College Chance Calculators

aquapt
Sun, 10 Nov 2019 06:54:35 +0000

The calculator algorithms (at least some of them - Prepscholar for example) do take acceptance rates into account. So, two schools with identical stats for accepted students but different acceptance rates will yield different results. This gives a decent rough measure of “reachiness” in situations where the applicant in question is similar in other ways to the majority of applicants.

The problem comes when there are subgroups with different levels of competitiveness. For example, some public universities are much harder than others for out-of-state students to get into. Some have vastly different acceptance rates for Early Decision than for Regular Decision. The calculators won’t reflect those factors at all. If a particular major or division is tough to get into, that won’t be reflected. And so on.

And then, as stated above, there are all the factors not reflected in raw stats - whether the applicant attends a grade-deflated high school, whether the applicant has a “hook,” whether they are advantaged or disadvantaged by geography, how test-optional admissions come into play, and so on.

So, the calculators give a useful baseline but it takes more information to determine how the applicant may need to adjust expectations based on other factors.