This forum? Opinionated? Surely you jest! 
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I was not thinking that but interesting thought.
I think itās really good to manage expectations, but I also think sometimes posters are too negative. I remember a thread where the kid applied ED to Emory and everyone but me told her basically she had no chance. I thought she had a decent chance and said so. The OP and I had to take our conversation to PM since on the thread everyone kept saying she wouldnāt get in. Well ā I was right, and she was admitted!
So I think we can help manage expectations but not remove all hope. Especially since we donāt see the full application or have the full context.
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I am not opinionated and please donāt call me Shirley.
Two āAirplaneā references in a week, my work is done here.
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I agree on that. Sometimes read and wonder if we are being overly conservative for us or them.
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None of us are adcoms as far as I know. I usually qualify my opinions with an āapply and wait and seeā. And that is my reply now. This student has already applied, and if EA to as many as possible, has already gotten more than a couple of admission decisions.
Re: the restā¦itās a wait and see.
@michaelcollege is this a friend you are helping?
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Yes, thereās a very big difference between categorizing something as a āreachā without a lot of judgement, vs ādonāt bother, you arenāt getting into that school with those stats.ā I received both types of responses when I first came to this site and asked for opinions for my S23.
However, I actually think excessive negativity is part of the same problem. Students, families, and advice-givers should all keep in mind that āreachā doesnāt mean that a student canāt or wonāt get in. Itās just a useful category to use, so that a student constructs a balanced list.
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I am broken-hearted that a student whom I helped with an essay, has been rejected by all the schools they applied to. They are international and wrote an essay about living in a refugee camp, that was so eloquent in its understatement, that I shared it with a writer friend. I did not change a word.
This essay season I believe I helped 4 or 5 international students who mentioned gunfire outside, not being able to leave the home, and so on. Their applications to schools (often need-blind) were less about reaches and matches and safeties and more about getting to a safer place where they could begin to function.
Puts things in perspective.
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friend of family
Ding, ding, ding, ding, dingā¦we have a winner!
The very idea of āChance Meā isā¦what are my chances, i.e. odds, of getting in to a school? How likely or unlikely? With the exception of some public schools, there are no guarantees in college admissions.
Thatās one of the reasons why Iām not a fan of reach/match/safety languageā¦especially match. So many definitions of what a match might be! Hence why I chance using the categories below, because it takes away the element of whether a school is a good āfitā for one, which I think that āmatchā seems to imply, and a school can be a good fit for an applicant no matter how likely (or unlikely) it is to admit a student.
- Extremely Likely (80-99+%)
- Likely (60-79%)
- Toss-Up (40-59%)
- Lower Probability (20-39%)
- Low Probability (less than 20%)
And now I seem to have veered off topicā¦
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Are we offering solid advice? I would say that most of the advice here is in the āopinion about what might happenā category.
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If told itās a 10% or less chance it rains today most people leave their umbrella in the closet.
If told itās a 10% or less chance they will win the lottery most people would buy a ticket.
This dynamic juxtaposed against parentās natural predisposition to view their kids as unique and special is what I have observed experienced CC posters seek to counter balance. In practice I think like most things the value of this āconservativeā approach depends but if the result is a balanced list for those with limited access to info I think itās a real service.
@AustenNut in particular seems to strike the right balance of informing and supporting. Pardon the digression.
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Agree.
And many of us qualify by sayingā¦apply and see. For this student, EA decisions have largely been received. Just wait and see. No point in chancing after the applications have been sentā¦just wait and see.
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Wisconsin has become a pretty difficult admit for OOS applicants. If you go to the Wisc decisions threads, most OOS kids getting in had high stats. I would treat a 3.6 TO kid as a reach OOS for UW.
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I have been asked some private questionsā¦ maybe worth sharing.
- Liberal Arts = Psychology
- Took 4/5 of her APās senior year and got more Bās as an underclassman (5) as opposed to the (2) in 11th and 12th grade.
- Applied EA when possible.
Is someone posting the real stats of someone who is not their immediate family member in an ersatz āchance meā (well, really guess the results) format? Thought posting info about or āfor a friendā was not ok?
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I was okād because of my lack of specificity.
I think the results are already known by the OP and he is testing our clairvoyance 
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JMO, but I would never share/post anyoneās real stats and admission results w/o their advanced permission.
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Ok Iāll play. I need more info:
Where does their GPA put them in the context of their class? And by āmedium scheduleā, am I correct that you mean average rigor in the context of their HS?
Is the Public School a test-in/application type magnet or open to anyone who lives in the district?