<p>Is it actually legit?
Should I take the results seriously or with a grain of salt?</p>
<p>BIG grain of salt. It's a great starting point but really do check PR against the college board and even collegedata.com before deciding that their determination of safety, match and reach is accurate for you.</p>
<p>The results are not always accurate; we tried it a couple of years ago when S was applying to college, and our state flagship (U of Minn-Twin Cities) never even came up for S no matter how we set up the search criteria - until we tried changing his major choice. S is majoring in chem engineering, apparently counselor-o-matic didn't even ecognize that an engineering program existed at U of Minn.</p>
<p>Yale is listed as a match school for me, yet Pomona College (with a slightly larger acceptance rate) is listed as a reach school. </p>
<p>How accurate can it possibly be?</p>
<p>It is way off. for me at least. No ivy could ever really be a match. The ivy is hit or miss, thus making it a reach for everyone.</p>
<p>From what I've seen, it's good at identifying schools you would like, but not as good at assessing your chances of acceptance at them.</p>
<p>It's a great starting point, but search through plenty of college books before deciding reach/match/safety... those were SO inaccurate when I looked through it.</p>
<p>My son used it to come up with an initial list of colleges to look at. He further refined his list by checking each college's website and looking at the stats of admitted students. I thought it gave a false sense of security by showing some schools at matches that I'm pretty sure are going to be very difficult for my son to get into. Time will tell, but I'm inclined to take the results with a big grain of salt.</p>
<p>They said Yale and UPenn (along with UC Irvine) were a match for me but UCLA was a reach. (Not saying UCLA is easy to get into for anyone, but I'm in-state and I don't think its selectivity is as high as Yale.)</p>
<p>
[quote]
S is majoring in chem engineering, apparently counselor-o-matic didn't even ecognize that an engineering program existed at U of Minn.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That's REALLY low quality advice then. As you know, the chemical engineering program at the U of Minnesota is one of the strongest in the United States, so much so that students who did their undergraduate degree at MIT are happy to come to the U of MN for graduate school in that subject. (And, correspondingly, U of MN undergrads with good records can do graduate study in that subject wherever they please.) I've heard other stories here on CC about that Brand X site giving really ridiculous advice. I guess that's the drawback of trusting a computer to do a human being's job.</p>
<p>Counselor-o-matic is very unreliable. Yale showed up as a match for me too.</p>
<p>There is not one school that is a "reach school" for me, though my stats are relatively underwhelming. I will most likely get rejected from a majority of the true reach schools taht I am applying to and feel a little bit offended by the gall that PR possesses by telling me that each and every institution in the nation is either a "good match" or "safety" (Note: I only have a 3.5 GPA and a 2140).</p>