April was a transition month for students at Advantage College Planning.
Seniors have their college decisions. And while some have been writing Letters of Continued Interest in hopes of coming off of waitlists, many others have attended admitted student days, made their college choice, and put down enrollment deposits. We’re so excited and proud of what our seniors have accomplished this year!
Juniors are looking ahead and preparing to step up to the plate. Most of our juniors are busy researching colleges and focusing on fit—not name and rankings—to determine their next steps. College lists are a work in progress right now. The goal is that by the time application work begins in earnest, rising seniors will have a balanced college list made up of well-researched schools that fit them academically, socially, and financially.
But what do we mean when we say a “balanced” college list?
We’re talking about selectivity, and given admissions trends over the past few years, a balanced list is more important than ever.
We divide colleges into three (and a half) categories when it comes to selectivity: Likely, Target, and Reach. Let’s take a closer look at each category and discuss our best tips for building a balanced college list.
LIKELY
Likely schools should be the foundation of every college list. These are colleges where the student applying has a high chance of being admitted based on the college’s acceptance rate and the applicant’s academic profile.
Every student should apply to a few Likely colleges that they can get excited about and see themselves attending.
Here are a few tips about Likely colleges:
Likely colleges may come with some extra opportunities like merit scholarships or admission to honors colleges.
Don’t overlook Likely schools in the college planning process. Include Likelies on your college tours to learn what makes them unique college experiences!
We recommend applying to at least one in-state public Likely college for financial fit as well.
Parents: What is “Likely” has changed over the years! Just because a school was less selective several years ago (or even recently…) doesn’t mean it’s a Likely school for your student.
Lastly, you may have heard the expression “Safety School” before. I want you to forget that phrase ever existed. Why? Because when someone is talking about a “Safety School,” they usually don’t mean it in a positive way. They mean it in a backup, last-resort way. That’s not what we’re doing here.
It’s important that Likely colleges are just as strong a fit for a student as any other college on their list. Likely colleges are great places to get an education. Students need to like their Likelies and parents need to support them as much as the rest of the college list!
TARGET
A Target school is a college where a student’s chance of admission is around 50% based on the college’s acceptance rate and the student’s academic profile. The student, academically, falls somewhere in the middle 50% of what the college generally admits.
Because students fall in that middle 50%, it’s easy for students to confuse Likelies and Targets. But Target schools will sometimes admit applicants with a profile similar to the student’s. And sometimes they won’t.
Here are some tips about Target schools:
Keep a close eye on changing acceptance rates from year to year. With changing factors like test-optional policies and a rise in applications at many colleges, what may have been a Likely or Target when a student started list building can change by the time they apply to college. For example:
Auburn University had a 155% increase in Early Action applications this year. Their overall acceptance rate for the 2020-2021 cycle was around 81%. We’re still waiting for the final numbers to shake out for the overall acceptance rate for 2021-2022, but the early action acceptance rate was only 24%!
Some schools may appear like Target schools based on their acceptance rate but are actually Likely or Reach schools in disguise. Here are two types of schools to look out for:
Public Universities - Most public universities admit in-state students at a different rate than out-of-state students, and that may give students a slight advantage or disadvantage in the admissions process. For example, at UNC Chapel Hill, 82% of seats in the incoming class are reserved for students from North Carolina. So for UNC’s Class of 2025, the overall acceptance rate was 19.2%, but the difference between in-state and out-of-state was huge. North Carolina applicants were admitted at a rate of 42.2% while out-of-state students were admitted at a rate of 10.5%.
