<p>Hello, I've been reading "What are my chances?" and looking at the terms and how people post about college acceptance chances.</p>
<p>Are there terms beyond "reach", "match" and "safety"? Do people base this terms primarily on grades and SAT/ACT scores? Would "safety" be if scores are abouve the top of average range, "matches" within the average range and "reach" below? How do EC's play into the same terms? Essays??</p>
<p>I'm trying to look at the schools my daughter is interested in and determine what we should be realistically expecting.</p>
<p>We are primarily looking at state schools, some flagship.</p>
<p>Yes, what you wrote is correct in general but if you are looking at out of state public schools, you can’t go by the numbers because admissions is usually tougher for oos applicants. </p>
<p>In general, ecs and essays play more of a role in admissions to smaller schools that practice holistic admission than large state flagships but it depends on the level of the ec. (For example, a recruited athlete is a major ec at a state flagship and his/her admission standards are different.) Also, some majors (such as engineering) may have different admissions standards (higher required math scores). </p>
<p>Do you have Naviance available? If so, that would give you a good idea of where kids from your child’s high school end up going with similar stats.</p>
<p>2collegewego hit it on the mark. Determining what schools are considered safety, match, or reach takes into account the whole application.</p>
<p>However, I would say that for the University of California system, OOS applicants might be at an advantage. The admit rate is slightly higher than in-state admission (I don’t know the numbers). Factors that cause this include fewer applicants OOS than in-state, and higher tuition rates and thus more desirable applicants.</p>
<p>Safety = certain admission (note: schools which consider “level of interest” cannot be safeties)
Match = likely admission
Reach = unlikely admission
Out of reach = no chance of admission</p>
<p>But don’t forget cost and financial aid considerations:</p>
<p>Safety = definitely affordable at list price, or with guaranteed financial aid and/or merit scholarships
Match = probably affordable
Reach = unlikely to be affordable; may depend on a reach-level merit scholarship
Out of reach = don’t bother, won’t be affordable</p>
<p>Check the “net price calculator” on each school’s web site to get an idea of likely financial aid.</p>
<p>Also, determine the safety school(s) first, before any application and scholarship deadlines pass.</p>
<p>Take a look at all of the threads from students who are looking for safeties now, even though many of the application and scholarship deadlines have already passed. Those students will face a much more limited set of possible safeties, or may back into having community college as their safety. (Community college is actually a good choice for many, but considering and planning it that way beforehand is better than disappointingly backing into it after being shut out.)</p>
<p>A true safety should also be a school that you would be happy to attend, not just a school that you know you will get into. What’s the point of getting into somewhere you will not like for the next 4 years?</p>
<p>Good example: Consider a student who was admitted to Dream U, but absolutely could not afford it. The only thing left is a safety school.</p>
<p>A color coded “first cut” system that I used when my kids were applying used Math and Verbal SAT scores and the admissions rate for each school. </p>
<p>I would list each school from highest admission rate to lowest admission rate. </p>
<p>Next to each school would be two boxes–one for Math SAT score, the other for Verbal SAT score. If your kid’s score is in the top 25%, then color the square green; if in the 25-75% range, color your square orange; if in the bottom 25% range, color the square red.</p>
<p>The green squares at the top of the list will be safety schools. Red squares at the bottom of the list will be reaches where you’ll need to bring something special to the table. </p>
<p>The color coding really helped the kids have a realistic view of the application process. Sure, intangibles count in any admissions decision and this first cut is a bit crude. But it does focus thinking.</p>
<p>The above listing of schools as safeties if in the top 25% is not accurate. Too many schools, such as the Wisconsin flagship, deny many students in that category. The admission rate also doesn’t give the whole story- it all depends on how popular a school is in the admissions game.</p>
<p>When dealing with state flagships you have to consider that there may be many students in that top 25 %ile that don’t get admitted for one reason or another. The junior year gpa is most important- improving grades help but lower grades hurt. I can’t give a cutoff for considering these public schools safeties but interest in the form of showing why you want to attend school X can tip the balance (a denied OOS student on the UW forum stated his great stats but said he showed no interest in his essays last year). UW dropped their admissions chances (gpa/test scores) chart of a few years ago- the recent huge increase in applications has likely invalidated the numbers.</p>
<p>With rolling admissions a HS student who applys in early fall might have an acceptance or denial before it is too late to apply to other schools. With the huge increase in applications in recent years some schools are slower in making decisions (UW seems to be).</p>
