How To Build A Realistic College List

By Carolyn Z. Lawrence, AdmissionsAdvice.com

Two types of college admissions stories break my heart year after year.

The first happens when a student falls in love with a college that they realistically have very little chance of getting into. They’ll come into my office and tell me that it’s their "dream school" and that there cannot possibly be another school worth considering.  This is the one and only college for them. I’ll suggest other colleges that I know would be great matches for them, but, while they may grudgingly add a few more appropriate schools to their application pile, they never really look beyond that "dream school."

Until, of course, the rejection letter arrives.

The other type of student who breaks my hear builds a list solely of what I call "lottery schools."  These are schools like Harvard, Yale, MIT, and Stanford where the acceptance rate is so ridiculously low that no matter how good your grades and test scores are, getting in is never a sure bet for anyone. Unfortunately, like the "dream school" people, folks who build a list solely with "lottery schools" often have blinders on. Often, they've been told by parents, teachers, or a guidance counselor that they are a shoe-in for these schools because they are so unique and special. So, they never really look beyond those "lottery schools."

Until, of course, the rejection letters start coming.

These two stories illustrate why I believe that college planning should be "bottom-up" rather than "top down." What do I mean? Bottom-up planning means starting with you, Before you even pick up a guidebook, take a realistic look at your strengths and weaknesses (every student – even those with straight A's and  perfect test scores –  have both strengths and weaknesses!), and thinking carefully about what you, personally, need to be happy and successful during your college experience. 

Then, and only then, start looking at colleges.

However, bear in mind that building a college list is similar to building a house. When you build a house, you don’t start with the roof. You start with a solid foundation. It’s the same thing with building a strong college list. Don’t start with the roof – those colleges that are highly selective and likely to be reaches for you. Instead, start with a firm foundation by first identifying several colleges where you have a good bet of admission. These are the schools where your grades and test scores put you in the top of accepted students, or schools that accept a large percentage (more than 50% is my standard on this) of applicants. There are “good bet” colleges for C and B students, as well as A students, and every student applying to college needs them on their list. Once you've fallen in love with at least one good bet school, you can safely move on to more selective schools and, yes, even some lottery schools. If, however, you start with the roof, or reach schools, right off the bat, chances are you’ll never get around to building that foundation. When you’ve already fallen in love with Stanford or Harvard, it’s hard to keep an open mind about great, but less selective colleges, like UC Santa Cruz and the University of Redlands.

Planning A Successful College List

Let's take a look at how this might work in the real world. Paul is a straight A student, scored 750 math, 750 writing and 800 on critical reading on the SATs. Paul wants to major in biology and go on to medical school after college. His high school teachers love him, his parents love him, his friends tell him he is destined for glory. Surely, he only needs to apply to Harvard, Yale, Princeton and maybe UC Berkeley as a backup, right? Wrong. Those are all lottery schools and, as strong an applicant as Paul might be, those schools turn away thousands of strong applicants every year. If Paul is as smart as his grades and test scores suggest, he’ll pick three or four good bet schools and three or four match schools to investigate before he even clicks open the Harvard or UC Berkeley website. I'd suggest, for instance, that Paul look at schools like Syracuse University, the University of Rochester, Whitman College, or Case Western Reserve University first. Next, he can move up the ladder of selectivity and check out schools like Emory, Johns Hopkins, and Cornell as possible matches. Once he has narrowed his choices of good bets and matches down to 5-6, he can move on to those Ivy league schools. And, by the way, with  a "rejection rate" of nearly 80 percent, UC Berkeley is never a safety school for anyone.

However, bottom-up planning isn't only for top students. More average students should also start with good bet and match schools before adding reach schools to their list. Sarah, for example, works hard but her GPA is just barely hitting 3.6 and her test scores are 580 math, 550 writing and 590 reading. She's hoping to major in international relations and she's heard that Georgetown U. is the best school for that major. While Georgetown is indeed a terrific school for international relations, it is also high reach school for Sarah --- she's not even on the charts when it comes to Georgetown's average stats.  I'd suggest that Sarah put Georgetown aside for now and first focus her search on the other  many other excellent schools for international relations out there. Some good bet schools for her to check out would include the University of Denver, Agnes Scott College in Atlanta, Butler University in Indiana, Earlham in Indiana, and Beloit in Wisconsin. All would be good bets for Sarah.  Once she has a few of those schools in place, she can then check out schools like Boston U, Dickinson in Pennsylvania, and George Washington in D.C. as good match schools. All of these match and good bet schools have strong international relations programs but chances are that Sarah may never have of heard of them if she started and ended her search at Georgetown. So, should Sarah give up on Georgetown? That's the beauty of bottom-up planning: now that she has a solid list of schools that she has a good to excellent shot of getting into, she can add a few reach schools such as Georgetown, Tufts, or Colgate to her list knowing that she has a realistic foundation to her list that will give her great choices if her lottery schools fall through. She may not get in to those reach schools, but she'll know she'll be happy with the other schools on her list where she has a solid shot of admission.

So: If you're working on your college list, don't start at the top. Use a bottom-up approach and you'll be able to start writing your applications knowing that ALL of the schools you're applying to, including your "safety" schools, are ones where you can be happy.  Happy hunting!

Based in San Diego County, Carolyn Z. Lawrence is a private college admissions consultant who has helped hundreds of students from across the country and around the world find the right college matches.  Learn more about her college planning services for families.

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