Anonymous
Post 09/06/2022 10:37     Subject: Target/Match vs. Likely/Safety
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:DS went through this last year, and I too was freaking out at finding any safeties. On the advice of a private college counselor, we defined a safety as a college that (a) had an admit rate of >60%, (b), where DS's GPA and SATs were >75th percentile, and (c) where DS would happily attend. That was by far the hardest and most time-consuming part of making his college list.

In the end, he was admitted to all of his safeties, all of his matches, and 1 of his reaches. He chose the reach school, a Top 10 USNWR college and is happy there. Looking back, we think we were more worried than was warranted. Sure, there are kids who are locked out, but most kids do fine. I think the best advice is to make room in your plans for the chance that your kid will be the one who is locked out, but don't abandon all logic.

Good advice. Those schools--and you should have at least three of them--are sometimes called "foundational schools" for a reason: they're the most important part of your school list. Time is much better spent finding likelies you'd be excited to attend than trying to game out which highly-rejective schools to chase.


Absolutely. Follow the definition above, DD now has two "highly likelies" she loves so much she's not sure she'd pick her reach over them. It's definitely making the process less stressful for her.
Anonymous
Post 09/06/2022 10:31     Subject: Target/Match vs. Likely/Safety
Anonymous wrote:Target/match: overall acceptance rate is better than 20% and they admit MOST students like you.

Likely/safety: they admit ALL students like you.

Best way to figure this out is look at the green check marks on Naviance. Ignore outliers.


My thought is that:

Target schools are schools that are the best fit for the applicant. Target schools may be in any category of reach, match, likely, or safety.

Match schools are more focused on matching stats of the applicant with the 50% to 75% or higher stats of the college or university and admit over 25% of all applicants who apply under similar guidelines (EA, ED, or RD).

Likely schools admit over 50% of applicants with similar stats.

Safety schools are schools to which the applicant is almost certain to receive an offer of admittance.
Anonymous
Post 09/06/2022 10:29     Subject: Target/Match vs. Likely/Safety
Anonymous wrote:DS went through this last year, and I too was freaking out at finding any safeties. On the advice of a private college counselor, we defined a safety as a college that (a) had an admit rate of >60%, (b), where DS's GPA and SATs were >75th percentile, and (c) where DS would happily attend. That was by far the hardest and most time-consuming part of making his college list.

In the end, he was admitted to all of his safeties, all of his matches, and 1 of his reaches. He chose the reach school, a Top 10 USNWR college and is happy there. Looking back, we think we were more worried than was warranted. Sure, there are kids who are locked out, but most kids do fine. I think the best advice is to make room in your plans for the chance that your kid will be the one who is locked out, but don't abandon all logic.


OP here- I think one of my main concerns is he is mostly interested in big state schools that have a low acceptance rate for OOS students. The posted acceptance rates may seem higher but once you add in the OOS factor, it definitely is much lower.
Anonymous
Post 09/06/2022 10:26     Subject: Target/Match vs. Likely/Safety
Anonymous wrote:DS went through this last year, and I too was freaking out at finding any safeties. On the advice of a private college counselor, we defined a safety as a college that (a) had an admit rate of >60%, (b), where DS's GPA and SATs were >75th percentile, and (c) where DS would happily attend. That was by far the hardest and most time-consuming part of making his college list.

In the end, he was admitted to all of his safeties, all of his matches, and 1 of his reaches. He chose the reach school, a Top 10 USNWR college and is happy there. Looking back, we think we were more worried than was warranted. Sure, there are kids who are locked out, but most kids do fine. I think the best advice is to make room in your plans for the chance that your kid will be the one who is locked out, but don't abandon all logic.

Good advice. Those schools--and you should have at least three of them--are sometimes called "foundational schools" for a reason: they're the most important part of your school list. Time is much better spent finding likelies you'd be excited to attend than trying to game out which highly-rejective schools to chase.
Anonymous
Post 09/06/2022 10:19     Subject: Target/Match vs. Likely/Safety
Anonymous wrote:DS went through this last year, and I too was freaking out at finding any safeties. On the advice of a private college counselor, we defined a safety as a college that (a) had an admit rate of >60%, (b), where DS's GPA and SATs were >75th percentile, and (c) where DS would happily attend. That was by far the hardest and most time-consuming part of making his college list.

In the end, he was admitted to all of his safeties, all of his matches, and 1 of his reaches. He chose the reach school, a Top 10 USNWR college and is happy there. Looking back, we think we were more worried than was warranted. Sure, there are kids who are locked out, but most kids do fine. I think the best advice is to make room in your plans for the chance that your kid will be the one who is locked out, but don't abandon all logic.


This is excellent advice.

Curious-- did you DS get a lot of Waitlists?
Anonymous
Post 09/06/2022 10:12     Subject: Target/Match vs. Likely/Safety
DS went through this last year, and I too was freaking out at finding any safeties. On the advice of a private college counselor, we defined a safety as a college that (a) had an admit rate of >60%, (b), where DS's GPA and SATs were >75th percentile, and (c) where DS would happily attend. That was by far the hardest and most time-consuming part of making his college list.

