Originally Posted by
AMflier
True This
Always have a mix of Reach, Target, and Safety schools.
I was a bit optimistic with my child on what schools he had a chance at. The amazing college counselor at his high school was very realistic about what school fell into each category for him. She pretty much nailed what schools he would be accepted at.
Great to hear that!
One of his graduating class aimed too high without applying to any safety schools. They had to scramble after being rejected by all of the schools they had applied to.
Unfortunately that one student is not alone. This reeks of a college counselor who is probably assigned hundreds of seniors who clearly can't give each student the individual guidance needed to make a smart roster of schools from which to apply. This happens nearly everywhere including at top public schools across the country.
For anyone really interested, there was a
state-to-state student to college guidance counselor ratio report done comparing 10 years of guidance counseling. Go to page 2 to see a student to college guidance counselor ratio per state.
Originally Posted by zippy the pinhead
We also have a counselor at his school who has been doing this a good long while, and that is a resource we will be trying to utilize as well.
That's good to hear.
Originally Posted by cestmoi123
Which is why I commented on Lehigh in the context of the student's chance of being admitted to Princeton. If the student has a realistic (say 1 in 4 or better) chance of getting into Princeton (i.e. SAT 1550+, GPA 3.9+, good extracurriculars), then that student's probability of getting into Lehigh is very high, and it could make a good safety school.
A substantial majority of Princeton applicants has the above. Lehigh is now much more selective than it was 10, 20, 30 years ago because many who think they have a 25% shot of getting into Princeton are in for a rude awakening and run to schools like Lehigh. Obviously I can't convince you of that but that's ok.
What can drive undergraduate admissions recruiters like myself bonkers is how often parents can make the application process torture for their kids for all kinds of reasons having more to do with the parents than the students.