<p>How accurate is parchment, the college prediction site?
I want to go to my dream school, Vanderbilt, and for fun I put my stats into the website and it says I have a 59% chance of getting in. Obviously, it’s a prestigious university, so would my chances really be that high? Here are my stats btw:</p>
<p>Class Rank: Top 5%(28 or 29(cant remember)/700)
Unweighted GPA: 3.59
Weighted GPA: 4.50
SAT:(CR720 M760 W 800)
Combined SAT: 2280
SAT II Subject Tests
SAT II Math II: 750
SAT II US History: 770
AP’s:1 soph yr 6 jr yr and 5 sr yr
Dual enrollment: 13 classes (12 academic 1 elective)
EC’s:
Founder and Co-President of Amnesty International
1st place at states for fbla business ethics and 1st place in districts
Historian for Philosophy Club
1st place in HOSA competition at district level, 1st place at states
Community Service Director for FBLA(11th)
Secretary for FBLA(12th)
200 hours at Bethesda Hospital
Organized the building of 2 houses for the needy with sponsorship from Office Depot
50 hours at my local soup kitchen
Organized 5k in my community
URM
Applying ED II to Vandy</p>
I don’t think the website is very accurate. I just tried it for San Diego State University, and it said I only had a 65% chance of being accepted. In reality, I was chosen to be accepted early due to my GPA and test scores.
65% chance means if 20 applicants just like you applied, most of them would get in. The fact you were accepted doesn’t prove Parchment is inaccurate.
Not that I’m saying the site is accurate. It isn’t. In my experience, it overestimates a student’s odds by far.
OP: You seem to have a very strong application, but due to a few factors - including an unweighted GPA below 3.6 - 41% seems high. I’d put your odds at 20% or thereabouts, and I consider going higher than that at a school with an acceptance rate of 13% irresponsible when chancing almost any applicant outside the ED1 pool.
That is very inaccurate as Vanderbilt practices holistic admissions and they look at your activities, essays, recommendations, hooks etc. all of which Parchment cannot accurately include in its calculations as all of that is subjective.
At the end of the day, it’s either 100 or 0. I would not stress about this and just enjoy the rest of senior year.
The 3.59 GPA is not all that bad considering that the OP is ranked in the top 5% of his or her class with strong standardized test scores.
Parchment is not as good for chances as Naviance. Use that. Parchment goes on self-reported data, where students who apply to colleges and use parchment report their stats and whether they got in or not. This generates your chances. (Lol for me it said I had a 33% chance at Duke with a 2090 SAT. I only wish.)
Here’s an example with Parchment. If you take an very high stat kid at a private school applying to Vanderbilt- the vast majority of which don’t rank - , and change their class ranking from “not ranked” to “top 10%” admission chances go up from 55 to 65%. Change the rank to top 3% and you are at 72%. There are lots of inconsistencies in their model. I would use it as a very imperfect guide, say it is accurate plus or minus 20%. Naviance is more localized and more accurate, but it almost always overestimates because it is backward looking and admission percentages have generally dropped during the 7 year time frame displayed. There is also too much data to be usefully displayed on the graphs and you cannot compare GPA across high schools.
It is a parlour game, no more than that. The data is self reported with no control over people who lie, exaggerate, don’t give full updates on their results, inaccurately enter data. And it is not a random or full sample – there is no statistical validity. Naviance isn’t perfect, but it is much better.
The notion that you have a 59% chance of getting in is ludicrous - you can’t measure chances that accurately. Vanderbilt has holistic admissions, but more than most selective universities it seems to care about scores. Top 5% of your class means your GPA in the context of your school is fine. You’ve got pretty good ECs in my book. And you’re a URM. In any event I’m pretty optimistic about your chances.
Even if you believe Parchment - it’s saying you have a 41% chance of not getting in.