<p>Hunt: that’s exactly it. The emphasis should be on reasonable matches–matches defined as “where your stats are in the top quartile” <em>and</em> selectivity is over 30%. My D’s guidance counselor seems to be telling her that having stats over 75% makes a school a match (it could, of course, be that that is what my D is hearing, rather than what the GC is saying :)), and it makes it hard for me to keep the focus on the second issue. As Alynor says, “So far his matches are mostly reaches.”</p>
<p>And Blossom, she’s the one who’s geographically limited! She wants to be in a state that at least borders the ocean, even if she’s inland. That’s another criterion she may have to abandon, of course.</p>
<p>Steering between the Scylla of hope and the Charybdis of underestimation…</p>
<p>Instead of looking just at number of schools to apply to, one needs to look at happy to attend numbers. Whether you apply to 5 or 25 schools the student needs to be happy to attend any of the schools they are accepted to. Things like fit, both in scholastically and financially, come into play. If you can afford any school then your number of applications can be pared down. Spend a little time and money visiting schools, getting to meet current students, finding out if your student can see themselves at the school. Visiting each campus my student applied to was a game changer. Some she liked more, quite a few she really thought, “nope, not for me”. Never would have seen that from looking online and analyzing the admission numbers.</p>
<p>My D applied to several LACs with EA: Bard College, Lawrence University, Goucher College - and lots more had it, that we saw. There are many LACs that are match/likely/safety for high-stat kids. One of the above is actually quite near the coast … If a kid really likes the LAC feel, I’d look in the Loren Pope books for schools outside of the usual suspects.</p>
<p>Lots and lots of them on the west coast, too …</p>
<p>Marysidney- start your own thread; you will have enough safety schools to shake a stick at by the end of the week. I keep confusing you with the OP!</p>
<p>Lawrence was to be the safety for my D (she applied EA, but found out from her ED school and withdrew the Lawrence app). We were all surprisingly and favorably impressed on our tour.</p>
<p>The whole reach/match/safety assessment can be really different depending on whether a kid wants to attend a small LAC versus a big state school. Admissions at big public universities tends to be much more numbers driven (especially on the STEM side), so that a given GPA/SAT combo can be highly determinative. LAC admissions tends to be much more touchy-feely, with essays and ECs and “fit” being crucial. So an applicant with SATs equivalent to the upper quartile of a large public uni can be fairly certain of admissions, even if the overall % of admission for all applicants is low. Not so at a small LAC, where they might skip past dozens of higher-stat kids to admit an oboeist or two needed to round out their orchestra. And maybe mid-size private universities fall somewhere in between. </p>
<p>The result is that liberal arts-y kids applying to LACs end up with less predictability, and thus may need to apply to more schools. </p>
<p>Another way to look at it is that a kid applying to small LACs may need to apply to 10 colleges (each of which accepts ~1000 kids to fill a class size of a few hundred kids) in order to be in the same size “pool” as one big university (which may accept 10000 kids to fill a freshman class of a few thousand).</p>
<p>My son’s original GC identified Carleton and the U of C as “safeties” for my S. You can imagine the howls that went up when I innocently revealed that as a newbie on CC! By the time my fellow parents were through with me, I was a complete wreck and thoroughly convinced that he was on track to becoming the next Andison. I made him apply to 11 schools.</p>
<p>He did get in to both of those “safeties” though. :D</p>
<p>S had multiple reaches - the most reachy-reaches being NU, Gtown and Tufts. His second choice after NU, however, was Kenyon, which is somewhere in the #30’s in the LAC rankings, and would have gone ED II there if NU hadn’t come through. His safeties were American and Denison. </p>
<p>D’s most notable reach was Wellesley, but her ED II was Bryn Mawr, again less selective (though still selective in the absolute, certainly - also somewhere in the #20’s or #30’s on the LAC list). She was very “tied” between the two places and would have been delighted with either. Her safety was Lawrence.</p>
<p>Carleton is the school that has most confused me in this process (although no fault of Carleton’s!). It was recommended to us by people who know the school and know my son, and when I started checking it out, I categorized it as a “match”. But a couple of online models that purport to rate his chances at various schools have Carleton as a long reach. In fact, one has his chances at Carleton as less than Harvard! I know this is likely a sampling error, but it still gives me pause to wonder if Carleton is really a match, as with similar schools we’ve targeted.</p>
<p>I think it’s asinine to think that ANY school in the top 20 uni or top 20 LAC list is a match for ANYONE. They are all reaches, for everybody, full stop.</p>
<p>For my kids I didn’t find the whole reach/match/safety thing that helpful. Finding safeties was VERY important; in many ways job one. After the safeties my kids were much more focessed on offerings and fit and ended up with lists that were 10 and 14 schools … one list was match heavy and one list was reach heavy but both lists had a couple safeties (and in case the “safety” hopped over a bunch of “match” schools after a visit due to fit). So to me … safety - non-safety is better plan of attack … and time spent parsing and slotting match/reach is not high added value IMO. </p>
<p>One caveat, my kids had specific enough requirements that they could pare the superset of possible reach/match schools down to list of 8 or 12 ignoring the match/reach thing … if a kid doesn’t care about rural/urban, or small/big, or LAC/Research U then my comments fall apart since there will be 150 candidate schools for someone interested in Biology as a major.</p>
<p>Both our DDs applied to 5 schools. 1 reach (waitlisted in both cases) and the rest match/safeties. </p>
<p>OP, DD2’s reach was Carleton - waitlisted with a 4.0UW, top 1% of 450 students, 34 ACT, 2280 SAT. Carelton’s acceptance % makes it a slight reach.</p>
<p>Because of my D’s (weird) h.s. program, it seemed everything was a reach for her- no real matches and the safeties were not really that (as there was no love). So she ended up applying to 11 and she was able to easily recycle most essays (two of Hampshire’s supplemental being the exception). So while 10-12 might seem a lot, with the Common App (and not all the tippy top schools), it can be done (even in 2 weeks like my D ). She did not have the same high stats as OP but still had a successful run. So I would suggest that 11 is eminently doable.</p>
<p>That seems to be an article of faith on CC (well, usually using the word ‘safety’). But really, a top candidate pretty much has their pick of most of the top-20, if they show interest, the most sincere form of interest being ED.</p>
<p>sorghum, I know too many kids at T20 schools with weird results to think they “have their pick.” Like the kid who gets in at Cornell, Columbia, and Dartmouth and is waitlisted by the U of C.</p>
<p>“In addition, the problem is that I see is that your kid is a BWRK with no appreciable hooks. At most of the schools you have listed, he will be in a sea of BWRKs with nothing that makes him stand out from the crowd.”</p>
<p>I believe I saw an interview with William Fitzsimmons where he kind of discounted that commonly held notion about college admissions, saying that BWRK constitute a lot of each admitted class.</p>
There may be a tiny number of people for whom this is true. But they aren’t people with excellent grades, top SATs, and really good ECs. They are strongly hooked people or people with highly unusual achievements, who also have excellent grades, tops SATs, and really good ECs.</p>
<p>A well rounded class includes both point and well rounded kids. Holistic admissions will always mean that some students with stellar stats will be passed over for some kids with merely excellent stats.</p>
<p>I think there are a handful of students that really will be accepted to (almost) any college they apply to, but they are very rare and generally have a combination of very strong hooks.</p>
By the time my fellow parents were through with me, I was a complete wreck and thoroughly convinced that he was on track to becoming the next Andison. I made him apply to 11 schools.</p>
Glad you’ve recovered, though!!</p>
). She did not have the same high stats as OP but still had a successful run. So I would suggest that 11 is eminently doable.</p>