At some point, you are going to have to send your common app to someone. Trust us, we wish there was a Tinder for colleges and we could just swipe till we get a match, but until silicon valley gets on that, you have to make an old-fashioned list.
So how do you go about making a college list? It is difficult and nuanced, but we can help. We have two main points we go over with our students when making a college list with them. We break it into two important factors: viability and fit.
Admissions Viability:
Admissions viability is just a fancy way of saying, statistically, can you get in? Not everyone who is viable does get in, but it’s a way of confirming that you are in the running.
Most of our clients are applying to pretty competitive places. We define a competitive school as a school with a 25% acceptance rate or less. The baseline metric you should use if applying to one of these schools is “am I above the 50th percentile academically.” This might sound like a lot of math and fancy words, but we promise it is very easy. Being above the 50 percentile just means your grades and scores are better than the average. For example, if everyone got between an A and a C+ on a test, the 50th percentile might be a B+.
GPA percentiles vary from high school to high school. Not all high schools grade the same and the difficulty of classes can also vary, but don’t worry about that here. You’re just looking for an approximate number.
It’s much easier to find out where you fall when it comes to standardized tests. For most schools, it’ll involve a very quick google search. Take Cornell, for example. They have about a 10% admissions rate—yeesh competitive. Their 25th percentile ACT score is 32, and the 75th percentile ACT score is 35. The average person admitted to Cornell has an ACT score of 34.
Obviously, you want to do the best you can on standardized tests and grades. Especially when the school is highly competitive. You don’t need to be perfect, you just have to be in the right striking distance. Extracurriculars and essays can make you stand out and will push you over the edge, you need to make sure you are academically viable.
Fit:
Ok, so you have the grades and the scores to apply to a school but do you actually want to go there?
While calculating viability is all math, the fit is really all about the vibe. Big picture fit is easy to talk about. Big schools have very different vibes than small schools but at some point, you have to get more specific. You might know you want to go to a small, liberal arts college. Do you apply to Vassar or Wesleyan? They are pretty similar. How do you choose? This is when you have to dig into researching the specific vibe.
One easy fit qualifier is that it has to have a program or major you want. If you want to study criminology, Penn is probably the better fit than Brown which doesn’t offer a criminology concentration. Look into the classes and majors offered, if they don’t have something you know you want to study, skip applying. This might seem obvious, but we work with students who often fall in love with schools because of their brand and then realize the school actually doesn’t have the right academic offerings.
The rest of the fit qualifiers are less set in stone. It’s really hard to figure out how it would feel to go to a school before you actually go there. We have some tips and tricks however that we advise students to do.
If you can go to the campus we advise you to do it. Sometimes travel and COVID and schedules can get in the way, but if you can, it’s the easiest way to get a sense of the school. Once on campus most students take the tour and we don’t advise against it but it's not a great tool for actually getting to know the school. We liken it to state-sponsored propaganda. It’s usually very formal and they aren’t going to tell you anything that they don’t want you to know about. Do most students spend their whole weekend studying? Are the food options all gross? They won’t tell you that on the tour. Students also tend to give too much credit to the tour guide. We hear, “I hated my tour guide” a lot. But judging a school from one random 19-year-old who probably took the job to make some extra cash is giving them a little too much power.
We always advise talking to students who have nothing to do with admissions. They can be much freer with their opinions and recommendations. Take it to the next level and ask 10 students about what they do on a Thursday night, Friday night, and Sunday morning. At some schools, everyone will have the same answer, at others everyone will have different answers. Listen to what they have to say and see if you could imagine yourself as part of their plans.
If you can’t make it onto campus, you can do a virtual tour, however, they can be pretty boring. It’s a good place to start, but they don’t always give you a full picture of the school. While virtual tours are a start, you are going to have to dig deeper. We advise going to Instagram and looking at the Geo-Tag. What are students posting? What are they posting about? Can you imagine yourself there? We know you are amazing at finding what you need to know on the internet. If you can find your sister’s ex-boyfriend’s new girlfriend’s food review TikTok, you can find info on a school.
Building a list of schools is really all about research. First, you do the research on yourself to make sure you are in the right place academically to apply. Then it’s time to start researching the school to see if it’s a good fit. Going to schools or checking out geotags is like compiling data. Get enough data on a school and it will start to feel like you really understand what they are about. Your list will usually start long and as you learn more about schools, some will fall off because they don’t seem like they have the right vibe for you. Don’t be afraid not to apply somewhere if you can’t see yourself going there.
Need help building up or cutting down your college list? We can help!