So, OP, can you clarify, has your son decided to add targets and safeties, or still going with a list that is entirely comprised of reaches?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The List should be built from the bottom up

Love thy Safety. Not only -- find a Safety but find several Safeties so there's no doubt the student has choices

It's only a true Safety 1) if you can afford it 2) once they get in. Consider EA or Rolling Admission. And realize "the process" can to on-going. Hear from some, adjust the list.

Such an important piece. OP - if your student only has T25 schools on their list, can you afford those if he does get in? Have you been honest about your budget, understand what they might offer in financial aid, understand that that schools don't offer merit aid (outside of a very few, highly competitive awards at some schools)?

We understood that we'd be full pay at those schools but our budget was about $40k so both kids only applied to UVA and W&M as reaches. You don't get good merit aid at a reach.

Op here. Yes, we can afford to full pay. Cost is not a deciding factor as we always planned and expected to pay for private college tuition. UVA is the only public my child will probably apply to.

Took off all red states

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your DC has very high stats (top 5% of class, most rigorous classes and 1500+ SAT) and also hopes to go to a highly rejective college, they might be in the zone where they decide to apply to a lot of colleges. It’s a numbers game, and while there is a lot of correlation among acceptances, the more applications, the higher the chances.

If that’s your kid’s hope, then tune out all the people who will surely respond here that there’s no point. When they say if you’re rejected by Harvard you’re also likely to be rejected by Yale. What matters more is that your kid is likely to be rejected by each of these schools, but the more applications, the higher their chances.

Mathematically, this poster’s statement is untrue. Each school is its own “lottery,” so applying to more schools doesn’t increase one’s odds at any particular school. What is fair - and perhaps the poster’s intent - is that even among the best schools AOs may be looking for slightly different candidates or have somewhat different applicant pools. In that case, applying to more schools may increase a kid’s chance of hitting one where their combination of achievements fits what the school is looking for. That is to say, the odds of your kid “fitting” a desired profile at various schools may be different at different schools.

Actually, mathematically it is technically true since admission are independent events. However, this fact and formula are USELESS at highly competitive colleges as (unlike sides of a die) you cannot ever know your individual chance at any one college. Consistent with the mathematical formula, if your chances are zero at all 8 ivies (for example), then your chances do not increase when you apply to 8 instead of 1.

I think you said the same thing as the poster you responded to.

Yes and no.

I disagreed that the chances don't increase, because according to the law of independent events, they do.

I did agree that it is a useless formula to use, even though the math concept is true.

Anonymous wrote:The List should be built from the bottom up

Love thy Safety. Not only -- find a Safety but find several Safeties so there's no doubt the student has choices

It's only a true Safety 1) if you can afford it 2) once they get in. Consider EA or Rolling Admission. And realize "the process" can to on-going. Hear from some, adjust the list.

Such an important piece. OP - if your student only has T25 schools on their list, can you afford those if he does get in? Have you been honest about your budget, understand what they might offer in financial aid, understand that that schools don't offer merit aid (outside of a very few, highly competitive awards at some schools)?

We understood that we'd be full pay at those schools but our budget was about $40k so both kids only applied to UVA and W&M as reaches. You don't get good merit aid at a reach.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your DC has very high stats (top 5% of class, most rigorous classes and 1500+ SAT) and also hopes to go to a highly rejective college, they might be in the zone where they decide to apply to a lot of colleges. It’s a numbers game, and while there is a lot of correlation among acceptances, the more applications, the higher the chances.

If that’s your kid’s hope, then tune out all the people who will surely respond here that there’s no point. When they say if you’re rejected by Harvard you’re also likely to be rejected by Yale. What matters more is that your kid is likely to be rejected by each of these schools, but the more applications, the higher their chances.

