Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to determine reaches, matches, and safeties on your own.

For grades, you can try to do some comparison by looking at your high school's Naviance scattergrams for particular colleges. Look at both weighted and unweighted GPAs. (Score info from these scattergrams is less useful now that most colleges are test optional, because you cannot tell whether the score for a particular data point was submitted or not.)

For scores, I would use the last year before test-optional policies became widespread. That would be college class of 2024, for which admission data is included in Common Data Set 2020-2021. You can usually find Common Data Sets for each year posted on the college's website, though not all colleges post their CDS.

Determining reaches, matches, and safeties is about more than matching the student's stats to the school; you also must consider acceptance rate. Find the most recent acceptance rate somewhere on the college's admission website, for college class of 2026, or see if it's listed here: https://www.collegekickstart.com/blog/item/class-of-2026-admission-results.

There is some disagreement on how to use acceptance rates for determining reaches, matches, and safeties. For a high-stats student: schools with acceptance rates <30% = reach, 30%-60% = match/target, >60% = safety. If the student does not have high stats (e.g. scores over the school's 75th percentile), then you need to adjust accordingly.

Honestly, under test optional policies, the uncertainty is simply greater than it was under the old test-required scenario, and this makes categorizing reaches, matches, and safeties that much more difficult. There is wisdom in a more conservative approach: have more targets and safeties than would have seemed necessary in the past.

Which is hard for some, if neither has gone to college for example.

We made the decision to define Safety/Target as a college with:
1. overall acceptance of >45%
2. Collegevine showing >65%
3. SAT in the top 25%
4. Above typical/average GPA
=> Got into all of those

Our Hard Target was a mixed bag, and ended up 50/50:
1. overall acceptance of >20%
2. Collegevine showing >50%
3. SAT in the top 25% or 50% (not below)
4. At or above typical/average GPA

Reaches - mostly denied, but got into 2
1. overall acceptance of <20%
2. Collegevine showing <40%
3. SAT in the 50% (not below)
4. At typical/average GPA

Different poster here. Looking at this data, I would define that as getting into schools that matched stats.

When your DC has really high GPA and most rigorous and very high test scores, everything looks like a match. It’s just some schools have lower acceptance rate. So that alone makes them a reach school.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Would 3.0 be considered a reach at GMU?

Check Naviance, but at our Maryland school, the average unweighted GPA of those admitted was just under 3.5. (Perhaps it's different in-state?)

Anonymous wrote:Broadly, yes. 1300s SAT not submitted, 3.85 unweighted from a rigorous private, no sports but a passion-based extracurricular and national publications.

Applied to ten schools: 4 reach, 3 targets, 3 safeties. In at two safeties (third one figured out DC didn't want to go as asked family for "more commitment"...um, no), all three targets and two reaches. Ended up at a high target school and thriving.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to determine reaches, matches, and safeties on your own.

For grades, you can try to do some comparison by looking at your high school's Naviance scattergrams for particular colleges. Look at both weighted and unweighted GPAs. (Score info from these scattergrams is less useful now that most colleges are test optional, because you cannot tell whether the score for a particular data point was submitted or not.)

For scores, I would use the last year before test-optional policies became widespread. That would be college class of 2024, for which admission data is included in Common Data Set 2020-2021. You can usually find Common Data Sets for each year posted on the college's website, though not all colleges post their CDS.

Determining reaches, matches, and safeties is about more than matching the student's stats to the school; you also must consider acceptance rate. Find the most recent acceptance rate somewhere on the college's admission website, for college class of 2026, or see if it's listed here: https://www.collegekickstart.com/blog/item/class-of-2026-admission-results.

There is some disagreement on how to use acceptance rates for determining reaches, matches, and safeties. For a high-stats student: schools with acceptance rates <30% = reach, 30%-60% = match/target, >60% = safety. If the student does not have high stats (e.g. scores over the school's 75th percentile), then you need to adjust accordingly.

Honestly, under test optional policies, the uncertainty is simply greater than it was under the old test-required scenario, and this makes categorizing reaches, matches, and safeties that much more difficult. There is wisdom in a more conservative approach: have more targets and safeties than would have seemed necessary in the past.

Which is hard for some, if neither has gone to college for example.

