March 2024

In this month’s blog, we’d like to dive into building a college list. Typically, list building won’t truly begin until junior year. However, it’s important to think about building the list and qualities of colleges as we approach junior year.

 

Building a solid, reasonable, and diverse college list is the top requirement of a successful college search process. Quality lists contain three types of colleges. These types of colleges pertain to your admission chances at each college. We can often predict admission into colleges by comparing your total student profile (including grades, test scores, extra-curricular activities, etc.) to previous students admitted to each college. The three types of college are as follows.

 

LIKELY: Likely colleges are estimated at a 85%-100% chance that you will be admitted. Likely colleges are not inferior institutions. There should be a substantial number of likely colleges on your list – and certainly more likely colleges than reach colleges.

 

LEVEL: Level colleges are estimated around a 50% chance of admission. Imagine the Scales of Justice. If everything is balanced, there is a 50-50 chance at admission. But if any factor weighs more heavily on either side the scale begins to unbalance.

 

REACH: Reach colleges are estimated at a 25% or less chance of admission. A student should not spend too much time or money on these colleges. Focusing your time on likely and level colleges will cause you (and your parents… and your college counselor) the ability to sleep every night senior year.

 

As you progress through the college selection process the names on your list will fluctuate. However, the colleges on your list should always have some overlapping qualities. Your list is a great list only if it includes ALL the following:

Once a good list is built, you and your family will have choices. We want to do everything in our power to ensure the ball is in your court in the spring of your senior year. The worst-case scenarios are when families come to the college counseling office in March realizing they overshot chances of admission and underestimated cost. Those are, unfortunately, hard conversations as applying to a college in March leaves us very few options.

Additionally, EVERY college on your list should be a FIRST CHOICE. Often, we hear students talk about their first-choice college. It’s great to have a ranking order of preference, but every college on this list should be able to fall into that category at any time!

List building will also depend on finances. If scholarships are important, a student will have far more likely colleges on his list. If finances are not as important, there will be more level and reach colleges on that list.

As always, reach out to your college counselors with questions!