and the data Iāve seen comes from college common data sets and College Vine.
There is no crystal ball, which I presume folks here know. If there IS a crystal ball, please let me know! 
Good luck to all!
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I agree. My comments about CollegeVine were driven by the facts that many parents I know relied way too much on it and were disappointed in the end.
Also, I didnāt mean to direct my comment solely at you 
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Yeah, a fair number of us look at yāall talking about Naviance and Overgrad and the like and are just like sigh.
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You say this like itās a bad thing.
(Further context: For my D23, yep, it totally would be. For my C25, though? Thatās a positive.)
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True, no source really can accurately predict this. That said, what makes Naviance great (for those with access to the data and at schools that included years of good data), is that it gives you a very strong indicator of what is admitted from YOUR school. And so much of Admission is based around specific school profiles.
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Yes, I wish we had Naviance or Scoir but we donāt have anything like that. The counselors have some sense of what is admitted from our school, but itās tough for a kid to get a counselor appointment (school is very large).
There is zero benefit to overthinking this.
If you want to go to a highly rejective school, then apply to many and be willing to pay full $. This assumes you will hit the middle 50 range for test scores and GPA. To maximize chances, look for schools where over 50% of the students are full pay (hint ā many private T50 fall in this category.) These numbers are readily available in IPEDS and CDs.
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Our kid isnāt applying to tippy top schools, but it would still be really helpful for him to know how he compares to other applicants from our school, before he spends his time writing umpteen essays. There are over 800 students in the senior class and our school doesnāt rank. Itās a very competitive bay area school, lots of kids apply and attend highly rejective schools every year.
What is the major? If it is not CS/EE/CSE/Business/Data Science then what I said stands.
Take advantage of ED1 and ED2. Look for schools that have <20% yield, but >40% overall acceptance. Apply to 6-8 schools within budget. Thatās what we did with my DD21 and she got in everywhere and now attends UNC. Will do exactly the same with my DS23.
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Speaking from personal experience and those of similarly situated kids (all very high stats) full pay doesnāt move the needle at all in admissions to highly rejective schools. They get plenty more full pay applicants than they can accommodate. Full-pay will make some difference at some schools to get off a waitlist.
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Poster is not applying to highly rejective HYPSM type schools. There are plenty of schools in the T50 list that will gladly take standard strong, full pay kids. Thatās why I said look to see how many kids are full pay in the class. If it is over 50% then it should not be too hard if the poster uses common sense.
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At this time his top choice is industrial engineering, but he is pretty open to most engineering majors outside of CS. Definitely does not want to do CS or AI (it is not appealing to go into the same field as oneās parents). Not planning to apply ED anywhere, his favorite schools do not offer it, and we do not have the budget for 80k/year for two kids (D26 on the horizon).
He pretty much has his list set nowā¦ but it would be really nice to have a bit more information about how he stacks up against other kids at our school. We arenāt going to get that information, soā¦ oh well!
Will it move the needle in the other direction? We were surprised by the NPC as we expected nothing. But then does that hurt S23 chances at admissions?
IMHO, this is a mistake. If you can run NPC and handle the number, apply via ED1 and ED2. Typically, admit rates are at least 2X, approaching 5X for some private schools.
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Sorry, not clear what you mean. Are you asking if full-pay can be negative? (the answer to that is no).
Not at all. There is one question I believe in Common App where you check a box to state that no aid is needed or some such. Check it.
The Jeff Seligno article has been posted here multiple times. Almost all colleges, even the most reputable ones, have revenue targets. State schools are outside of this but you get the idea!
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Actually, many state schools love full pay OOS students.
UCs are an example - but with the reduced cap for OOS, much harder to get in now.
I think most prestigious state schools love high stats OOS students. You basically need ivy level stats to get into UVA or UNC. I donāt think UNC cares whether the student can pay $45K or not.
CA is holistic, so not sure what they look for in OOS kids but my cousinās high stat daughter got into UCLA and UCB.
Yes. Northeastern, specifically, is need-aware. So I am wondering if qualifying for need-based aid would be a negative in terms of admissions.
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