<p>I'm not entirely clear on what their methodology is. I certainly hope they aren't basing this on self reported scores. Do they take into account the EC's and other factors they make you check off, or is it just GPA vs. SAT/ACT scores?</p>
<p>And I know that college admissions are holistic, test scores and grades aren't everything, there's no numerical predictor, etc, etc. - but given the information they have to work with, and given that a probability range hardly contradicts the existence of holistic variables, how accurate would you say these sites' algorithms are? Are they, as I may suspect, too generous?</p>
<p>I don’t see how they can base their accuracy on anything other than the self reported test scores, GPA, and standing. If ECs are counted then it would just be a quantity and nothing about quality. I can’t imagine that they have some supercomputer that can think holistically so the easiest would be those self reported numbers, possibly weighted, to calculate against last years reported numbers.</p>
<p>Of course not only are those self reported numbers subject to error but they could also be old. Scores from 10 years ago may not accurately reflect current trends.</p>
<p>So I would have to say that they have a large margin of error but not sure if it would err on the generous side or not.</p>
<p>I believe they are based on self-reported scores but I don’t think that makes the sites useless. For starters, the majority of school admissions aren’t holistic. They admit based on grades and test scores. For the most holistic and competitive schools, they tend to tell you that there is more information used for admission.</p>
<p>I haven’t spent any time on Parchment as I did hear often that they lean towards inflated chances but my daughter used Cappex during the research stage and I spent some time looking around it myself. For the most part, the “middle range” reported by Cappex was inline with the individual schools published common data set. The schools they considered reaches are indeed reaches. The schools that showed as safeties are indeed safeties. The schools that showed her as a solid candidate have indeed been so. Financial aid predictor is rough but in the ball park of net-price calculators on individual college sites.</p>
<p>Certainly, it’s imperfect but I will say that Cappex tuned my daughter into several schools she never would have heard about and that she’s quite excited to be applying to. How accurate? Well, I would never tell a kid to apply or not apply based on those numbers alone but as a research tool to initially find possibilities in your academic and financial range… pretty good.</p>