Differentiating between reach, match, and safety

SummaAlum
Fri, 23 Jul 2010 01:17:48 +0000

I’m compiling my list of schools I plan on applying to, but I’m having a lot of trouble figuring out how I’m supposed to figure out what schools I can put into the three categories. I’m getting really skeptical and tired of the numbers game, but are there better ways of differentiating between admit chances than US World & News’ ranks and percentages? I have a 4.4 weighted GPA (3.98 UW) and 35 on the ACT, so I’ve above or at the top of the middle 50% for just about every school, and don’t know what I should be looking for in terms of schools I’m applying to (besides my preferences for living conditions and majors and such).

tl;dr: How do you find and categorize colleges for reach, match, and safety?