I do prefer to be more conservative with my estimates; you’re absolutely right. I’d rather someone being pleasantly surprised than unpleasantly so when they’re opening up their college decisions.
As @Mwfan1921 mentioned, American and GW want a great deal of demonstrated interest and have turned away students with OP’s credentials if they didn’t think that American/GW was truly one of the applicants’ top choices. And OP is hoping for merit aid, so even though his family perhaps could have been a full pay situation at Trinity, they’re hoping not to be.
Additionally, I believe in taking overall admissions rates seriously. Just because a student’s SAT and GPA are higher than the 25-75 range for a school doesn’t mean that they’re a shoo-in, or even a likely. Ask all the people applying for Top X schools (or look on those threads). Being above the 75th percentile is what I consider a strong boost and will normally flip someone into the next category up.
- Trinity has a 33% acceptance rate with an ACT range of 30-32.
- George Washington has a 41% acceptance rate with SAT scores of 1280-1470 and ACT scores of 30-33.
- American has a 36% acceptance rate with an SAT range of 1210-1390 and ACT range of 29-33.
Perhaps my labels could be tweaked, but toss-up goes up to a roughly 59% chance. It’s a wide range. And since GW was at 41%, and I’m betting the admissions percentages for all three of those schools dropped this year, I kept them in the toss-up category. But others are welcome to have their own categorization system and classify them as likelies.