chances got slashed 😭 what shall we do

This is public service message to anyone looking at their "MY LIST" for chancing percentages.

1. Whenever there is a new rollout of software or a software update, there are bugs. That's just a fact of life. It doesn't matter if its an Apple IOS update or an update on an App. There are always bugs. Why? Because software is NEVER perfect, it's a living piece of CODE that is only good for a certain amount of time. Some CODE is better than others, but for the most part, it has a shelf life, and that can be less than a day as we saw in the game Cyberpunk 2077 which was pure garbage when it was released. I pre-ordered it for $60. When I played on my Playstation, it was unplayable. Amazon gave me a refund.

2. Changing calculations are a very difficult beast to tackle. Why? Because there are over 500 colleges in the CV database and every CV member has a different profile with different attributes, data points, etc. So interpreting how well a student has chances to get into a school is always a guessing game at best. If you only look at GPA/Test Scores, then that is only 2 out of say 100 criteria the colleges themselves use. So the resulting outputs are going to be all over the place. And while CV has 20+ inputs including course rigor, EC tiers, demographics, it still doesn't capture the benefits if you are a recruited athlete, legacy, development candidate, or facBrat or come from a private boarding school which is a established feeder to that college. For example my school of 208 seniors had 76 admits to Trinity College, 60 admits to Connecticut college, 107 to UVA, 98 to Georgetown, 63 to UMich, 121 to NorthEastern, 117 to Boston U, and 378 admits to the 8 Ivys spread over the past 6 years of admissions data. We had a 30% admit rate into Ivys over the past 6 years so how is this data captured in a Chancing Engine? It isn't and never will. Not only does it matter if you go to a public HS, a charter school, a private day school or boarding school. It matters what these individual schools are ranked among their peers so zip codes matter and sometimes there are 3 High Schools within a zip code and they are not the same. There are close to 300 boarding schools not all of them are feeders into top schools. The top 20 count the most. I read in an article that in a recent year 120 admits to Harvard came from only 10 private day/boarding schools. So you see, unless there is absolute transparency of school profile data, no chancing engine can ever capture one's true acceptance probabilities.

3. I do think however, chancing percentiles are very useful in helping separate super hard schools from easy schools. Imagine a box of treasure filled to the brim with jewelry. The chancing engine can help you identify the diamonds/emeralds/rubies from the pearls/gold/semi-precious stones, and the more common silver, stainless, copper jewelry. But if the CV says I have a 1% chance to get into Caltech when my CV% to get into MIT is 20%, when the overall admit rate is 3%-4%, personally I think it's a bug. Why? Because intuitively I know that after visiting Caltech and meeting with the WaterPolo coach and studying their last 5 years of common data sets and all official admissions notices that I would be a solid applicant to the school. I have a 99+% test scores, a 4.0 UWGPA, 9 APS, 30 earned college credits, major leadership positions in my school and community (4 Tier 1 ECs, 6 Tier 2 ECs), amazing awards including being a US Presidential scholar. So how can I have a 99% chance of being rejected by Caltech when I already got into Columbia. Plus I rank MIT, Stanford, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia UChicago, UPenn ahead of Caltech. And so do all ranking lists. Had I applied to the other schools I mentioned including Caltech Early, perhaps it would have been closer to a coin toss for me or 1 out of 3 chances. But 1%? Nope this is clearly a bug. So what I'm saying is that don't let a print out of the chancing engine ruin your day or prevent you from applying to the schools you feel you have a really good chance at getting into okay. None of these numbers are going to be that accurate.

4. I'm going to limit my talk time here by saying that you never know who is going to read your application. You don't know what biases they have in favor of someone like you or against someone like you. Some colleges only have 1 reader, others 2 readers, and sometimes a 3rd reader might get involved. Therefore, if someone really likes Eagle Scouts or Cheer Captains, then that's good for you. Or someone could really dislike overzealous pre-med applicants who think they've figured everything. So don't make assumptions about too many things.

5. Lastly, don't assume you know how admissions work. I might have spent more time than the typical person researching and examining college admissions but if anyone was a clear expert or if 1 website was the very best with a 95% approval rating, then there would be mad rush to get that information. But no one has all the answers. I'm going to leave you some anecdotal admissions data from my school for a couple colleges. The first one is Cornell. At my school most of the grades are deflated or compressed between 88 and 92 on a 100 scale. Over the past 6 years, we had 74 Cornell admits, and their GPAs ranged from 84.6-94.7, and their SATs ranged from 1150 to 1590, and their ACTs ranged from 24 to 36. The middle 50% GPA was between 88.9%-91.5% and their Middle 50% SAT was 1400-1510, ACT 30-34. At UVA the Middle 50% GPA was 90 to 92, SAT 1410 to 1510, ACT 31-35. Georgetown middle GPA was 90.50-93, SAT 1420-1540, ACT 32-35. So intuitively one would think that getting into UVA or GTown would be easier than getting into an IVY but that's not the case with private boarding schools. So going back to my point, none of this nuanced data can ever be captured in a chancing engine because it defies logic.

Good luck everyone and I would wait until the bugs are worked out and also don't put all your eggs into the online college admissions advice basket. Use some common sense and do your own research as well to augment what people are saying and telling you to do.

it might help to know what your gpa, ec's and classes are. but yea after their update pretty much everything dropped :'( its based off current trends vs. last years, so I just suggest doing (summer) internships, community service/volunteering, more clubs, sports/performing arts, AP classes, getting good grades and maybe doing tutoring or a summer activity/course that has to do with your major/field of inetrest!