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

friedokra
Sat, 25 Aug 2007 19:00:08 +0000

Well…I would recommend 3 safeties, 3 matches and 3 reaches. Embrace your safeties and make sure you LIKE these schools…you may end up there, they may give you the most money, and it may be a better fit for you anyway.

I just came from Borders…sipping my latter for an hour reading all the new college howto and college profile books: Barron’s Petersen’s Fisk Princeton Review etc. Its amazing. The same school and you get DIFFERENT information on it, what the standards are, what the sat ranges and gpa ranges are etc. One of the better directories I read was a book called the getting into the right college book, or something like that. It had the most comprehensive commentary and seemed to be the most accurate and less about generalizations. Princeton Review was THE WORST by far: generalizations and almost written by a bunch of kids who dont know squat. The other book had some interesting comments about the socio political scene on campus, some red flags and some well regarded faculty and what departments were weak or strong. Now of course, its not a perfect guide and is subject to highly subjective commentary of course…but its a start.

It noted that a lot of colleges had gotten rid of core requirements…and now its possible to graduate from so called liberal arts colleges without taking liberal arts classes…a true sad state of affairs, if you ask me. Engineers cheer it, however.

Dartmouth was blasted for going overboard on being PC and watering down a lot courses and the ubiquitous grade inflation problem…it certainly didnt seem that prestigious once you got admitted, from what I read.

Interesting. But then again, I didnt go to Dartmouth and neither are my kids.

I would read up heavily on reach schools. Some of them, like Wesleyan for example (if its a reach for you…or even a match) have a STRONG left wing bias and kids who are conservative feel oppressed.

WashU was slammed for being too biased towards premed, engineering and math/science stuff…and neglecting history, political science, english, philosophy. Dont know if that is true or not, just the author’s anecdotal remarks based on what students told him.

It would be a bummer to be admitted to a dream school only to find out your intended major is a stepchild on campus and the professors suck.

LOOK BEFORE YOU LEAP.