<p>One consideration in the safety/match/reach consideration is in fitting in academically with the student body. A flagship with lower student stats may provide a top notch program with peers for the top students- percentages of students in the top tier may be small but the numbers at a large school can offer a significant peer group. Check on the requirements for Honors programs/colleges to see if your child fits into this category.</p>
<p>Without near perfect stats I wouldn’t count on any flagship school as a safety. I would be sure my son/daughter had other schools targeted as well. There are always students shocked that they didn’t get into a school they thought was a sure thing. </p>
<p>A flagship may be a reach but I wouldn’t count it out if the student is interested in it. A strong application could tip the balance and the student could be motivated to do well. Some of the smartest students don’t get the best grades because they are bored- this can happen in HS or college.</p>
<p>Your D’s HS guidance counselor should have a handle on instate, and probably some other states, admissions chances for students with profiles similar to your D’s (remember, she is the one to do the talking to the counselor). Do not take suggestions for your D as law, but they can guide you and her in where your D stands relative to others from her HS.</p>
<p>ps- Remember to stay as anonymous as you can on CC. You don’t want people to put various bits of info together and identify your D. You can use the PM- private message- section (see the top right of the page) for asking specific posters questions and revealing details and info you don’t want all of us to know.</p>
<p>Most gc’s will tell you that there is no longer any such thing as a safety. There are likely admits and unlikely.</p>
<p>Go to college board dot com and when you put in the schools name you can see all the stats. You will also see the list of admissions criteria. Believe that list, it is how the particular school ranks their criteria. Also notice the sat list where you see what they use the writing score for - 70% of colleges don’t use it for admissions, the one where my son got in used it for essay validation.</p>
<p>Learn about the almighty unweighted gpa. </p>
<p>Some big flagships only care about stats. Many small schools look way beyond gpa and stats, but this board can really only use those quantifiable numbers to talk about admissions. </p>
<p>I have a much more discerning eye about these ec’s that these kids do. A laundry list of in school clubs aren’t that impressive as opposed to two activities that show commitment. My friends brother is the president of a mid-west school I see mentioned here quite a bit. He says volunteer hours, unless there is none, or a ton (1000 hrs+) aren’t noticed much. He also came from an exclusive east coast lac.</p>
I believe the U of Vermont is also easier (or as easy) for out of state students because they don’t have enough in state students to fill it up.</p>
<p>Determining safety, match and reach is more of an art than a science. If you have any data about acceptances from your high school (Naviance software for example) you’ll have a lot more information. For example from our high school it is much, much, much harder to be accepted at Stanford than Harvard. </p>
<p>In a general sort of way I’d say a safety is where your stats (grades/GPA/rank) put you comfortably in the top 25% AND the college has an acceptance rate over 50%. A match school is one where you are solidly in the middle range of students. A reach is a school with either a low acceptance rate or where your stats put you in the bottom 25%.</p>
<p>The problem in judging is when you have a child like my youngest whose SAT CR score put him in the top 25% of every school in the country, but whose math score put him in or near the bottom 25%. Or for my older son, we had a case where his major activity was something that did not take place at school and we were unsure just how many brownie points he would get for it. </p>
<p>In addition, some colleges don’t look at freshman year grades, some don’t look at weighted averages, some (seem to) really care about essays and others not so much.</p>
<p>If you are comfortable with Excel you can put the colleges your child is considering in a spread sheet. Make columns for SAT scores, GPA, rank and percent admitted. Then sort the list using the numbers in each column. It will be pretty easy to sort the colleges into more or less likely options. Where the cut off between safety and match and reach is doesn’t really matter, just as long as you have a reasonable assortment. (And BTW you don’t have to have a reach college on your list, or you can do what my kids did and have two safeties they really like and everything else a reach/low acceptance rate college.) My kids with their reach heavy lists had a lot of rejection letters, but they also had excellent choices come April.</p>
<p>Finally if you can apply somewhere early action or rolling admissions I highly recommend it. It forces your child to get the Common Application filled out by October and if you get an early acceptance it’s automatically on your safety list no matter how selective it is on paper.</p>
<p>The single most important institution on your child’s list is the safety. It’s not for nothing that we have the saying “Love Thy Safety.” If possible, your child should have more than one safety so that he/she has a choice come April.</p>
<p>A real safety meets these four criteria:
Your family can pay for it with no aid other than federally aid as determined by the FAFSA and/or guaranteed state aid (Hope, Bright Futures, Blue&Gold, TAP, etc.) and/or guaranteed merit-based aid from that college/university itself that your child qualifies for based on grades and exam scores.
