Did your children get admitted to colleges that you thought matched their stats?

[Anonymous]

Nope, my high stats kid attended their safety school last year.

-waitlisted at a super-reach, rejected from one other reach
-rejected from 2 targets, accepted at in-state flagship/honors - was a target but they wanted out of state
-accepted at 2 out of state safetys, went to one of them

Turns out my kid is very happy there!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Nope, my high stats kid attended their safety school last year.

-waitlisted at a super-reach, rejected from one other reach
-rejected from 2 targets, accepted at in-state flagship/honors - was a target but they wanted out of state
-accepted at 2 out of state safetys, went to one of them

Turns out my kid is very happy there!

Could you give a little background about generally which high school your kid attended (public/private, county, magnet, etc)

Many thanks and glad your kid is at a place where he/she is happy.

[Anonymous]

DS got into a school that we labeled a reach. Strategy played a big role in this I think.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS got into a school that we labeled a reach. Strategy played a big role in this I think.

So...what was the strategy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Where do you find 50 percentile SAT number? I only see 25th and 75th.

😳

I suspect people take the midpoint between 25th and 75th percentiles. That's not necessarily the 50th percentile, but it's easily derivable.

Common data sets sometimes list the average SAT score. This is also not necessarily the 50th percentile, but again, if the number is reported, it's easy to use.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS got into a school that we labeled a reach. Strategy played a big role in this I think.

So...what was the strategy?

Maybe labeling it a reach, even though another person looking at exactly the same child might have labeled it a match

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS got into a school that we labeled a reach. Strategy played a big role in this I think.

So...what was the strategy?

I meant approaching college admissions like the game it is with a strategy suited to your kid and situation. For us, our DS22 was very high stats but otherwise unhooked. We were full pay. His top goal was admission to a top 20 school that was a good fit. Our strategy was studying the admissions data from a handful of colleges to see where a good ED candidate was. He chose one of those where the data (both Naviance and the school’s) showed that his school admitted kids like him, similar stats and unhooked-ness. The data isn’t perfect but by triangulating it and backing out known factors, the data isn’t that bad. The strategy worked, though I imagine it could easily could have failed too. We did our best educated guessing and he played his cards.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS got into a school that we labeled a reach. Strategy played a big role in this I think.

So...what was the strategy?

Maybe labeling it a reach, even though another person looking at exactly the same child might have labeled it a match

So clever clever … people act like this stuff is unknowable. It isn’t. It’s somewhere between unknowable and perfectly knowable. The data is your friend. Study it, and you’ll be operating with all the facts you can.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS got into a school that we labeled a reach. Strategy played a big role in this I think.

So...what was the strategy?

I meant approaching college admissions like the game it is with a strategy suited to your kid and situation. For us, our DS22 was very high stats but otherwise unhooked. We were full pay. His top goal was admission to a top 20 school that was a good fit. Our strategy was studying the admissions data from a handful of colleges to see where a good ED candidate was. He chose one of those where the data (both Naviance and the school’s) showed that his school admitted kids like him, similar stats and unhooked-ness. The data isn’t perfect but by triangulating it and backing out known factors, the data isn’t that bad. The strategy worked, though I imagine it could easily could have failed too. We did our best educated guessing and he played his cards.

I meant to add that his admission was to a top 10 college. It’s a reach for anyone but we thought the strategy helped. He never would have gotten in RD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS got into a school that we labeled a reach. Strategy played a big role in this I think.

So...what was the strategy?

I meant approaching college admissions like the game it is with a strategy suited to your kid and situation. For us, our DS22 was very high stats but otherwise unhooked. We were full pay. His top goal was admission to a top 20 school that was a good fit. Our strategy was studying the admissions data from a handful of colleges to see where a good ED candidate was. He chose one of those where the data (both Naviance and the school’s) showed that his school admitted kids like him, similar stats and unhooked-ness. The data isn’t perfect but by triangulating it and backing out known factors, the data isn’t that bad. The strategy worked, though I imagine it could easily could have failed too. We did our best educated guessing and he played his cards.

I meant to add that his admission was to a top 10 college. It’s a reach for anyone but we thought the strategy helped. He never would have gotten in RD.

Which top 10 colleges still do ED?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS got into a school that we labeled a reach. Strategy played a big role in this I think.

So...what was the strategy?

Maybe labeling it a reach, even though another person looking at exactly the same child might have labeled it a match

T20s are always reaches.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DS got into a school that we labeled a reach. Strategy played a big role in this I think.

So...what was the strategy?

