@floating123: If you stick around long enough and/or read the archives round past M10s (decision day), you will see the folly of predictions. There are so, so many surprises, both positive and negative. In our case, for example, the ADs of two schools gushed over our son and told us what a good fit he was and how they could see him on their campuses and around their tables, but both ended up in rejections. So, the mantra here is to cast a wide net around many schools that would be good fits for your student and your family for the best chances of making a good match and don’t waste any energy on predictions.
I will also add that many try to make predictions when they don’t have a good understanding of how many seats their child is actually competing for. As an example,
the year our son applied to Choate, the incoming class ended up being 112 boys and 112 girls, so he didn’t have a shot at 224 seats; chromosomes limited him to, at most, 112. By the time he matriculated and we attended the AD’s opening speech which laid this out, we realized that our son was competing in a bucket of fewer than 10 seats because the class was broken down by:
Male/female
Foreign/domestic
Domestic geographical
Boarding/day
Full pay/FA
Diversity
Legacy (development)
Siblings
Athletics and other talent (music, academics, etc.)
Various other institutional requirements
And Choate is one of the larger schools. You have no way to gauge how your applicant compares to any of those also competing for those very limited slots in any given year. So, let the predictions go and focus instead on putting together the best targeted application you can for those schools where your student is at or above average and the school values and culture match your family’s. Then, let the chips fall where they may. That’s all you can do.