My D21 at Miami of Ohio is a Data Science and Stats major. She came home for a weekend visit last night and told us how she and three other students were asked by the department head to film about 40 personalized videos for admitted students in Data Science and Statistics majors to try to get them to enroll. I thought that was a good marketing idea. The Professor is giving them Starbucks gift cards for their efforts.
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When my D18 was admitted to University of Minnesota Law school they sent her âAdmittensâ. I thought that was funny.
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Our safety was McGill - an outstanding school that admits on stats alone. S24 was applying for non-impacted majors there (applied math or physics) and his stats were well above the published threshold so we were certain heâd be admitted as long as he got his application in on time - and he was. When you have an outstanding student there is a tendency to think that schools with a 25-50% acceptance rate are safe for your child, but often that isnât the case. Your safety should be much âsaferâ than that.
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Sure to come in handy if your son ends up there.
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St Andrews was one of our S24âs two official âLikeliesâ for similar reasons. They are not quite as transparent as the Canadian universities since for UK kids their courses can have higher practical standards than their published requirements, and then we were further de facto asking for an accommodation for the fact we were substituting grades in advanced classes for APs. But fortunately our high school has enough experience with St Andrews, and in fact the St Andrews recruiter we spoke to at a college fair has enough experience with our high school, that we got the necessary assurances he would be considered sufficiently well-qualified. And he was.
Of course not everyone would consider going outside of the country, but I do think this is illustrating some basic principles.
On the one hand, you have to put in the work to really make sure your kid, with your residency status, their numbers, their specific program they are applying for, and so on, is a very likely admit.
But on the other, you can have fun with this! You donât have to just pick some obvious school (although you can if it works). You can actually look for creative and interestingly different Likely options. Or do bothâone or more conventional, one or more farther outside the box. All that can make sure your kid has some interesting choices no matter what happens with their reaches and targets.
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Iâm the one who shared this experience:
Just to clarify, what I was describing was for Targets/Matches. I agree with what many have said about these kinds of schools not being safeties even if your kid is high stats. As @Thorsmom66 said:
Yes. 100%.
My kid had safeties. She got into one EA in December and another RD in February, so she was okay. (They were not the often-recommended automatic-based-on-stats safeties or rolling admissions safeties as she was really looking at LACs, but she found plenty to like about CTCL schools Willamette and Beloit and got into both not only with top merit but with some extra perks).
In sharing our experience, I was more speaking to the fact that in advance of our March rollercoaster, I might have guessed sheâd be more likely to get an acceptance at some combination of Skidmore/Denison/Mt. Holyoke, for example, than at Pomona/Bowdoin/Wellesley. This is a subset of her decisions, but there were additional ones that followed the (fairly consistent, in the end) pattern - waitlisted at all in that first group and admitted to all in that second group. It was certainly important to have safeties on the list because you clearly canât count on acceptances to those big reaches, so she could have been shut out of everything except the safeties. Luckily she was feeling really good especially about Beloit as March came around.
One thing I found interesting was that both my S21 and D23 applied to Denison -
Both submitted their test scores. S21âs was 25th percentile for Denison while D23âs was above the 75th percentile mark for Denison.
S21 had much less rigor (1 AP vs. 15 APs); S21 reported no AP scores; D23 reported all of her 5s.
S21 had no rank to submit; D23 submitted a high rank.
Etc.
Both demonstrated a ton of (genuine) interest.
Yet S21 was admitted and D23 was waitlisted.
Doubtful there was a red flag in D23âs application (as evidenced by the acceptances she did get).
I make sense of it based on institutional priorities - some that were different for the two of them were that he was probably seen as more likely to yield based on stats, he had a higher EFC (about double hers since when he applied, he was the only kid in the family in college, and Denison is need aware), and he was a male (their applicant pool skews slightly more female and their yield is a bit better with malesâŠnot uncommon, I think, with LACs).
