Match vs Reach

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think this is realistic for a student with high grades and scores. Many schools will look like matches but are actually reaches. We were told to consider anything with under a 15% acceptance rate (I think) a reach.

So if a high stats kid appears to be a fit based on the school-specific Naviance (e.g. Kid has Junior y.e. GPA of 4.3 and SAT of 1550 and therefore in the 25-75% range for most schools). High School's admitted range is higher than the published ranges for the colleges BTW. In this scenario, do you deem anything below a 15% admit rate a reach? Any suggestions on factoring in the scatterplot info. to derive probability of admission? For instance, the target college (even with 15% admit rate) may show that a few kids with better stats did not get in.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think this is realistic for a student with high grades and scores. Many schools will look like matches but are actually reaches. We were told to consider anything with under a 15% acceptance rate (I think) a reach.

So if a high stats kid appears to be a fit based on the school-specific Naviance (e.g. Kid has Junior y.e. GPA of 4.3 and SAT of 1550 and therefore in the 25-75% range for most schools). High School's admitted range is higher than the published ranges for the colleges BTW. In this scenario, do you deem anything below a 15% admit rate a reach? Any suggestions on factoring in the scatterplot info. to derive probability of admission? For instance, the target college (even with 15% admit rate) may show that a few kids with better stats did not get in.

NP. In my view, anything below 25% acceptance rate is reach-for-all territory. But, there are low/reasonable reaches and there are super-reaches.

Parsing between a low reach and a high match isn't particularly important as long as the family is realistic and there are plenty of low matches and safeties on the list, a solid plan for the real possibility that the student might not get into the low reach.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think this is realistic for a student with high grades and scores. Many schools will look like matches but are actually reaches. We were told to consider anything with under a 15% acceptance rate (I think) a reach.

So if a high stats kid appears to be a fit based on the school-specific Naviance (e.g. Kid has Junior y.e. GPA of 4.3 and SAT of 1550 and therefore in the 25-75% range for most schools). High School's admitted range is higher than the published ranges for the colleges BTW. In this scenario, do you deem anything below a 15% admit rate a reach? Any suggestions on factoring in the scatterplot info. to derive probability of admission? For instance, the target college (even with 15% admit rate) may show that a few kids with better stats did not get in.

NP. In my view, anything below 25% acceptance rate is reach-for-all territory. But, there are low/reasonable reaches and there are super-reaches.

Parsing between a low reach and a high match isn't particularly important as long as the family is realistic and there are plenty of low matches and safeties on the list, a solid plan for the real possibility that the student might not get into the low reach.

Makes sense.. Was looking for good rules of thumb (or is it rule of thumbs?)..

[Anonymous]

Many safeties are not safe, they are actually high matches.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reach = school where anyone applying has a less than 5% chance of acceptance, even if they are a 4.0/1600/All-State QB etc.

Nah. A read is student dependent. For almost anyone, MIT is a reach, but for some, JMU is a reach (Unhooked, 3.0 wgpa). My DD, a strong but not elite student,thought she applied to a reach ED. Looking at Naviance it was more of a match. It is also the right school for her personality. So, there was no reason to apply to a reach.

(she applied to 4 matches and 5 safeties); Matches were. W& M , VT, UIUC and Purdue. Safeties were Miami of Ohio, UDEL, Iowa State, Indiana, and Mich State.

She got good merit at most of the safeties and none of the matches.

In the end, the safeties all has costs similar to VT in state. But, she chose W & M.

So what was the ED school she applied to? If you thought it was actually a match based on Naviance, what do you think caused her to not get admitted?

I never said she was not admitted. The school was W & M.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Reach = school where anyone applying has a less than 5% chance of acceptance, even if they are a 4.0/1600/All-State QB etc.

Nah. A read is student dependent. For almost anyone, MIT is a reach, but for some, JMU is a reach (Unhooked, 3.0 wgpa). My DD, a strong but not elite student,thought she applied to a reach ED. Looking at Naviance it was more of a match. It is also the right school for her personality. So, there was no reason to apply to a reach.

(she applied to 4 matches and 5 safeties); Matches were. W& M , VT, UIUC and Purdue. Safeties were Miami of Ohio, UDEL, Iowa State, Indiana, and Mich State.

She got good merit at most of the safeties and none of the matches.

In the end, the safeties all has costs similar to VT in state. But, she chose W & M.

So what was the ED school she applied to? If you thought it was actually a match based on Naviance, what do you think caused her to not get admitted?

I never said she was not admitted. The school was W & M.

Sorry.. misunderstood that since you had grouped it under matches..