agree on Wisconsin 100%. but you were right on with Pitt and Mcgill - so should that have been all that was needed?
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I think plenty of kids have a 30 an maybe even 40% chance at tippy top schools, but nobody has a 60-80% chance…I could be wrong though..I interview for an ivy and have seen some truly INCREDIBLE people not get in.
I still would say a reach for all as it’s pretty unpredictable
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Yes, even if you are very competitive on paper, if you are applying to highly selective colleges, then ending up with, say, 5-6 offers you don’t take (including possibly a couple Likelies and a mix of Targets and Reaches) is pretty understandable, at least if you are applying through RD. Technically if you are chasing merit it might well be more, although an offer of admission without a competive merit offer attached really counts as a sort of rejection in that context.
When kids are turning down 10, 12, 15 or so on affordable offers, then I start thinking that is looking rather hard to justify on these grounds. Maybe, like every once in a while there is a kid who will apply to a reasonable list of like 10-12 schools and just run the table including all their Reaches.
But this little experiment I have been doing suggests that if forced to cut their list to a well-balanced 10-12, the offer that kids actually accept would almost surely be on that list. Indeed, I think in most cases it would also be on a shorter list still, holding aside the chasing merit cases at least.
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Without a doubt, you are the best chance me evaluator on CC. I hear your points about categorization and agree that what we call a reach for unhooked strong students can/should vary based on application content and HS they attend.
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How could I not like that comment! Thanks.
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In my S24’s private HS, those would more start as what I would call “presumptive” Reaches, but then the excellent college counselors would help each individual kid determine where they were the best fit for what each individual college might be looking for, based on a combination of public information provided by the colleges and their own experience.
Similar to what you are suggesting, the tripartite Reach/Target/Likely categorizations sort of faded in significance in the final stages of refining a list. It was really just about having a decent range of colleges all of which made sense for the kid and their family, and which might well be looking for individual kids like that (including possibly for merit/honors offers).
One basic issue here is I feel like we don’t always get past even the first stage with some kids/parents. For that matter, that happened in my S24’s HS as well. Some people come into the process with a pretty fixed idea of where they want to apply, and are not necessarily all that receptive to nuanced discussions involving what different colleges offer, what different colleges might be looking for themselves, and so on.
So I think that is sometimes why the discussions might seem a little rigid in terms of classification. I don’t think it has to end that way, but sometimes it does because more nuanced discussions are not really being entertained by the kid/parent in question.
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Should is strong, but could have been? Yes, IMO. in a more “old-school” 12 school list it might have been
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Exactly. This is also my experience IRL, at least for the relatively small subset of students we are talking about (strong academics and ECs, from solid HSs, targeting relatively selective schools.)
I feel that plenty of students/parents who post on CC don’t really want to think too hard or with nuance, or consider schools they’ve never heard of. Those who are open to learning and expanding their initial considerations probably benefit the most here. Big picture, those who won’t receive need based aid but can’t/won’t pay full COA also benefit greatly if they engage on CC before making a final college list.
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By the way, my own S24 is a case in point. The original idea was he was going to go for 10-12, he ended up with 15, which generated 9 offers. Already pretty suspect. And then even among the 6 rejections/waitlistings, only 1 of those would definitely have been competitive with his ultimate choice (his REA school, where he was deferred and then rejected). It isn’t possible to know for sure with the other five, but three he hadn’t even visited, and the other two had not really stood out after visiting. In fact he was offered the waitlist for one of those, but didn’t even bother.
So I think reasonably he could have cut some of those, and also some of the others which he was not so hot on either. He has suggested he kinda blames me for some of the latter, and he is probably right! I liked them for him maybe more than he liked them for himself, so there is probably another three or so he could easily have cut.
OK, so he probaby could have applied to something more like 9 instead of 15, which would still have generated 6 offers (plus the waitlisting).
That said, in the end I really doubt any harm was done.
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Yes, I often think what we offer here is basically leveling the playing field with those who have access to very high end college counseling at their high school. And we are free!
In some cases, though, that isn’t needed. Like, say, sometimes the kid should obviously go to their favorite in-state school which admits them. Fair enough, this doesn’t have to be hard.
But when a kid/family is looking for something a little different if possible, but also wondering how to make that work financially . . . the viable options for such a kid/family are not all obvious sometimes, and sometimes overburdened HS guidance counselors are not the best resource for such cases. And then we can maybe provide some meaningful assistance.
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I agree. I sometimes feel CC posters are too harsh towards students who apply to quite a few schools. I never assume the student can’t do a good job on that many apps, because some kids can. (OTOH some kids can’t, and others peter out during the process, so it’s fair to warn them that more apps will take more effort.)
But, like you said there’s no harm and if it makes a student feel like they are more in control of the process and/or they did everything they could, that’s great.