All schools (understandably) have institutional priorities that guide their decision making. We canât know all of them. But there are some (yield, $$ among them), that are more predictably present, and they should be kept in mind while finalizing a balanced college list that includes true safeties and targetsâŠthere is a student in another thread now looking for help building a list - he has what seems to be a strong academic profile but can pay about $20K a year and had Macalester on his initial list as a likely which it surely isnât - not just because itâs a selective school but also because this applicant is one theyâre fairly unlikely to yield, and he is expensive for the schoolâŠhe had initially seen it as a likely based on his academic profile (and got good advice to recategorize it).
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This is a lot of good advice and insight for the parents coming after us. In my view, for academically competitive kids, finding good match schools can be a tough nut to crack. There are plenty of great safeties, where they are likely to get merit and honors, but it can be trickier to identify true âmatchâ schools because the results at these schools (in your case, Denison) are often less predictable.
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I would ask - does one need match schools?
From an academic or actual experience - does the âlevelâ of school - as rated by someone in safety, target/match, reach necessarily impact an experience.
Or might the size, location, environment (location, greek life, sports life, weather) , size of classes, # of students in major, cost (budget for kid to spend) have more to do with it.
One needs a safety - not a target per se.
Or put another way - if you are applying to - Iâll throw out a few names - Indiana, Kansas (for many, safeties) or a Wisconsin or UIUC (for many targets) - is your experience / outcome, etc. really going to be that different?
Or an Arizona / Colorado vs. a UC.
Or a U Denver vs. an American or even more upscale a Wake.
Or a Franklin & Marshall / Lafayette vs/ a more top tier.
Iâm not sure finding âmatchesâ is always necessary - is my point.
Schools at different tiers will likely provide, in many cases, equivalent experiences.
I believe my daughterâs safety that she attends - provides superior experiences - than the matches/reaches she got into.
So in a lot of ways, Iâm not sure that the common âbucketâ terms - which we did use and build a list on ourselves - is a necessary strategy - looking back.
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In the most common world (i.e. in places where there is not a big focus on elite/rejective colleges), in thinking about approaching a college search, I would think about what a student was wanting. Budget (and whether the family would qualify for sufficient need-based aid), potential majors, location (both in terms of urban/suburban/small town/rural and in terms of state/area of the country), vibe, particular activities of interest, etc. Then Iâd find schools that meet those criteria and see which ones the student connected with.
At that point, Iâd take a look at the admissions statistics for the school and the studentâs own background and sort them by the probability for acceptance. At this point, there would hopefully be at least two schools in the extremely likely bucket (that I think of as an 80-99+% chance of acceptance). It doesnât matter if all the schools fall in the extremely likely bucket or what other buckets they fall in. The only bucket that needs schools is the extremely likely one. If there werenât at least two schools in that bucket, thatâs where I focus the continued search.
So I agree that thinking that a student needs to apply to schools where they have a low probability of acceptance (reach) or is something of a toss-up (match) just because those buckets can exist is kind of pointless.
Although I feel that a student can apply to whatever colleges they want so long as they have two safeties that they would be happy to attend, I do think itâs important to keep the studentâs mental health in mind. Although there is nuance for particular students, generally I would not recommend applying to more schools that more than likely will result in a rejection than to schools that are more than likely to accept a student. The psychological impact of getting rejection after rejection after rejection can be really hard on students. And even if they got an admittance from a school earlier on that they liked and then receive 15 rejections everywhere else, they can start to wonder whatâs wrong with the school that accepted them because everyone else rejected them. So, ideally, Iâd aim for a student to receive more acceptances than rejections at the end of the college season (though obviously thereâs really no way to know).
But for people whoâve seen me post on many of the match me threads, I usually am always focused on the extremely likely to admit bucket because most of the kids who come to CC already have plenty of reaches on their list, but donât have a school theyâd be happy to attend for four years.