Mathematically, this poster’s statement is untrue. Each school is its own “lottery,” so applying to more schools doesn’t increase one’s odds at any particular school. What is fair - and perhaps the poster’s intent - is that even among the best schools AOs may be looking for slightly different candidates or have somewhat different applicant pools. In that case, applying to more schools may increase a kid’s chance of hitting one where their combination of achievements fits what the school is looking for. That is to say, the odds of your kid “fitting” a desired profile at various schools may be different at different schools.

Actually, mathematically it is technically true since admission are independent events. However, this fact and formula are USELESS at highly competitive colleges as (unlike sides of a die) you cannot ever know your individual chance at any one college. Consistent with the mathematical formula, if your chances are zero at all 8 ivies (for example), then your chances do not increase when you apply to 8 instead of 1.

I think you said the same thing as the poster you responded to.

'21 kid- 17. Accepted 15, denied 1, WL then accepted 1.

'22 kid- 8. Accepted 8

The List should be built from the bottom up

Love thy Safety. Not only -- find a Safety but find several Safeties so there's no doubt the student has choices

It's only a true Safety 1) if you can afford it 2) once they get in. Consider EA or Rolling Admission. And realize "the process" can to on-going. Hear from some, adjust the list.

Anonymous wrote:
Op here. Every school my kid wants to attend is T25. The lowest school is UVA, which I know is not considered a safety.

My kid applied to 10 schools but it is a different ballgame when your low reach accepts 30% vs when you are looking at schools that accept 25% as your safety. That said, I think the general advice strategy still remains the same that your child has least two schools that are truly safety/targets including at least one that has rolling/early notification and you use ED strategically. My kid had more of a reach heavy list BUT I insisted on true safety/targets.

2 safeties (over 50% acceptance) applied EA, 2 targets applied EA, 3 low reach with one of them EA, and 3 high reach under 10% acceptance. In the end it was 6 acceptance including spring admit, 2 waitlist including one with a pathway for spring, and 2 rejections.

Applied to 5. 1 reach, 2 targets, 2 safeties. Accepted at 5. Merit aid at all. 1 safety was full tuition scholarship. Went to reach and time interrupted by Covid.

Two. Got into first choice EA. Withdrew app from other (OOS public) school prior to their decision date.

Had three or four other apps ready to send (scores submitted) if EA school had been a no (and if other school — which I think was DC’s #2 — hadn’t announced or had deferred or rejected).

It’s a multi-stage process. And you have different info at different stages.

1

One applied to 7 (list was quirky and only had one true reach; the rest were matches and safeties — idea was to play the merit money game). The other applied to 5 (very different list and all were probably best classified as targets or safeties).

Anonymous wrote:He will apply to 10 since his 10 is the limit for his high school. He is within the middle 50th percentile for all of them except one roll be a reach. He is doing a college application camp at his school next week to get the common app done and to have a second person go over his essay.

Is this OP, and all the schools are T25? If so, he needs a major readjustment in his list. A list comprised of only T25 is a perfect recipe for being shut out.

He needs safeties, true safeties where the acceptance rates are >60%. Schools with rates around 40-50+% have a tendency to yield protect, or yield manage, where they defer/deny/waitlist high-stats students they think are unlikely to attend. A safety could also be a rolling admission school (at any acceptance rate) where an early acceptance becomes the safety, provided it is affordable. A safety on the list could also be a school like Arizona with a late application deadline, where one could wait to see their other results first (caveat, scholarship deadlines may be earlier).

He needs targets as well. Look for schools in the 30-60% acceptance rate range. These days, that usually means looking at at least some schools that are (gasp!) beyond the top 50.

I agree with one of the PPs that if you can get him to visit the campus of some safeties or low targets, that might clue him in that such places can do just fine. He needs that added perspective that prestige is not the be-all, end all.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:High school class of 2019: 5, accepted to all (2 reaches, 2 targets, 1 safety)

High school class of 2021: 12 (accepted at 2 safeties and 2 targets; denied at 5 reaches and 3 targets)

Your 2019 kid either applied to 6 schools or maybe only 2 targets.

Sorry, typo, 2 targets.