Don't listen to any advice from anyone based on the pre-pandemic admissions process. It's a whole new ball game these days.

Be painfully realistic as you rank your kid's chances. It's always better to be pleasantly surprised than to be disappointed. Remember that any school with less than 20% acceptance rates is a reach for EVERYONE, no matter how amazing their stats or profile.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Can someone name a handful of “likely/safeties” that very good stats kids would really like (looking at kids who would not seriously be considered at a top 25 school - so 4.0ish). For example, South Carolina seemed like a “favorite safety” from DS’s school last year (but I do not know what their stats).

A school that one very good stats kid might really like, another such kid might hate. You have to specify the size of the school the kid prefers (big state flagship, SLAC, etc.), what parts of the country the kid is open to (e.g. won't consider a school in the Midwest), and so on.

Not an SEC school, not SLAC, not small (> about 10,000 ), at least close to a town/ major airport.

Recapping--if you have a high stats kid, apply Pitt, Northeastern, and Tulane. The last two EA (might be some yield protection these days but it helped my kids--all of them got them and was big stress relief). Did not do Pitt but that is common here.

Then if high stats with no hook--ED low tier ivy--Dartmouth, Penn, Cornell (not brown). Not HYP. Not even Columbia which is one notch below HYP. Dartmouth or Cornell best chance. Can also ED like Hopkins, Chicago, or Northwestern. Lot of high stat kids get into Chicago and Northwestern from this area.

Having three kids at Ivy (not HYP but will take it in this day and age with no hooks), this is what I learned.

Anonymous wrote:Can someone name a handful of “likely/safeties” that very good stats kids would really like (looking at kids who would not seriously be considered at a top 25 school - so 4.0ish). For example, South Carolina seemed like a “favorite safety” from DS’s school last year (but I do not know what their stats).

A school that one very good stats kid might really like, another such kid might hate. You have to specify the size of the school the kid prefers (big state flagship, SLAC, etc.), what parts of the country the kid is open to (e.g. won't consider a school in the Midwest), and so on.

Several on DS list happen to be rolling so I am going to encourage him to apply as soon as they open in August (he is a junior). My one concern is his HS counseling says to allow "at least three weeks" for all rolling admission schools for transcripts, etc. to be sent and there is very little action in the summer months so he might have to wait until September for them to be complete.

Anonymous wrote:Great suggestions in this thread, thanks.

Did any of you encourage your student to include rolling admission schools on their likely list, and apply to them as early as possible?

PITT is it.

Can someone name a handful of “likely/safeties” that very good stats kids would really like (looking at kids who would not seriously be considered at a top 25 school - so 4.0ish). For example, South Carolina seemed like a “favorite safety” from DS’s school last year (but I do not know what their stats).

Great suggestions in this thread, thanks.

Did any of you encourage your student to include rolling admission schools on their likely list, and apply to them as early as possible?

You will be fine. SEC with those stats is easy other than Vanderbilt. Look for scholarship money from Alabama.

Anonymous wrote:OP analysis would be a lot better with stats.

Current Junior

Latino
3.9 UW
No Test Scores yet (taking SAT in March)
Jv/Varsity football since Freshman year
JV basketball 10th grade
PT jobs in summer
No volunteer activities in 9th due to covid. Some last year (special olympics and HS booster club), but planning on much more once football season is over in December.

Looking at mostly large state schools in the SEC, with a couple others thrown in once he finds matches and likelies.

A lot of this has to do with your child's major.

In CS, schools that are strong matches or very feasible reaches become high unlikely. My son was only accepted to safeties which he only applied to because they thought they might offer full merit rides based on his credentials. And we had looked at all the numbers- when you have a near perfect SAT and GPA everything (except Naviance) will tell you you are a strong match for everything all the way to the ivys. Naviance will at least show you that your school isnt favored by the top tier even with kids with very good scores. However Naviance also told us that he was a likely shoe in for all matches - he got into none of them because of the competitiveness of the major. If you are in a major like this, the general acceptance rates are worthless. I'd probably look at Naviance to see if you school is just overall disliked by the college and then for those where your school is not banned through history, look at college confidential threads and see who go in for your major last year and what their stats were.

If you are are in a regular major you probably dont have to go to this trouble.

Anonymous wrote: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.

Tulane EA and Northeastern EA was a good idea. Now not likely to get in EA. These schools now will only mostly accept ED kids bc they know most kids try the EA approach to have some acceptances in place.

Match: likely to get in with your stats, probably right around the 50th percentile
Safety: very unlikely to get rejected


Almost all schools with <25% acceptance rate are reaches and >75% acceptance rates are almost all safeties

Anonymous wrote:

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.

That is the exact point! Find several True Safeties and good target schools and help your kid fall in love with those. Then apply to a few reaches if desired. But this way you have several schools your kid will love to attend and they will actually get accepted at some of those.
People who don't do this are often extremely disappointed in March/April.

My own kid put one True Safety in their final 3 choices. Ultimately picked a different School, but did so after considering all aspects of the schools. It was in their until the final few days.

OP analysis would be a lot better with stats.