Creating a college list is hard work. On the one hand, you want to be open-minded. But if you’re too open-minded, you run the risk of applying to schools that don’t make much sense. You also want to make sure that you’re streamlining the process and creating a college list that isn’t random or too aspirational. No one is expecting you to have everything figured out at 18 years old, but you do need to do a serious amount of research before you solidify your school list.
When creating school lists with TKG clients, we remind them that every single school is not going to be a 100% match. It’s even possible that no school is a 100% match. But with that being said, you should not apply to any schools that you know you will not ultimately attend. You will be more excited about certain schools on your list, but you shouldn’t add schools just to bump your numbers.
Here are the metrics we look at when creating initial college lists:
Viability:
This is the most important aspect of the list, and it needs to remain at the top. If you love Yale, but you’ve gotten C’s and are not doing a single extracurricular activity, you should not be applying to Yale. We’ll go into the difference between target, safety, and reach schools later – but you should only be applying to schools where you fall within their typical range of acceptances.
Academic Programs:
What do you want to study? This can be hard to narrow down, so we use a rule of thumb: there should be at least 3 majors/programs that you’re excited about, and are likely to study should you be accepted.
Size, Location, and Culture:
We’re lumping these three metrics together because only you can decide how important each aspect is in your search. For example, you might have reasons as to why going to college in California is the only possibility, or perhaps you want to a train ride away from home. Some our clients are only interested in small liberal arts schools, and some don’t care about the size of the college as long as they have a standout elementary education program. Culture, however, is important. You should spend some time thinking about the kinds of people you want to surrounded with, the kinds of activities you care to engage with, and the kind of social life you’re looking for. This is one of the harder metrics to research: if you can, speak with someone who attends the school to get their take on the vibes on campus.
Although we did caution against being too open, it’s worth mentioning that you should be open to researching schools that might not, at least at first glance, seem like something of interest. We often decide that the Ivy League is best, or that we absolutely refuse to live on the east coast, but try not to discount schools based on preconceived notions.
Let’s say you end up a list that looks something like this:
Major: English, History, and/or Political Science
Size: Small
Location: open to anywhere in the United States
Culture: vibrant social scene, community engagement opportunities
Use that list to create a list of schools (around 15) that you like and love. From there, take a hard look at your performance in high school thus far, aka start to consider admissions viability. This is a critical step that you cannot skip! Write down your grades, GPA, test scores, and extracurricular activities. This is where reality comes into play, like the Yale example that we used earlier.
Grab your list of schools, and do some research on the profile of accepted students. As we mentioned, you should be within range at every single school on your list. So, if you’re applying to X school and the GPA range is 3.5-3.7 and the ACT range is 32-34, you should fall within those numbers. If you’re well above, consider it a safety school. If you’re in the middle, consider it a target. And yes, to call a school a reach, you do need to be within range. A lot of people think that reach school means any school you want to attend, which is not the case. Again, for those in the back: even for reach schools, you should be within range.
We recommend applying to anywhere from 8-12 schools, depending upon how much time you have and how realistic your list is. We should caution against spending “extra” time doing multiple applications for reach schools – if you must add schools to your list, we suggest adding additional targets and safeties, which is the best way to add additional acceptances.
If you need help creating your college list, contact us here.