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Thank you @AustenNut for writing this. I certainly applied this as our first criteria for D24 college search. I will post a new thread once all the decisions are in with D24âs journey so far and our criteria and it has been a very satisfying one with acceptances from all schools she applied to(NE, Mid-atlantic, mix of public and private, small and large etc. ) and that too with merit/honors from a majority of schools.
THIS is something a majority of parents or students donât realize when they are early in the application cycle and go with the most popular/elite/brand-name etc. schools that their family and friends talk about all the time.
Thank you for these lists as well. I came to know about so many interesting facts about certain schools through these lists
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âNeedâ is a strong word, and certainly would not apply to all cases. Like if the perfect college for you is also an affordable Likely, that is great, and you certainly do not need to then apply other places just to do it.
However, I do see a lot of kids online who have so far only been rejected by reaches, do not feel good about their remaining reaches, and are not excited by their âsafetiesâ. Obviously part of the problem in cases like this might be they just didnât do a good job identifying Likelies they could be excited about. But I also think a lot of these kids simply overlooked the potential benefits of a robust list of Targets, not just a bunch of reaches and a âsafetyâ or two.
And I do think part of the reason that happens sometimes is that from a certain perspective, identifying good Targets can be hard. Reaches are often easy in the sense there may be some obviously desirable schools which would be very good on all the criteria the kid cares about. With Likelies people typically understand they need to compromise in various predictable ways to make sure the college is Likely. But Targets often fall into a range where you have to make some compromises, but not in all ways, or you could compromise more in some ways and less in others, and so on.
That said, I personally think that challenge can be fun. Indeed, I think it can be a real process of self-discovery for the kid as they have to really reflect on what matters to them the most, what compromises they are more or less willing to make, and so on.
But it often does take work, and I think certain people really focus most of their energy on trying to optimize their applications, without devoting nearly the same energy to trying to go through the process of college- and self-exploration a really robust Target list might require.
But again, does everyone NEED to do that? No. But should more people make a point of at least going through that process because it might really benefit them, both in terms of outcomes but also in terms of these other potential benefits? Yes, I think so.
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tsnba44âIâve already thanked you once for giving me âthe skinnyâ on UMD, which all the chancing calculators told us was a âmatch.â As a result, she didnât apply thereâand Iâm sure it would have been an out-and-out rejection given the huge increases in the applications at schools like UMD, and the fact that her major, Psych, is limited there. I feel like much of that automatic rating stuff is increasingly completely irrelevant, and youâre right about the questionable status of matches/targets. Of the schools that are âreachesâ for D24, she was accepted by one (Macalester), deferred by one (Northeastern), and is waiting on 3 RD. However, she got into every other school, except UMass, where she was waitlisted. Those schools were mostly defined as safeties by the automatic raters, with a couple of âtargets.â I feel like D24âs results (waitlisted by a âsafetyââalong with many other UMass applicants) reflect the fact that parents are increasingly educated by the experiences of those who go immediately before us, and we donât want to be âripped offâ by getting nominally accepted, but without the kind of financial deal weâd be offered elsewhere. A lot of our kids have grad school to consider. Anyway, thanks again for the timely advice a few months ago! 
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Yeah, since S24 is my first, we have not seen this phase personallyâyet. But he applied to a lot of reachy RD schools, more than our HS was recommending, and more than I was hoping. And I am not at all sure that was a good idea.
Now to his credit, he seems pretty chilled about this sort of thing and mentally well-prepared for an RD bloodbath. Still, you canât really know until it happens.
But in any event, I told him it was ultimately up to him, and here we are. So weâll see what happens.
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By the way, this really resonated with me in part because at this point, I think my S24 is actually in a great position. He has been admitted to three pretty different options that are all definitely worth considering in their own ways, and was deferred at his top choice. If that was it, I think that would be fineâif the deferral doesnât come through, he makes his choice, and thatâs a very successful application season as far as I am concerned.
But instead, he has 11 more decisions to come (not including the deferral), all of which are now essentially only about whether or not he gets admitted somewhere he would like better than all three of his current options, and then only if he does not get admitted by the deferral school.
