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Strategy for Choosing, Visiting and Applying to Colleges
This page will help you plan an overall strategy for choosing colleges to consider, visit, and apply to. If you already have a list of colleges that you want to consider, visit, or apply to, click here to find out your statistically-based percentage chances (e.g. 35% or 75%) of getting into those colleges.
As a high school student planning to go to a four-year college, you are facing the daunting task of trying to select which college or university to attend. This critical, once-in-a-lifetime decision is made more difficult by the myriad of choices that you have; there are more than 2,000 accredited four-year colleges and universities in the United States. College Admissions Services can help you throughout this process.
The task of choosing colleges is difficult because of the large number of subjective factors that you have to consider. First, you need to consider your preferences with respect to the type of college, its location, size and religious affiliation. We help you address these considerations on our Choosing Colleges page. Second, once you have an idea of what you are looking for in a college, you will need to find out how your background and achievements match up with those of the colleges by finding out your chances of admission.
It is important for you to recognize that your chance of getting into a college is a measure of how well your background and achievements match up with the college's admission
criteria rather than how prestigious or how academically challenging that college may be. For example, about 50% of the freshmen accepted at Duke University in 2004 were given
admissions preferences based on their race, residency, legacy status, athletics, and donor status. If your background does not match up with these preferences, your chances of
admission at Duke will likely be lower than your chances at a more prestigious university where you match up with the admissions criteria. Similarly, some colleges place critical importance on standardized test, while others consider rank in class or GPAs to be more important. In short, your chance of being admitted by a particular school is primarily determined by how well your background and achievements match that college's admissions criteria. College Admission Services has data on what factors each college considers to be important and can help you by matching these with your background and strengths.
To compile a final list of colleges to apply to, click on the steps below for details:
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Step 1: Select a Pool of Colleges
As early as possible in your freshman, sophomore, junior or senior year, select a pool of 20 to 25 colleges based on their location, size, prestige, religious affiliation and other factors.
Starting with a large pool of colleges enables you to later eliminate those colleges that no longer fit your preferences and still end up with 6 to 12 colleges to apply to.
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Step 2: Obtain an Initial Assessment
As soon as you have your first PSAT, ACT or SAT scores, obtain our initial assessment of your chances of admission at the colleges you selected by clicking on What Are My Chances?
Knowing your percentage chances of admission will help put your list of colleges in perspective. For information about the New SAT and ACT, click here.
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Step 3: Group Your Choices — Safety, Likely and Reach
Based on your percentage chances of being accepted subdivide the pool of 20 to 25 colleges into three groups:
Reach: 1%-49% chance of admission Likely: 50% to 85% chance of admission Safety: 86%-99% chance of admission
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Step 4: Evaluate Colleges in Each Group
Make sure that you have at least four colleges in each of the three groups. If you have fewer than four colleges, select additional colleges and obtain your chances of admission until you have at least four colleges in each group. Make sure that you are considering enough colleges in each category because if your test scores, rank, and other accomplishments improve from the time of your initial assessment, you may need to re-categorize some of the colleges. For example, a
reach school may become a likely/ballpark school.
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Step 5: Research Your Choices
Research the colleges in your pool, so you can evaluate them based on your preferences and eliminate those that do not fit your criteria. To expedite your research, click on Information on Colleges for vital information and statistics on more than 150 of the nation's top colleges.
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Step 6: Visit Your Choices
Visit as many colleges in your college pool as possible and continue to rank them in order of your preference in each of the three categories, i.e. stretch, likely, and safety. While visiting colleges is an important part of the selection process, it can also be time-consuming and expensive. Therefore, we offer tips on how to get the most out of your college visits. Click on Visiting Colleges for advice, hotels near the colleges, and campus tour videos.
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Step 7: Obtain Final Predictions
During your senior year, after receiving your final SAT and/or ACT scores, class rank, GPA and finalizing the extracurricular activities that you will be submitting to colleges, obtain College
Admissions Services' final predictions of your chances of being accepted to the colleges you are still focusing on by clicking on What Are My Chances? Our predictions are so accurate that we will refund your money for any colleges that we do not predict correctly - last year our predictions were 98.2% accurate. Again, make sure that you have at least four colleges in each of the three categories: stretch, likely and safety, so that you do not have to panic and hastily add colleges at the last minute.
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Step 8: Make Final Decisions
Make final decisions about where to apply. We recommend that you choose at least two colleges in each category (stretch, likely, safety) to help maximize your chances of getting in. Try to minimize the number of schools in the outer ranges. For example, consider applying to
no more than one single-digit stretch school (i.e. 7%) because such schools do not match your background well. You can probably find an equally prestigious school where you have a better chance of getting in.
In other words, your chances of being admitted to a college do not necessarily correlate with the prestige or academic excellence of that college. You may have a higher chance of admission at a more prestigious, more academically-challenging college and a lower chance of admission at a less prestigious, less academically-challenging college simply because your background and achievements match the criteria of the first college but not the other one.
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Step 9: Utilize the Step-by-Step Application Guide
To help you through the admissions procedures, view our detailed, step-by-step guide on applying, obtaining college applications, deciding on early action and early decision, by clicking on Applying to Colleges.
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We believe the strategy outlined above will help you target and narrow down competitive colleges that are right for you. Good luck with your college search!
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