Reply to Reach vs. Possibility vs. Safety?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Reach vs. Possibility vs. Safety?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]     Two answers here -- first, what is a safety or match  depends on your own risk tolerance.  In my book, a safety should be someplace that is close to 100% for your child, but for most DCUM kids a school that takes everyone applying is a school (the old city university system in NY, for example) they wouldn't attend at all, so you need to allow for some theoretical margin of error.

Second, here is what we learned recently.   If your school has Naviance, use that to get the grades/SATs of accepted/rejected students.  Ask around if recent grads applying there who got in were athletes, minority students, etc. and depending on your own child then bump up or down the odds a bit accordingly.  IF your child is a boy, figure your odds are slightly better than average and a girl a bit worse (unless applying as an engineer type).  Finally -- and this will be hard until you get closer to senior year -- look at own child's whole package /story.  If it fits together for a school and your child can produce good college essays, give a bump up.  If your child will throw applications together last minute and submit first or second draft essays, bump down.  These and other things can show your interest in a school, and for many (not all) schools that counts a lot.   Except for the  most selective schools which are a reach for everyone as the pp noted, the schools acceptance rates are a bit better in reality than they appear b/c (1) some kids throw in an app that don't come close to fitting the profile; (2) some kids just don't put as much effort into the apps as others, and that effort shows and stands out; and (3) thin about how strong the teacher recs will be for the child applying to that particular type of school.   I know this doesn't help you with figuring out percentage cutoffs, but the point is that your percentage odds of admission vary based on a number of factors and it's probably too early for you to be able to really evaluate closely.  You need to necessarily start broad and then narrow once you get closer to seeing test scores and grades for starters.  Good luck.[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics