<p>I regularly see people on this site using the terms "reach, match, and safety" as some sort of statistical chance method. In other words, reach means less than 20% chance, match is something around 50%, and safety is greater than 75% chance of getting in. I propose that this is a poor use of these terms, and that the whole "chancing" business should be based on admitted cohort statistics.</p>
<p>Let's face it, admission to the top 15 or so schools is never predictable. A valedictorian who invented the cure to eczema can get rejected. That doesn't mean that a person isn't statistically the "average" admit, which should mean that he is a "match" for that school (in the sense that his stats "match" those of the average admit.)</p>
<p>The best way to approach "chancing," I believe, is to think in terms of distributions. Some schools have a bell curve. Some are skewed. Either way, they all have means, and we should be considering "match" to be that you are within one standard deviation of the mean. That way, the terms are uniformly used, and actually have some sort of statistical meaning (as opposed to percent chance voodoo.)</p>
<p>Examples are sometimes better. Let's say that you have a school whose average admitted cohort has a 3.9 GPA and a 2100 on the SAT. Let's say that they admit only 15% of applicants. You have a 3.89 and a 2110 on the SAT. You should be considered a "match." You may not have a 50% chance of getting in, but you clearly "match" the stats of the average admit.</p>
<p>But UCLAri! Some of the top schools admit less than 10% of applicants! This is true. However, many (if not most) of the rejected applicants are still probably well within a standard deviation of the average admitted cohort, meaning that they too were clearly "matches" for that school.</p>
<p>But UCLAri! Some of the top schools can't have safeties then! Your whole system is ruined! Yes, this is true. It is more or less impossible to be a "safety" at any of the most selective universities in the US. This is because of their unique admitted classes and the extreme left skew they exhibit in admissions. However, that doesn't mean that the terms fail. If anything, it demonstrates how universally they can be applied if used properly. You don't have to make a new "special top 7 school admissions" set of terms that is confusing when used with other schools.</p>
<p>Don't get caught up in percent chance of admission voodoo, and think that anyone can accurately predict a person's chance of admission to any schools. The best any of us can do is look at statistical trends and gauge where an individual falls within admitted cohort distributions. </p>
<p>Just my $.02</p>