At the margin it may decrease admit rates at some schools, but again, we aren’t talking about the majority of college applicants here. Most do go to an in-state two or four year school. And schools that are getting more apps can hire more external readers with the extra app fees, cry me a river if any complain about too many apps.
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Well - I forget the list except for Babson but given he was a finalist for Morehead-Cain, I’ll assume he got into UNC, Babson but not Penn ED. I think UF was there too - so he got in there (if it’s on the list).
Is this a game show?? Let’s go 
I’m sure his end result was fantastic.
I don’t buy into this - because every list is personal. You noted Harvard is too much a reach but Pitt is too safe. Pitt has plenty of Harvard-esque kids. If Pitt, Miami Ohio or South Dakota State is the right place for someone, then it’s the right place.
This is about finding the right place - not about the biggest name. So I’m not sure why someone would be critical in this regard.
Some want to or need to apply to more - because they are only reaches or they need merit and they are not going to auto merit places. Some should apply to less. Some simply want to apply to one. Some want to apply to 20 or more (one of my kids). This is also an individual situation - but all situations vary depending on the kid. Some can handle the task, some can’t. Some are applying to schools they have zero interest in attending. Or schools that don’t offer what they want to study. That seems silly to me.
IMO, the main value of the chance me/match me forum on this site is for first generation, low income, international, or rural students without knowledgable adults in their circle. Being able to share how to create a well balanced and affordable list is very helpful.
For private school, well off students who just want confirmation that their list makes sense- those students have knowledgable parents, guidance counselors, and often private college counselors who can assess them much more fully in the context of their school and community. Not to mention know their LORs, essays, who else is applying from their school etc…. That’s why most of the time, posters will tell those students to talk to their counselors, because we have none of that context.
OP - I’m sure your child has a slew of wonderful acceptances and early congratulations to wherever they have chosen to matriculate. I’m sure they will do well wherever they go.
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It looks random to the applicants and other outsiders, even though it is not random to those inside the admission office, mainly because applicants and other outsiders have limited visibility into how each applicant compares to the competition beyond stats and known hooks. Some aspects of one’s application may not even be known to the applicant (e.g. recommendations).
The most visible, transparent, and comparable aspect of applications is SAT or ACT scores, so outsiders often overemphasize their importance, even though they may be only a small part of the selection at many desired colleges.
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One thing I’m seeing now that they are breaking out admission rates by in-state, OOS- and International - especially at higher end privates - the international acceptance rates are far lower and the domestic rates far higher than the overall rate - at many schools - that might cause a recalibration of “chance me”.
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At this point I mostly find myself just suggesting to parents/kids they start plenty early, and maybe prioritize their most promising college ideas for their first applications to start writing. I also like to suggest doing a rolling college if it makes sense for them, since that could naturally help them cut some unnecessary applications.
But yes, in the end I just want to support kids getting some affordable, exciting offers to consider, and to feel like they did a good job getting there. Whatever process they use which produces such a result is fine as far as I am concerned.
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Question for the group: On the Secondary School Report, there’s a section for high school counselors to discuss the student’s personal character. If you have a really good relationship with your high school counselor, that would seem to give you a material advantage, especially for highly selective schools that rate “recommendations” as very important.
Schools often comment that beyond academics, character is very important. And the high school counselor is the only? one in the process who is given a direct question on character.
This is not new news. And international acceptance rates at need-blind schools are far, far below the average since it seems every international applicant needing aid applies to them
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It may not be news but it wasn’t always broken out to see quantitatively that I recall. More and more schools are adding it.
When you see the absolute variance, it really stands out in a way that a qualitative statement doesn’t show (in my opinion).
And this isn’t just at need aware schools but also those need blind for international (Harvard, an an example) - where the international acceptance rate is still much lower.
I note a few times I have tried to estimate the acceptance rates for higher-need Internationals versus full pay Internationals. With the available data this takes some assumptions, but I still think it is worth doing.
And my general observation is it appears the full pay International acceptance rate might pretty often be comparable to the domestic rate (or OOS domestic rate). In fact, it might sometimes even be a bit higher. Meaning what appears to be crushing International acceptance rates most such places is much lower rates for higher need Internationals.
The “exception” is the handful of need blind for International colleges, but the thing is, it appears to me they more have LOWER acceptance rates for full pay Internationals than high acceptance rates for high need Internationals. Of course some colleges basically have a zero acceptance rate for high need Internationals. But when I was comparing my estimated acceptance rates at need aware for International colleges that actually had a decent amount of funding for International aid to the need blind for International colleges, it was more the full pay going down than the high need going up.
I assume that is largely because the need blind for International colleges are immediately swamped by a lot of highly qualified high need International applicants. But still, point being as a high need International, you are facing a lot of competition anywhere with the need you are seeking. Whereas full pay Internationals may actually be better off with the need aware colleges that often seem quite interested in getting a healthy amount of full pay Internationals to enroll.