How do you determine safety/ targets for your kid?
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Anonymous
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How do you/ your kid/ counselor come up with a list of safety and target school? I am the OP in the other post asking for a reasonable list for my son. Based on the comments, it seems like most people don’t utilize their schools recent naviance/ Scoir data and mostly rely on CDS.
Just curious what data source do you use to come up with a list of safeties and targets? |
Anonymous
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Naviance/ Scoir data is helpful but we found errors. Plus, there were so many factors not included (sports, legacy, etc) and these are impo to admsisions.
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Anonymous
But even with these flaws, isn’t it the best data available to make that list versus CDS which is so generic and the numbers don’t have much relevance since there are so many variances. |
Anonymous
It depends... For one of my kids, it was probably the best data. Another kid got into plenty of schools which Naviance would have said were very unlikely. My other kid was a music major - Naviance is pretty useless. |
Anonymous
| Naviance doesn’t account for test optional, athletic recruits, other hooks, or extracurriculars. It’s one step above useless. |
Anonymous
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For one kid, with an unusual major, it was easy to narrow down by that. They wanted New England, and there were limited schools that had the major across the country, let alone within New England. We rejected schools that accepted 97% of applicants or similar (Suffolk, Johnson and Whales). U Mass Amherst became a safety, as did U of Vermont (which some will argue isn't a safety anymore, but for this high stats kid, it was).
The other child wanted a D1 school, not in the south. Priorities were big football schools like U MI and Penn State (IMO dumb reason to choose a school, but it's their life, not mine). This child was also super bright with excellent test scores/GPA. Schools on the list included Vanderbilt, NorthWestern, U MI. So, D1 schools for safetys, not in the south included Penn State and Pitt. Penn State was ruled out after a visit - they didn't like that it was in such a rural area. Which left Pitt, which they wiuld have been happy to attend - it was their #2 choice had they not gotten in to #1 choice. Pitt also has rolling admission, so after getting in early (maybe even Sept), they were more relaxed about the admissions process. You have to follow your child's lead, no matter what you think of their choices. Visit big schools and small, rural and urban, and start from there. If they know what they want to do, look for it. If they don’t, look at larger schools with lots of options for them to try. The safetys have to be somewhere they'd actually be happy attending, and, you can afford, in case their targets and reaches are actually total crap shoots and they don't get in (happening to a lot of kids). |
Anonymous
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We used a combo
CDS better - spells out the raw acceptance facts Naviance not great for a bunch of reasons however it gave an initial ballpark feel of if in range, and history (albeit not completely accurate) of how much a college seems to "like" the high school based on past acceptances |
Anonymous
| Navi acne/Scoir was not a good predictor for my high stats DC in 2023. Safeties worked out but target not at all. Many Schools changed things up last year. |
Anonymous
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CDS and acceptance %, but it is not perfect science.
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Anonymous
| We determined safety to be 60%+ acceptance rate AND 75th+ percentile in SAT. Also used College Vine which was surprisingly accurate. Referenced Naviance but with 8 years of data, we took with a grain of salt. Be aware of competitive majors. Not scientific, but no real surprises. |
Anonymous
Wrong. It is the best tool available for this purpose. Not perfect by any means, but name a better means for prediction of outcomes. |
Anonymous
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Look at schools CDS and "By the Numbers" or similar page to get 50% for GPA & SAT and overall acceptance rates.
A safety would be where your kids stats are near the 75th percentile and the acceptance rate is greater than 80%. Apply to 3 or 4 of these and your kid will get into at least one. A target would be where your kid is in th50th percentile or greater and the school has an acceptance rate of 45-50% or better. Apply to 3 or 4 of these and your kid will mot likely get into at least one. If you are not URM or ADLC everything else is a reach these days. If you have a particular skill/talent they need that admission cycle like tuba player in the school band, your chances improve, otherwise a crapshoot. |
Anonymous
That was ours too, but it is completely useless at most schools now. When you look at the CDS and it says 1400 is the 25th percentile, you think, wow that's going to be a hard school to get into; then you see only 20% of students submitted SATs, which means the 1400 is actually more like the 75th percentile. GPA is even worse because lots of schools leave the whole section blank. The only one that sort of helps is the acceptance rate, but that too is misleading when considering niche versus super popular schools. |
Anonymous
| Also I like the calculator at college vine. |
Anonymous
College Vine was quite accurate for my 2022 graduate. |