We made the decision to define Safety/Target as a college with:
1. overall acceptance of >45%
2. Collegevine showing >65%
3. SAT in the top 25%
4. Above typical/average GPA
=> Got into all of those

Our Hard Target was a mixed bag, and ended up 50/50:
1. overall acceptance of >20%
2. Collegevine showing >50%
3. SAT in the top 25% or 50% (not below)
4. At or above typical/average GPA

Reaches - mostly denied, but got into 2
1. overall acceptance of <20%
2. Collegevine showing <40%
3. SAT in the 50% (not below)
4. At typical/average GPA

Different poster here. Looking at this data, I would define that as getting into schools that matched stats.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You need to determine reaches, matches, and safeties on your own.

For grades, you can try to do some comparison by looking at your high school's Naviance scattergrams for particular colleges. Look at both weighted and unweighted GPAs. (Score info from these scattergrams is less useful now that most colleges are test optional, because you cannot tell whether the score for a particular data point was submitted or not.)

For scores, I would use the last year before test-optional policies became widespread. That would be college class of 2024, for which admission data is included in Common Data Set 2020-2021. You can usually find Common Data Sets for each year posted on the college's website, though not all colleges post their CDS.

Determining reaches, matches, and safeties is about more than matching the student's stats to the school; you also must consider acceptance rate. Find the most recent acceptance rate somewhere on the college's admission website, for college class of 2026, or see if it's listed here: https://www.collegekickstart.com/blog/item/class-of-2026-admission-results.

There is some disagreement on how to use acceptance rates for determining reaches, matches, and safeties. For a high-stats student: schools with acceptance rates <30% = reach, 30%-60% = match/target, >60% = safety. If the student does not have high stats (e.g. scores over the school's 75th percentile), then you need to adjust accordingly.

Honestly, under test optional policies, the uncertainty is simply greater than it was under the old test-required scenario, and this makes categorizing reaches, matches, and safeties that much more difficult. There is wisdom in a more conservative approach: have more targets and safeties than would have seemed necessary in the past.

Which is hard for some, if neither has gone to college for example.

We made the decision to define Safety/Target as a college with:
1. overall acceptance of >45%
2. Collegevine showing >65%
3. SAT in the top 25%
4. Above typical/average GPA
=> Got into all of those

Our Hard Target was a mixed bag, and ended up 50/50:
1. overall acceptance of >20%
2. Collegevine showing >50%
3. SAT in the top 25% or 50% (not below)
4. At or above typical/average GPA

Reaches - mostly denied, but got into 2
1. overall acceptance of <20%
2. Collegevine showing <40%
3. SAT in the 50% (not below)
4. At typical/average GPA

Where do you find 50 percentile SAT number? I only see 25th and 75th.

😳

Anonymous wrote:Would 3.0 be considered a reach at GMU?

Anonymous wrote:Would 3.0 be considered a reach at GMU?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. Last year’s admissions process was a sh!tshow. My son was WL at one of his target schools and rejected from from another target school. He got in at two safeties and received merit from both; he is very happy where he landed and it really is a good fit.

I think the lesson is not that last year was a "sh!show" but maybe rather that people aren't accurately assessing targets vs. safeties.

You would be wrong.

It seems if you only got into your safeties and none of your targets, your assessments were wrong somehow. I know so many people who were shocked about their kids results, but I wasn’t, because GPA and SATs are not the whole picture.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. Last year’s admissions process was a sh!tshow. My son was WL at one of his target schools and rejected from from another target school. He got in at two safeties and received merit from both; he is very happy where he landed and it really is a good fit.

I think the lesson is not that last year was a "sh!show" but maybe rather that people aren't accurately assessing targets vs. safeties.

You would be wrong.

It seems if you only got into your safeties and none of your targets, your assessments were wrong somehow. I know so many people who were shocked about their kids results, but I wasn’t, because GPA and SATs are not the whole picture.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No. Last year’s admissions process was a sh!tshow. My son was WL at one of his target schools and rejected from from another target school. He got in at two safeties and received merit from both; he is very happy where he landed and it really is a good fit.

I think the lesson is not that last year was a "sh!show" but maybe rather that people aren't accurately assessing targets vs. safeties.

You would be wrong.