<p>You say that these schools are not your first choice. </p>
<p>Do you have access to Naviance from your school? </p>
<p>If you do, use the following algorithm: </p>
<ol>
<li>Rank the schools in order of your preference</li>
<li>For each school, using Naviance, estimate your probability of getting in. Round to the nearest 10%. </li>
<li>For each school calculate YOUR probability of attending there. This is the probability of getting in times the probability of getting rejected by all higher choices. </li>
</ol>
<p>Now you should know the most likely schools to attend. </p>
<p>If you have a reach as your 4th or 5th choice, where the probability of attending is really small, say 2%, it doesn’t seem worth it to spend a lot (or any) of your time on it. </p>
<p>This is just a rough algorithm, but the idea is to figure out how to allocate your time and energy.</p>
<p>Make sure that you have two safeties.</p>