Colleges with Early Decision - If a college has an Early Decision admissions deadline, those numbers can skew its overall acceptance rate and make a school look less selective than it is for students who are applying Regular Decision. Colleges often have a higher acceptance rate for Early Decision because they know those students will attend if admitted (read more about the different types of application deadline types here), and some colleges can fill half of their class or more from Early Decision. Here are a few examples from the Class of 2024:
American University - Early Decision acceptance rate: 83.5%, Regular Decision acceptance rate: 36.4%, Percentage of class filled from ED: 51%
Davidson College - Early Decision acceptance rate: 46.9%, Regular Decision acceptance rate: 16.5%, Percentage of class filled from ED: 59%
Washington & Lee University - Early Decision acceptance rate: 52.6%, Regular Decision acceptance rate: 21.3%, Percentage of class filled from ED: 59%
REACH
A Reach school is a college where a student’s chance of admission is low. The college generally admits students with a higher academic profile than the applicant. The college might also have a lower acceptance rate. A combination of the two is often common for reach schools.
If a college list runs into trouble, it’s usually because of reach schools. When students aren’t thinking about building a balanced college list, they tend to add too many Reaches, and the list becomes unbalanced. And when students aren’t thinking about fit, they tend to add more and more Reach schools based on name or ranking regardless of whether or not they would be happy attending college there.
Just like Likely and Target schools should be a good fit for students, so should Reach schools. Students should consider whether the Reaches on their list are an academic, social, and financial fit for them.
Here are some tips for Reach colleges:
Don’t let Reach schools take over the college list. Apply to a few that are a good fit, but this should not be the majority of the college list!
Often, I hear from students that they are comfortable applying to mostly Reaches with one or two Likely or Targets thrown in for “safety” (remember how I feel about that concept?). If that’s you or your student, think for a minute about the spring of senior year. What will it feel like to open up “no” after “no” (which is, realistically, the most probable result from a Reach school)? Even if there are a few acceptances sprinkled in there, that’s a lot of rejection for a teenager to face at the end of a successful high school career. I don’t recommend it.
Financially, families should recognize that even if a student is admitted, they will likely not receive any merit-based scholarships (and many highly selective don’t actually award scholarships based on merit).
Students should LOVE their Reach schools and be excited about learning more about them, researching them, writing about them, etc… If any of these things feel like a drag or you think of an answer to the “Why Us?” essay, ask yourself why you’re applying and if it’s for the right reasons.
WILDCARD
At the beginning of this blog post, I said there were three and a half categories when it came to college selectivity. That’s because some colleges are a reach for everyone. It doesn’t matter who you are, what your GPA is, what your test scores are, or what you wrote your essay about. It’s still a reach. I call these Wildcards.
For me, it’s any college with less than a 20% acceptance rate. When colleges are this selective, admission is unpredictable.
Along with the Reach tips above, here are some additional tips for Wildcard colleges:
Fit is always important. But perhaps the most important when applying to a Wildcard. These colleges have no shortage of applications, so they can really be picky and admit exactly the type of student who’s going to be a great fit for their campus community. Apply to Wildcards where you are truly a good fit and can demonstrate that you understand what makes the college unique.
Can you fake it til you make it? Probably not. These admissions representatives read thousands of applications each year. They can spot a genuine fit for their campus.
Applying to more Wildcards will not increase your chances of being accepted. That’s not how math works. You do not have a higher probability of being accepted by one Ivy League college if you apply to all of them. Find your fit. Find the colleges you truly love.
Your admissions decision at a highly selective college says very little about you, in the end. Let that be liberating! They receive and reject hundreds of applications each year with perfect GPAs and test scores. It’s not about “not being good enough.” It’s about not having enough dorm rooms. Many of them would admit many more students if they could. So much is out of your control with a Wildcard school. Know that you put your best self forward, trust that the process is playing out as it should, and love the colleges who love you back!
BUILDING THE LIST
On average, students apply to a range of 6-12 colleges.
Students with fewer Reach and Wildcard schools may be more comfortable at the lower end of that range. If a student is applying to more highly selective schools, they should make sure to have plenty of Likely and Target schools as their foundation.
We work with rising seniors in all phases of college list building, from discussing college fit to building suggested college lists to ensuring a student’s self-made list is balanced and realistic. To get support with building a balanced college list, reach out for a free consultation!