And yeah, sure, in theory that could happen. But 11? And like 9 of those are reaches, so yeah, that could be a lot of, âItâs not you, itâs me, but of course really itâs that we liked other people better than youâ letters in his future.
Oh well. Again, he is going to go to a great college, so none of this is really that important. But Iâll try to report back honestly whether the process was maybe not as fun as it could have been with more discipline about the final list.
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If it werenât for this forum, I honestly donât know how we would have done it ⊠and I owe huge and particular thanks to Nichols51 and TSBNA for helping me understand. Our list was balanced, sort of, but D24 is so many things we didnât know about: high stats, high need, donut hole, and so on. Iâve tried to follow all the advice Iâve got here, and thank goodness. âSafetyâ doesnât mean what I thought it meant, and I now I donât think I know what âTargetâ means, either. âHigh Reachâ Iâm pretty clear on, and âYield Protectionâ is a new source of nightmares. Weâll be fine, Iâm sure, and Iâve got three more kids coming around the bend. Iâm hugely grateful to all of you here at CC. Just 8 more RDs to go, and some accepted students days, and then writing checks and crossing fingers.
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For us, the strategy was to simply apply for ALL UC schools. Itâs a single application for all UCs and all you have to do is to pay.
UCM/UCSC/UCR, especially UCM was a true safety.
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One of my daughterâs best friends chose St. Andrewâs as her âsafetyâ for the same reasons. Itâs an exciting option for her. I guess thatâs the point that so many miss - if possible, you should be excited about attending your safety.
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The issue of targets/matches is interesting to me⊠I am still not sure how to pick a target or match for a high stat kid. Even choosing a school where stats line up in the upper 75% of admitted students means you are applying to a school with a low admission rate, which I think makes it a reach regardless?
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You are likely correct - a reach turns down the same kid they accepted - for whatever nuanced reason.
I like the schools (and thereâs not a ton) who show the stats of applicants and the stats of acceptances.
One might naturally think - if iâm in the top 75% of admitted stats, iâm safe.
But how many like kids did they turn down as part of that 80% rejection rate while of course, they also admitted students (75% of them in fact) with lower stats than you.
So there definitely is a lot of detailing that needs to be applied in many cases.
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This is sorta weak sauce I know, but this is part of why our college counselors insist on using âLikelyâ rather than âSafetyâ. It shouldnât really matter, but âSafetyâ seems to have this connotation that you should only be settling for this college in an emergency, whereas âLikelyâ is more just a neutral assessment of probabilities of admission.
Which helps emphasize the point that you can be excited about a Likely just because you actually really like it! You can, in fact, potentially prefer a Likely over various Targets or Reaches on your list.
This does automatically raise the question of why then apply to those other colleges, but there are lots of possible good answersâyou are not sure yet what you feel and want to visit or re-visit once you know your offers; your Likely might be likely for admissions but you donât yet know about things like honors or merit; and so on.
Anyway, I would personally agree there is an automatic logic here that is hard to avoid if you really think about it. It is MOST important to make sure you have exciting Likelies that you carefully chose for personal reasons, because the last thing you want in that scenario is to feel like you donât have great options. Next would be Targets (also not a great word, but there does not seem to be a good term in English for something in the middle range of probabilities), and since most people will end up at a Likely or Target, you again will benefit most from really carefully choosing Targets that would actually be even more exciting to you than your exciting Likelies.
And then if you want to toss in some Reaches (once again, not a great word), OK. But I think if you have really spent your time well on Likelies and Targets, at that point it is sorta a, âYeah, this would be nice, but if not then I am still in great shapeâ sort of thing.
Edited to add: I forgot the most important thing of all. If your choice of Likelies ends up being an excuse for your Dad to drag you to Scotland in March because he would likely nothing better than to bundle up and explore ruined castles and icy ocean beaches with a flask full of some cocktail, that is TRULY winning the college admissions game.
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