How To Build Your College List

Reach,” “target”, and safety,” or as I like to call it, opportunity” schools are common terms used to describe your chances of getting accepted at a particular institution. The combination of opportunity, target, and reach schools is what makes a healthy college list and one that is sure to get you into your best fit college IF you do your homework right.

What Is a Reach School?

Reach schools are colleges where you have less than a 30% chance of admission.

Keep in mind that schools with 10% acceptance rate is what I consider to be

“super ’ll gain reaches” for everyone even if you meet the academic profile such as test scores, GPA, and curriculum.Such schools are extremely competitive and even students with profiles that align with or exceed those of accepted students cannot be confident they admission. A given school may also be a reach if your grades and test scores are

below the averages of accepted students.

What Is a Target School?

A target school is a college where you have a 50/50 chance of getting in. Typically,

these colleges have acceptance rates of 30-60%. Within the target school category,

either you fall in range with the academic profile but the acceptance rate is low

(under 40%) or your academic profile (GPA and test scores) is below average in

comparison to the other students but the acceptance rate is between 40-60%.

Unless the school is very selective, how your SAT/ACT score compares to the

school’s middle 50% test scores is a decent indicator of whether a school is a target.

The middle 50% is the range of scores between the 25th percentile and the 75th

percentile of accepted student's scores. There are no guarantees of getting into a target school, but you should feel good about your chances of admission into a target school.

What Is an Opportunity School?

Opportunity or safety schools are colleges where you have a greater than 60%

chance of acceptance. Having test scores better than the 75th percentile of students

is a good indicator that a college is an opportunity school. This is also a great option

for those students looking for scholarship money and opportunities that might

otherwise not be possible if attending another institution such as study abroad

opportunities or accelerated programs. You feel good about this school and know

it is a great opportunity and a real contender.

Your college list consists of all of these. However, deciding on how many

opportunity, target and reach schools you should have on your list can be tricky and

depends on both your academic profile and financial situation. For example, if you are looking for financial aid but do not qualify as per your family’s household income and can only rely on scholarships, applying to more target and opportunity schools might be better suited for you.

Typically, a college list looks like this nowadays:

8-12 colleges

3-4 reaches

4 targets

2-3 opportunity schools

Building a well thought-out college list is the key to getting accepted. If you do it right, not only will you get accepted to your best fit college but you might even score the most scholarship dollars or amazing financial aid packages.