How do you determine a reach/match/safety school?

joecollegedad
Fri, 31 Aug 2007 13:10:18 +0000

curious, I like your attempt to bring some clarity to the assignment of reach, match, safety.

I was about to say that you did not sift GPA into your rule, but I notice that you said that you assume GPA consistant with test scores. So your rule might be prolematic for a student with test scores that are either significantly greater than the level of GPA or test scores significantly less than the level of GPA.

And, One question comes to mind:

How would you handle test optional schools? I am pretty much only looking at LACs, so I am not sure any uni’s or any state U’s are test optional.

and to be clear:

when I see the mid 50 pct ile of score reported, it is really the scores between 25 and 75 inclusive.

So U Iowa is 23-27. 23 would be at the 25th pctile. If a student has a 24, that person would be considered a reach under your rule.

Finally, in the spirit of quantification, what kind of odds might you assign to ‘reach’, and to your other categories?

and, a quick comment: would you say that your rule applies to the more selective colleges, the ones often assumed to the default colleges in lots of the discussion 'round here - say the top 30 usnr’s?