<p>How do I know/decide which colleges are Safety choice,which are match and which are reach?
How many colleges of each category would you advise me to apply.Just to be sure</p>
<p>a simple way would be to check the average or 25th/75th percentiles for SAT/GPA for your school and see where you fit in. </p>
<p>safety - you have better numbers
match - the same
reach - below</p>
<p>Do not forget your financial safety schools. Make your parents sit down with the college financial aid calculators at the College Board website so that they can figure out just what the schools will expect them to be able to pay. Be a real pest about this. Be a real pest about making them get real about how much they truly are able to and willing to pay. Don’t whine one bit if you find out they can/will pay a lot less than you had hoped. The economy is lousy and is going to get worse. If you know your family’s financial truth now, you will be way ahead next year.</p>
<p>I also calculate safety, match, and reach using acceptance rates. You don’t have to, but for me, even if I am above the 75th percentile, I won’t consider any school that accepts less than 40% of students a match. My safeties are all 60% and above. I do this to help stem the grief during “rejection period” and to make my list more realistic.</p>
<p>good point applicannot</p>
<p>the schools i ended up applying to consisted of 4 safety and 6 reach (going by acceptance rates), and i got into my safeties and 1 reach :/</p>
<p>How many colleges would you suggest to apply to</p>
<p>I was above Grinnell’s 75th percentile ACT scores and I was still waitlisted, so that isn’t a great indicator.</p>
<p>i meant a simple way as in a basic indicator. i was above the 75th percentile for most of my schools but i still got rejected from half of them.</p>
<p>for reach and match schools, you always always always need to be strong all around to have any shot at getting in, and measuring yourself testwise and gradewise is a good start to make sure you are at least competitive.</p>
<p>Test scores, GPA, and other statistical figures aren’t the best indicators, you’re right. But when it comes down to calculating other factors, it’s a game of chance. No one can predict how a college’s admissions process will be each year. That’s why, for me, it’s important to look at acceptance rates. For example, not only am I WAY above the 75th percentile for my safety schools, each of them accepts over 70% of applicants. That makes me feel pretty comfortable. Similarly, I’m at 75th or above for my match schools, all of which except between 50% and 60% of students. This factor helps to make up for the fact that the admissions process is a bit of a toss up.</p>
<p>I’m applying to six schools. I think that’s a reasonable number. Plus, it’s the maximum number of schools you can send FAFSA to at a single time. When people apply to ten or more, I have to wonder A) where did they get that much money from? B) are they just applying to schools they have almost no chance of getting into? and C) do they even like the schools? Applying to 10+ schools isn’t a BAD thing by any means, but it might be more worth it to narrow down the list.</p>
<p>Future13- it’s different for everyone. My high school suggests everyone apply to at least 10- (roughly) 3 safeties, 3 matches, and 3 reaches, plus 1 more. I applied to 2 safeties, 5 matches, and 4 reaches (I got in to all of my safeties and matches and 1 reach; waitlisted at 1 reach; rejected at 2 reaches). I’d say 10 is a pretty good number, but if you’ve come up with 9 and can’t think of a 10th, don’t worry.</p>
<p>Some people will say 5-8 is enough, some people will apply to 12 or more, and some people will only apply to the one safety school that they know they want to go to (and EA/ED so if they’re deferred/rejected they can apply elsewhere just to be sure). My school personally recommends 5-8, 1-2 safeties, 3-4 matches, and 1-2 reaches.</p>
<p>Personally I’m applying to 2 safeties, a match/low reach, and 2 reaches early action. So say I get into one or both safeties, then I don’t have to worry about applying to any more safeties in January. I can then focus on more matches and reaches. If I get into my match or one of my reaches early action, then that’s even better because then I can apply to less matches/reaches. Right now I’m looking at 4 additional matches/low reaches and 2-4 additional high reaches for regular action.</p>
<p>Let me add something - I STRONGLY encourage you guys to apply to several schools early action. It will make it much easier to apply to regular action schools and can even reduce the number of schools that you apply to. You shouldn’t do early decision in my opinion - there’s always a chance that you’ll change your mind.</p>
<p>With regards to applying to so many schools and the cost, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with applying to a dozen schools if you can justify the reasons for each school and aren’t just applying for the heck of it. As for the cost, $60-70 per app isn’t that much in the scheme of things. Tuition at some schools is $50,000+. If paying $800 for apps instead of $600 means that I go somewhere that I really want to go, then it’s justified IMO, and my parents feel the same way. Again you should have a good reason for applying to a large number of schools.</p>
<p>it really isn’t a true safety if the schools rejects more applicants than it accepts.</p>
<p>the way i approached the process was first by realizing i was not totally sure what i wanted. i knew i wanted to major in engineering, so i picked solid engineering schools, but other than that, i looked at a broad range of schools, because most other factors didn’t really matter to me (climate, size, etc). </p>
<p>actually, when i was picking which schools to apply to, i didn’t even have the whole safety/match/reach thing in mind, though i probably should have, i could have saved a bunch of money by not applying to a couple of the reach schools.</p>
<p>anyways, my reasoning for picking so many was so that i would (hopefully) be accepted by several, and then i could make my choices from there. i figured that out of 10, i might get into 6 or 7, and i didn’t want to pick 6 for fear of only getting into a couple of them.</p>
<p>I would go. State (unless top) = true safety
75%= safety
50%=Match
25%=Reach</p>
<p>That being said even top at ivy will not make it a safety for everyone. This applies to schools which do not apply the holistic method.</p>