That is a frequent problem for students with very strong records.
@“Erin’s Dad” Yes, that makes it hard for me to find match schools that have the kind of academic rigor that im looking for.
A good reason to have a safety that you like and would be happy to attend.
Well, when you bump up against the ceiling like that, then of course you can’t go by whether you’re in the mid range of scores. But you seem to know that. What I was asking in my post is, how can anyone recommend match schools for you without knowing anything about your preferences? If you like I can go to USNWR and just find the 10-15 schools that have somewhat less tough acceptance rates than the ones you’ve mentioned. But how will that help you? You could do the same thing just as easily.
Do you actually know what you want in a school or are you just looking to get into the most selective school possible?
Regardless of stats, you can’t consider a college is a match if its acceptance rate is below 20% (assuming you’re qualified for HYPSM) or 30% (if you’re not).
I think that for many college students, a good college town is better than a city - I’d rather live in Amherst or Ann Arbor or Madison, than Atlanta, Syracuse, or Orlando.
You need to work on your college list. Right now, you haven’t worked on it, you’ve just “dreamed” and written that down. It’s easy, anyone can do it. What you need to do is start by the defining characteristics of your favorite colleges, list them, and look for colleges with 20 (or 30)% acceptance rates that share them and that, after running the NPC, turn out to be affordable. Then find 2 colleges with 40%+ acceptance rates that are affordable. One is likely to be your state flagship’s honors college.