How did this whole Reach, Match, Safety chancing on CC originate? I have noticed that some new CC’ers do not know what a High match vs. Low Match is. Others have asked chancers to translate this into percentage likelihood for acceptance, which is laughable.
I find it funny when new people chance others saying that “You have an 80% chance of getting in Wharton”.
Or, even better, 79.82% chance.
A while ago someone asked what the percentage was for each category. I made up a scale to the third decimal place.
I think a moderator deleted it.
These people don’t grasp that the probability of admission is a function of the applicant.
Some applicants have a 100% admission at all schools (Malala Yousafzai, Malia Obama)
Some applicants have a 0% admission at all schools.
I don’t like the term, “Safety.” Too many students read that as no work required for admission or consideration. “Likely,” seems to convey a better sense that there engagement is still required.
“Safety” should indicate certain admission and certain affordability for the student. For example, a school with automatic admission for the student’s stats and either list price or automatic scholarship net price comfortably within the budget would be a safety.
Great question as hub and I were wondering how the terms originated too. We’d never heard of them before CC. (Our son only spent a short time in public high school.) Hub HATES the terms and I feel bad for the kids posting in the chance threads. Replies are brutal and kids are panicking over getting a single B in one class or on one test.
@anxiousenior1 although I think it’s totally stupid to say that you have a ____% chance of acceptance, I think people get those numbers from scatter plots. The scatter plots usually have gpa and sat/act on the two axes, and then you plug in your numbers and see where you fall in relation to the others. Either way, it’s complete bs, but I think that’s where those numbers come from.
@TomSrOfBoston I think match, reach, safety originated from college counselors, and not this website. But chancing is unique to CC, and I think it’s useless.
@elrathia chancing does have a benefit when a student’s stats indicate that all the schools he is applying to are reaches. They need matches and safeties otherwise they will be out of luck.
@TomSrOfBoston yes, I suppose I can understand that, but I guess I just disagree with the whole chance me thing on a fundamental level. Safety/Match/Reach status can be determined by common data set, and I don’t see why people need to post here to figure it out. But then again, I’m lucky enough to have fantastic college counselor who breaks it all down for us so we can figure out which schools are safeties/matches/reaches.
@elrathia Many guidance counselors are hesitant to tell a student that they don’t have the stats, EC’s etc. for an elite school or that it would be reach. The GC would be “destroying their dreams” and parents could complain so the GC allows the student to remain delusional. I was accused of that a several times when I chanced students that their schools were pretty much out of reach.
@TomSrOfBoston I think it’s so unfair to the student when parents refuse to accept the fact that their kid can’t get into his/her dream school. At some point, you have to tell them that there’s no way and to move on. Telling them they have a chance is almost cruel, in my opinion. A major problem is that parents who aren’t knowledgeable about the admission process like to believe they are, which only causes harm to their kid. I see this all the time too.
“How did this whole Reach, Match, Safety chancing on CC originate? I have noticed that some new CC’ers do not know what a High match vs. Low Match is. Others have asked chancers to translate this into percentage likelihood for acceptance, which is laughable.”
I usually avoid saying “Reach” and “Match” because they are used many different ways. There does seem to be some rough consensus about what “Safety” means.