How do you determine safety/ targets for your kid?

[Anonymous]

OP, post your kid's stats (w&uw GPA, public/private/parochial, SAT/ACT, intended major). Let us know what type of school they want (location, size, public/private), and we will make a list for you free of charge. Honestly just search through threads on in the discussion forum. You will get a good idea of where kids are getting in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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

I completely agree. I think SCIOR/Naviance is a very helpful tool for seeing if your kid is in the ballpark for a school. Don't bother with history older than 2021. Ignore anyone who had a kid graduate in 2020 or before. Their advice is basically useless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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.

What did schools change last year?

[Anonymous]

Each high school has its own settings/configurations for Naviance. Often the scattergram data goes back years.

With test optional policies, you do not know whether a particular data point submitted the score. For that reason, Naviance may be more useful to get a feel for the GPAs a particular college is accepting from your high school, but with a massive grain of salt. A GPA isn't a transcript, doesn't show hooks, etc.

(And if it isn't clear, the Naviance designations of match and safety are beyond useless as they do not consider that low acceptance rate schools should not be matches/safeties for high stats students.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

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.

OP here, thats exactly my thought. the data in CDS is manipulated to make colleges look good. the GPAs are meaningless since they are calculated differently. the top percentiles are meaningless too because of the variables in different schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, post your kid's stats (w&uw GPA, public/private/parochial, SAT/ACT, intended major). Let us know what type of school they want (location, size, public/private), and we will make a list for you free of charge. Honestly just search through threads on in the discussion forum. You will get a good idea of where kids are getting in.

I honestly think it is not very productive to use the stats to come up with the list. I have another thread going on where I posted my kid's stats and most recommendations, I got were based on CDS data but the truth is every school is different, their relationship with colleges vary, they calculate GPAs differently., it doesnt account for ECs. In my opinion naviance and scoir data are the best to determine the list versus the generic data that colleges publish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Naviance/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.

What did schools change last year?

UVA changed significantly in ED/EA/RD admissions in Big 3 schools for unhooked high stats OOS. The rejections and WL we know of were vastly out of line with the past.

Tulane suddenly decided (at ED announcement time!) to inform everyone they were cutting back on how many ED acceptances they would give out. It would have been nice if they let kids know this BEFORE they applied ED.

And generally, most T30 schools were harder than in the past for ED/EA for unhooked DC private students we know. It was almost as if they decided to push back on any advantage a full pay student might be trying to get. (I don't have a problem with this in theory, but it would help to know of this shift in advance. And it was yet another change to add to the mix in 23 after changes in 20-22 from COVID, Test Optional, Surge in applicants)

I agree with the PP up thread, who stated that these tools are misleading without knowing hooks - especially at Big 3 with many hooked classmates. I wouldn't go as far as saying they are useless - but any Big 3 unhooked student needs to think carefully about what their targets truly are. Your hooked classmates will get those spots (even if grades/tests/rigor are lower). And, I don't mean HYPSM - this includes schools like Emory, USC, Tufts, U Cal schools, small liberal arts colleges.

Some exceptions:
Chicago ED still seemed in play for strong students.
Tufts ED from GDS looked strong (not at SFS though)
NYU, Georgetown acted somewhat typically based on past Naviance/SCOIR.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Naviance doesn’t account for test optional, athletic recruits, other hooks, or extracurriculars. It’s one step above useless.

Wrong. It is the best tool available for this purpose. Not perfect by any means, but name a better means for prediction of outcomes.

talking to college counselor about immediate prior class and cds. Counselors know what schools surprised them the previous year. Test optional in particular has made naviance worthless.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Also I like the calculator at college vine.

College Vine was quite accurate for my 2022 graduate.

+1

[Anonymous]

One thing that is helpful about Naviance is it tells you how few students are truly accepted. There are schools that never accept kids from our school. So I am advising my daughter to cross them off her list. For safeties, check out the ones who come to your college fairs. Those are the schools that are actively recruiting. They WANT students from your school to apply. Talk to them, build a relationship. They can put in a good word!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote: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?

People make fun of Niche, but I think getting a Niche log-in account was very helpful.

The truth is: My son did all the work. I just did the research I did because I enjoyed understanding what was going on.

Naviance didn’t show anything useful about any school but the state flagship.

The Niche log-in account was much better because it showed admissions scattergram by major. Even if those are based on partial, incomplete data, at least they give you a rough idea of how things work.

And, if you look at a school entry on Niche, it will then show you a list of similar schools.

I think another strategy is to think about where your kid might want to live and make the safeties non-selective schools in those communities.

Example: Many cities have nice, affordable Jesuit colleges that are hungry for applicants and have no brand awareness whatsoever outside of those cities. But everyone in one of those cities knows about the college and has warm thoughts about it. So, it might be a great option for a student who’d be happy to settle down in that city.

[Anonymous]

CDS is excellent starting point.

Targets should have admission rates of 25-30%+, your kid's stats should be 50%+.
Safety should have admission rates of 50-60%+, your kid's stats should be 75%+.
Also good to find 1 or 2 with acceptance rates of 75%+ and your kid's stats of 75%+.

All need to be schools your kid actually likes and would be excited to attend and that you can AFFORD.

Remember anything with less than 20-25% acceptance rate is a REACH for anyone. Nice to attempt, but never fall in love and except to actually get accepted

[Anonymous]

We used Naviance to get an idea of acceptances for his school, factored in that his school has magnet program that skews results, reviewed College Scorecard for average scores/GPA, again factored in that TO schools will have skewed test scores, slightly factored in unusual EC awards, and went from there. It's not a one and done kind of thing - every kid is different and the calculators may tell you whether you are in the ballpark but are, by no means, ultimate predictors.

[Anonymous]

We got a book like Princeton Review's guide to best colleges, and narrowed schools based upon my DD's preferences (size, urban vs rural, location, major etc).

That way, a first screen had been made in terms of quality, which we did not automatically equate with selectivity.

[Anonymous]

Also, when you find one school you like, a book like the Princeton Guide tells you other schools that are "like it" (in terms of where kids tend to cross apply).