You know for a fact that your child will be admitted because the minimum grades and exam scores required for admission are posted right on the website (many public universities do this for in-state applicants) and/or your child’s high school has years of records that clearly indicate that no applicant from that high school with your child’s profile has ever been rejected.
Your child’s major is offered or if the safety is a community college, there is a formal articulation agreement for that major with at least one four-year institution.
Your child will be happy to attend if he/she is not accepted anywhere else your family can afford.</p>
<p>For most students, as always, the real safeties will be home-state public universities and community colleges.</p>
<p>I don’t consider a school a match unless the kid’s stats are in the top 25% and the admit rate is at least 30%. The admit rate is a huge factor. If the kid’s stats are in the top 25% and the admit rate is below 15%, you can consider it a “match” in that the kid is a legitimate candidate, but not that s/he is “likely” to be admitted. Other factors, such as OOS status, come in to play.</p>
<p>I also think that when assessing SATs the breakdown is crucial. The writing points still don’t seem to matter as much. A 2200 composed of an 800W, 710M, 690CR is not as good as a 800CR, 710M, 690W.</p>
<p>With state schools, it tends to be more by the numbers. If you have access to Naviance, thank your lucky stars.</p>
<p>Mathmom and I had the same exact issue with our kids, but polar opposite. DS was top math, bottom cr, and writing was so bad I’ll take that number to my grave.</p>
<p>It’s really individual. Everyone kept telling me, but I refused to believe, that colleges are used to that. So if you have an uneven child, make sure you are playing up the strengths. My s applied engineering and had all his ap’s in math and science. So it wouldn’t be shocking in hindsight that english wasn’t his thing.</p>
<p>I also thing it’s not shock on the opposite spectrum either. Math is a specific skill, so who will be shocked at a humanities major not being super strong in math. </p>
<p>It’s more than stats. OOS schools can be harder, easier, or just the same level difficulty, particulary departments can be harder. Check the % oos students in the profile. </p>
<p>No matter what anyone says - even the top kids will not be likelies at schools with low admit rates.</p>
<p>Consolation makes an excellent point about admission rates. Top colleges have many more qualified applicants than they can possibly accept, a fact that seems to escape many parents and students who bemoan every year that a perfect-stat valedictorian All-American athlete who found a cure for cancer in the Intel competition didn’t get into Dream University. Therefore, there are certain colleges that are reaches for everybody.</p>
<p>Some state flagships can be true safeties as they publish the requirements for admission…if you meet them…you are in.</p>
<p>Iowa and Iowa State use something they call the RAI to determine admission. You can plug in your stats on their website and know if you will be admitted.</p>
<p>Kansas also has guaranteed admissions with a minimum GPA/test score.</p>
<p>To add to ellemenope’s color system, I would add a square for acceptance rate, green if 75% or more, orange if between 25% and 75%, and red if 25% or less.</p>
<p>But if you are doing the color code system, add a column for net cost – green being definitely affordable, yellow being probably affordable, red being possibly but unlikely affordable (and don’t bother if it cannot be affordable under any circumstances).</p>
<p>When DS was applying to college 5 years ago, I came to the conclusion[ after doing much research on CC for the prior 2 years] that NO SCHOOL should be considered a MATCH, regardless of the students stats, if the overall acceptance rates are below 20%.</p>
<p>Thanks for all of the advice…it’s much appreciated!!</p>
<p>I had actually already started a spreadsheet, but never thought of color coding it. On the bright side, dd definitely has some schools that could be safety’s (or close to it), in terms of admission rates (70-80%), her scores in comparison to average (100 points above the top of the average range) and cost. But that’s just on paper (she has only visited two schools). And since she’s OOS, who knows?</p>
<p>I couldn’t find on college board how colleges look at the different things…but will keep looking.</p>
<p>Be careful if the school’s common data set, section C7, shows that “level of interest” is considered for admissions. Such a school may be trying to protect its yield by rejecting or waitlisting high stats applicants who appear to be using it as a safety. This is more common with private schools than public schools.</p>
<p>It is a good thing to do initial evaluations before visiting, since visiting can be expensive. Also, screening out schools which are unsuitable, out of reach, or too expensive before visiting can avoid the student taking a liking to such a school during a visit.</p>