I meant approaching college admissions like the game it is with a strategy suited to your kid and situation. For us, our DS22 was very high stats but otherwise unhooked. We were full pay. His top goal was admission to a top 20 school that was a good fit. Our strategy was studying the admissions data from a handful of colleges to see where a good ED candidate was. He chose one of those where the data (both Naviance and the school’s) showed that his school admitted kids like him, similar stats and unhooked-ness. The data isn’t perfect but by triangulating it and backing out known factors, the data isn’t that bad. The strategy worked, though I imagine it could easily could have failed too. We did our best educated guessing and he played his cards.

I meant to add that his admission was to a top 10 college. It’s a reach for anyone but we thought the strategy helped. He never would have gotten in RD.

Which top 10 colleges still do ED?

A great example of how people fail to gather all the information that is readily available. You should not rely on this board for data collection.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You need to determine reaches, matches, and safeties on your own.

For grades, you can try to do some comparison by looking at your high school's Naviance scattergrams for particular colleges. Look at both weighted and unweighted GPAs. (Score info from these scattergrams is less useful now that most colleges are test optional, because you cannot tell whether the score for a particular data point was submitted or not.)

For scores, I would use the last year before test-optional policies became widespread. That would be college class of 2024, for which admission data is included in Common Data Set 2020-2021. You can usually find Common Data Sets for each year posted on the college's website, though not all colleges post their CDS.

Determining reaches, matches, and safeties is about more than matching the student's stats to the school; you also must consider acceptance rate. Find the most recent acceptance rate somewhere on the college's admission website, for college class of 2026, or see if it's listed here: https://www.collegekickstart.com/blog/item/class-of-2026-admission-results.

There is some disagreement on how to use acceptance rates for determining reaches, matches, and safeties. For a high-stats student: schools with acceptance rates <30% = reach, 30%-60% = match/target, >60% = safety. If the student does not have high stats (e.g. scores over the school's 75th percentile), then you need to adjust accordingly.

Honestly, under test optional policies, the uncertainty is simply greater than it was under the old test-required scenario, and this makes categorizing reaches, matches, and safeties that much more difficult. There is wisdom in a more conservative approach: have more targets and safeties than would have seemed necessary in the past.

Yes to all the advice here. In addition to Naviance and really looking at Common Data, I used this site https://www.bigjeducationalconsulting.com/resources to see the ED vs RD admission rates and how much a class is filled ED. A school could be a target if applying ED and a reach if applying RD.

For the most part, my child was admitted to colleges that matched their stats. Though it felt a little like reading the tea leaves to determine what was a true safety and match. It was a combination of how the student compares to other kids from their school applying to the college historically speaking and the track record of their school with that college. It’s also what the college says is very important, important, and considered (it’s in CDS and also Naviance) and if your child has a strength/edge in those categories. So if an interview is important and challenging coursework is important, if your child doesn’t interview and doesn’t take honors and AP that lowers the chances of getting in even if they had the same unweighted GPA as someone else. It’s also evaluating if there is a geographical or financial (need aware vs need blind) advantage for your child given the college and what is the the acceptance rate for the applicant pool your child is in I.e. ED, EA or RD. Finally, if applying to a special program or competitive major that can also change a safety vs target. So for example, if my child applies to Syracuse ED to major in history that may be a match but applying RD to the marquee program within Newome - that might be a reach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS is a rising senior in FCPS. 1520 SAT, 4.5 has about a dozen schools in T125 he has identified. Unfortunately he wants to study CS. Not sure ANY CS programs in T125 could be considered safeties.

With that GPA and SAT, he should be fine at several schools (subject to ECs and other nonsense like the right kind of minority, gender, hooks, etc.). Look at schools where CS is not a direct admit. Most private schools seem to be that way. Among top Publics, Michigan and UVA are not direct admits either. Both admit to the Engineering or Arts programs and the kid gets to decide after a year or so. The trick is to write about other things in the college app. For example, write about and sell the college on his passion for industrial engineering but once he is in, take courses related to CS. I've come across a couple of Stanford admits that went this route. One of them professed a love for English and Politics (worked on an election campaign to prove this interest) but did CS and currently works at Google. Game the game.

[Anonymous]

My kid got into an Ivy. Test optional, private school GPA 95, EC's fine but not spectacular. Legacy, but still: could have knocked me over with a feather. Stats predicted rejection.

And... kid turned it down, for a school ranked towards the bottom of the top 25. His logic: getting into the Ivy seemed like a fluke; he was worried about going to a school where he felt he would be one of the weaker students, surrounded by competitive maniacs. Felt he would be happier at the slightly less insanely competitive school.

Moral of this story: i don't know, but weird things do happen.