@allboys4me, at a school with a 50% acceptance rate, you’re a match if your stats are around the median.
At a school with a 25% acceptance rate, you’re a match if you’re in the top 10% or so.
A school with a 10% acceptance rate won’t be a match for anyone (unless you have some strong hooks).
BTW, match to me means a 50% chance of getting in.
Please don’t misunderstand me, son did not apply to above schools assuming they were match schools. I understand what is considered a reach or a match - I am seriously curious as to what schools are considered legitimate match schools for the kids with 35/36 ACT or 2300+ SAT, high grades and strong ECs? If I were to use the above formula, as far as I can tell, there are no schools with a 50% acceptance rate and the median stats are as listed above. Not really sure what constitutes the top 10%, since most schools only break down by 25%?
I am not arguing that kids shouldn’t seek out and find safeties and matches that will be great fits for them (although I do think it bears repeating that not all states have flagships and honors programs), and certainly they should be encouraged to do so, and to place more emphasis on matches than reaches, and to realize that prestige can be deceptive, and so forth. But human nature is what it is, and people who have been dreaming, justifiably, of getting into the very best schools in the country can be pardoned for feeling disappointed. It’s not entitlement (though sometimes you see that, too) to look at the stats and know yours are more than competitive, and be surprised that none of your reaches, and sometimes even matches, came through. What with yield protection and Tufts syndrome, match results are getting to be just as unpredictable as reaches have traditionally been.
Even if the student himself is ok with his safety, it’s painful to continually have your answer to “where are you going to school?” be received with shock and disbelief; most people not currently going through the process are unaware of its competitiveness. My mother-in-law, despite having watched her various grandchildren be rejected at any number of schools, just doesn’t understand why we keep focusing on schools she’s never heard of. There’s a sting in that. Of course rejection is a life lesson, but life lessons are, by definition, not easy, and we shouldn’t expect our kids to simply brush off their feelings any more than we should encourage them to wallow in them. If a kid’s dog died, would you tell them that after all, dogs do die, and he should have expected it, and there’s plenty other dogs out there, just as good?
^ I personally hate it when people ask me that question, especially when all of the decisions haven’t come out yet.
Son Denied with 2280, 34 ACT #2 in his school… lots of activites, Varsity Sport… Denied JHU, Duke and now Tufts… Quite upsetting…
@marysidney Great post and I totally agree. We don’t even like to tell people about my son’s fantastic offer at U of Alabama (nearly a full ride!) because of the consistently negative/shocked feedback. I think it’s a knee-jerk reaction against the South, which I find really unfair. It’s actually a really nice school in a lovely little town that offers great scholarships to high-stats students! In my opinion, any high-stats student who does not have a good in-state public option to use as a safety should seriously consider U of Alabama as an ideal safety school. I’m super grateful that my son has that offer, but most people who are not going through this process don’t get it.
As for what is truly a match for these students, I have to say that in my opinion, schools like Tulane and U of Miami are the real matches. The reason is that kids in the 99th percentile are very likely to be accepted (though not guaranteed as you will see if you look at those threads!), and they are also likely to receive significant merit aid, which is a big factor for many families, including ours. Any school that has all top-notch students applying and has far too many applicants (Vanderbilt, Rice, etc.) is not a match for anyone, regardless of where a student’s stats fall as compared to the “averages” of the school.
A lot of people seem to expect that if a student has certain stellar stats they will automatically get into the ivies or super-selective schools. We had an adult friend tell me son that he had a 5 to 1 chance of getting into Stanford with his stats. That’s 5 chances in his favor! He was rejected from Stanford last week, so that gentleman was obviously wrong. And the students themselves seem to feel like they “deserve” to go to a “top school,” after putting in so much hard work and getting high test scores. But the fact is there are just too may 99th percentile students for the number of spots at these schools, so people have to be realistic and have a Plan B and a Plan C. My son was willing to apply to “safeties” but had no idea why I was encouraging him to apply to middle of the road private schools like U of Miami. Now he is glad we did.
University of Alabama looks beautiful to me…and it is free if you are smart.
Grats OP! I hope you have a great experience.
We have also wondered what the match schools are for 98-99th percentile students.
Son had state flagship as his safety. He would get a great education there.
We figured University of Rochester is a “match” but even so we aren’t sure if it offers extras not to be found at our in state option.
All the other schools son applied to seem like reaches. He has had one acceptance, one wait list and one rejection so far. Waiting on two more decisions this week.
I’m glad that I live in a place where Yale and UW-Madison would get the same reaction from most people (and the folks who would differentiate have kids or friends’ kids going through this process so understand how difficult it is these days).
Exactly @PurpleTitan! “match to me means a 50% chance of getting in.” A match is 50-50. Yes, you are qualified, but so is the kid next to you and only one of you is getting in. In fact, maybe neither of you will get in and it will be a couple kids over there in the other corner. I think many kids have a false sense of security around matches that leads them to disappointment. Of course, it will be hard to face these rejections even if you go in clear-eyed. It is brave of these kids to put themselves out there and tough to hear the doors slam. But they will increase their chances if they have a deep roster of matches and they show them as much love and care as they do their reaches.
I truly think that kids like mine, the B+/A- kids, have an easier time in the spring because they realized their limits in the fall.
@marysidney I think I understand what you are saying, and I do sympathize with those who planned well, planned strategically, and still came up on the short end. Two things I don’t quite get though.
When you say that a student feels their stats are “more than competitive,” there just is no such thing at the very top. If you have 5,000 kids with 34 ACTs competing for 500 slots, no one is going to be “more than competitive.” Many great football players aren’t going to make it into the NFL either. And only 500 people are going to be CEO of a Fortune 500 company at any given time. There are just too few slots. So it’s one thing for an applicant to dream, and cover his or her bases, IMO. But it’s another thing altogether when an applicant comes on CC and says something like I just don’t understand why I didn’t get in to my top 8 incredibly hyper-selective schools.