In the end, he was admitted to all of his safeties, all of his matches, and 1 of his reaches. He chose the reach school, a Top 10 USNWR college and is happy there. Looking back, we think we were more worried than was warranted. Sure, there are kids who are locked out, but most kids do fine. I think the best advice is to make room in your plans for the chance that your kid will be the one who is locked out, but don't abandon all logic.
Anonymous
Post 09/06/2022 10:07     Subject: Re:Target/Match vs. Likely/Safety
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:OP here- with TO it seems that the test scores of admitted students will be skewed much higher because only kids with high test scores will be submitting them, right? And I have heard that Naviance is only as good as how up to date your school admin keeps it, correct?

I hope the SATS scores are skewing high and will come back to earth before my 10 & 11th graders apply. The 11th grader is practice testing around 1390 & with a weighted 4.0, and against current college stats, his “safeties” are looking more like super “reaches”. Regarding naviance, the high schools I’m aware of are good at keeping that up to date.


I hope so too (for my 11th grader) but realistically the only way that will happen is if more schools (like MIT) revert to non-optional. So many schools have not announced their plans for the fall 2023 application cycle (current juniors) -- BC and Villanova are two that come to mind -- so I'll be curious to see whether they, or schools of similar selectivity, start requiring scores again.
Anonymous
Post 09/06/2022 10:02     Subject: Re:Target/Match vs. Likely/Safety
Anonymous wrote:OP here- with TO it seems that the test scores of admitted students will be skewed much higher because only kids with high test scores will be submitting them, right? And I have heard that Naviance is only as good as how up to date your school admin keeps it, correct?

I hope the SATS scores are skewing high and will come back to earth before my 10 & 11th graders apply. The 11th grader is practice testing around 1390 & with a weighted 4.0, and against current college stats, his “safeties” are looking more like super “reaches”. Regarding naviance, the high schools I’m aware of are good at keeping that up to date.
Anonymous
Post 09/06/2022 09:57     Subject: Target/Match vs. Likely/Safety
True Safety/Likley is some place that naviance says you have 70 percent and a lot of admits. Or a school where you are 75% on stats. Test optional has made this harder but still only thing going. Target/Match is some place you are at 50 percent of stats or a school like a 30 plus acceptance rate. If you have a stats kid, good schools to apply to are Tulane, Northeastern for EA. Other similar schools would be GW, BU, etc. That's a good bucket. Apply EA to Tulane and Northeastern. We knew early our kids were going to a decent school when they did EA Tulane and Northeastern. If high stats no hook, ED lower tier Ivy or Chicago.
Anonymous
Post 09/06/2022 09:54     Subject: Re:Target/Match vs. Likely/Safety
OP here- with TO it seems that the test scores of admitted students will be skewed much higher because only kids with high test scores will be submitting them, right? And I have heard that Naviance is only as good as how up to date your school admin keeps it, correct?
Anonymous
Post 09/06/2022 09:50     Subject: Target/Match vs. Likely/Safety
Agree that Likely/Safeties are really hard now with Test Optional. Every year the mid-range SATs are going to go up and up.

The other day I was on a different board and someone was asking for Likely ideas for her DD, who was freaking beyond exceptional. You would not believe the schools people were saying "No, you can't say that's a Safety". Scary part-- they're not wrong.

The first PP described what you are looking for, OP. But it may be better to accept that Likely might just be school with an extremely high acceptance rate, no matter who you are.

TO, plus yield protection, plus weird covid years/gap years have made this all very hard.

Curious what others think. Am I overstating it?
Anonymous
Post 09/06/2022 09:37     Subject: Target/Match vs. Likely/Safety
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Target/match: overall acceptance rate is better than 20% and they admit MOST students like you.

Likely/safety: they admit ALL students like you.

Best way to figure this out is look at the green check marks on Naviance. Ignore outliers.


I think Naviance has become less useful since schools went TO.


less useful than it was, but still more useful than anything else out there.

Anonymous
Post 09/06/2022 09:32     Subject: Target/Match vs. Likely/Safety
Anonymous wrote:Target/match: overall acceptance rate is better than 20% and they admit MOST students like you.

Likely/safety: they admit ALL students like you.

Best way to figure this out is look at the green check marks on Naviance. Ignore outliers.


I think Naviance has become less useful since schools went TO.
Anonymous
Post 09/06/2022 09:30     Subject: Target/Match vs. Likely/Safety
Target/match: overall acceptance rate is better than 20% and they admit MOST students like you.

Likely/safety: they admit ALL students like you.

Best way to figure this out is look at the green check marks on Naviance. Ignore outliers.
Anonymous
Post 09/06/2022 09:20     Subject: Target/Match vs. Likely/Safety
Wondering what stats or criteria differentiate the two. I remember seeing somewhere to look at UW GPA and test scores and compare to admitted students scores and depending on where student falls it is a reach/target/likely. Can someone clarify if you know what I am trying to explain?