The other thing is “shock and disbelief” when a person hears that a student is going to school X. If someone is shocked and disbelieves that a great student is going to Ohio State, or Auburn, or Tufts instead of Harvard, or wherever, they simply have a prejudice, and that is their issue, not the student’s. My dad received a great education at Purdue. I doubt that anyone in his entire life ever reacted with “shock and disbelief” that that is where he went. So I would say that if a student is talking to someone like that, just politely excuse oneself and go talk to someone who is more knowledgeable and less prejudiced.
LeftofPisa, et al - My firstborn was a truly godawful student. He was on academic and/or disciplinary probation throughout secondary school. He applied to nine colleges, six of them auditioned theater programs. He was accepted to our state flagship arts-and-sciences college, an open-admission school, and one auditioned conservatory. He pitied all the kids he knew who did everything that they were supposed to do (and nothing they weren’t), but also ended up with only three acceptances. He left the conservatory, and is now at another large, public university. My younger son was a “good boy,” and did well, but not spectacularly. He was a B+/A- kid, like yours, who was gratified with a range of colleges - some prestigious, if not “top-tier,” but expensive; others with generous scholarship packages. Considering how tough the landscape is, my heart goes out to all those kids with perfect records, who worked so hard, and are going 1-for-10 in acceptances. Perhaps it’s time to let kids be kids, and not try to make them machines.
rejected from Northeastern, Tufts, Stanford, and waitlisted at Stevens Institute. I’m waiting on Cornell and Columbia tomorrow, or I’m just waiting for my two rejections that will make me 2 for 8
@midwestDad3: if a kid has stats above the 75% at every school to which he’s applying, I think he’s justified in thinking he’s “more than competitive.” I don’t mean he’s a lock, just that his scores are, in fact, higher than most accepted kids. Often a school will publish stuff like “40% of kids with SATs above 750 in CR are accepted.” So I think a kid with an SAT above 750 is justified in thinking his chances are better than someone whose score is lower. Not a lock, not an entitlement, but possibly higher than a hail mary application. They get it, intellectually, that that still means their chances are only 25 instead of 10 out of a hundred, but, as we see in lotteries across the country, people are inclined to view their chances optimistically. I think, too, that there’s a difference between somebody applying to all the tippy-tops because they’re tippy-tops, and someone who likes a particular school for a particular reason, and hopes to get in. In any case, I feel a lot of sympathy for kids who get rejected. I still remember how I felt when I got rejected from Yale! In hindsight, I know I did just fine, but I remember crying at the mailbox.
And it may be “their issue,” when people are shocked at a kid’s saying he’s going to school x, but the kid has to hear it, over and over. Especially kids who are recognized as the school leaders, the top kids, etc.: they know last year’s valedictorian went to Fabulous College, and year-before-that went to Outstanding University. It’s just tough to say, yeah, I’m going to State School. You can know all day long that State School has great opportunities, but you keep seeing That Face.
All I’m saying is that I feel for the kid who feels rejected. I want to tell them it’s going to be okay, it’s not their fault, not suck it up, life is hard.
I’m a mom.
Many of these high stat kids have also been bombarded with messages from teachers, family members who attended school decades ago, etc, about going to a selective school. I don’t think son or I have been met with shock when discussing the possibility of attending the state flagship, but many times people have said son should aim higher. It just adds to the pressure some kids feel.
Ivy Day is tomorrow. Good luck to everyone!
Yea, its a crazy system. What I’m finding is that people (aunt and a best friends mother, etc.) who don’t really know D’s exact stats but are aware of her academic ability/awards, etc. are now acting as though maybe someone, some time exagerated her abilities because she has been waitlisted from so many schools. I know that I am at fault a bit because when my Mom and Dad discussed the college arena with her we did think she would get accepted into many more schools on her list and that finances would be our obstacle ~ we were prepared for that. I feel bad that now she is left trying to explain (without really being able to) why a match school has passed her up.
If a kid has stats above 75% of the others applying to a school, it becomes more meaningless the more elite that you get. Say an applicant has a 35 ACT. Maybe the mid 50% at a school is 32 to 34. It’s not as meaningful as one might assume for the 35 because THEY ALL can do the work, 32 to 35. I think Yale has said that 90% of the applicants are qualified for admission.
So the adults have to start telling the high-stat kids to seriously study the common data sets, and to dig down deeper than a glance at the mid-50%. If the kids are smart enough to be applying to Yale they should be smart enough to understand that a 750 is not necessarily better than a 720, when many other factors are considered.
The problem that’s hard to explain to top kids whose test scores do put them into the upper 25% of those accepted, and they have top grades, are taking the most difficult courses they can, and have a strong EC proflie as well, is that there are more applicants who fall into that test score range,and with that profile,than there are accept spots. Not to mention that some of those spots are going to those from special pools and to students who have some hook, whether they are in that top 25% or not. That means that for those applying to those schools with those stats, there isn’t the same categorization of Safety, Match, Reach. The school is an auto-reach. There schools where the % of kids with a perfect test score are rejected makes that school a reach even for those kids with that 2400 SAT1 or 36 ACT.
And sometimes the top 25% thing can backfire too. I think there are a lot of colleges who want a kid that fits their profile, and don’t care to offer admission to high-stats students who are likely to think of it as a safety. I’m thinking of schools like American, where a quick read of the CC threads show a higher anecdotal acceptance rate for 3.7 students than 4.0+ students.