Lowest chances that have been accepted?
Is there anyone on here who had like … insanely low chances for a school (like maybe 10-20% chance) but still got accepted ?
Also, what are the lowest chances that you had for a school but still got accepted?
I just want some hope for myself 😭
If I were applying this upcoming cycle given the significantly lower chancing numbers, I would only apply to a college ED/EA if my college vine chances were 20% or greater. So think of ED/EA schools in the 20-30% range.
As far as applying RD, I wouldn't apply to schools with 15% or less as your reach schools. My reach schools would be 20-25%, my hard target schools would be 26-40%, my target schools would be like 41-60%, and my safeties would be like 61-80%. I don't think applying to schools in the 80-100% range is necessary because you really don't want to go to them anyway even if the application is free and you are potentially taking a spot away from someone who is a better fit who deserves a shot at getting in.
Right now college admissions are a mess and a free for all. I think the entire process would be better if you had to submit a ranked list on your common app of up to 25 schools and where you get it is based on the colleges bidding for you. So you only find out where you go to 1 school on decision day. This would be a complete end to all the ridiculous flexing youtube videos and students who are high achieving applying to every single T20 school and getting into all of them even though they only need 1 school. What an utter waste of college admissions readers' time to have to read all these extra apps when they know this person only wants to go to Stanford, Harvard, or Yale.
HS Seniors are stressed out enough. Why do we have to create this stressful environment almost the entire senior year?
Good luck.
If hope is what you're looking for, I was in the same spot during my admissions cycle, and I can provide some.
DISCLAIMER: This is not intended to take away from any of the other advice provided by other posters - do your due diligence considering their opinions BUT ultimately the choice of what you do with your admissions cycle is your own.
Personally, when applying, I wanted to have no regrets. This did make the process fairly more difficult for me than it needed to be, but I am exceedingly happy with the intended outcome; however, this was just personal preference.
Of my top choice schools, I was accepted to the school CV said I had the lowest chance of admission for.
- Originally (when CV provided ranges + b4 I applied): 27-36%
- Updated (around the time I was applying): 23%
- Currently, after admission: 10%
My motto for app season was "no regrets," and I hope you remember that nothing is impossible. However, I encourage you to do what you feel right for you; I can't stress enough that it's your admissions cycle and life that you have to make peace with afterwards. But, in general, don't stress; just do what feels right for you :)
Hope this helps!
I've heard people who've had single digit chances and got in. However the chances are slim. If you apply to a lot of schools in the teens, you could have a chance of getting in. Personally, I don't buy the fact that there are strict cutoffs for applying EA/ED. For one, the EA/ED chances don't change compared to the RD chances, meaning that it is impossible to gauge where you're at from that perspective.
Additionally, there are some small things that I find inaccurate. While it's basically a consensus that once you get above a certain threshold for ACT/SAT scores, they don't matter too much. However, for me, I have a 36 superscore with only a 34 in english. When I change that 34 to a 36 in the simulator, my overall chances increase by a whole 2% across the board. Yes, the AI machine detects correlation, but at that level I don't believe it can be accurate. There must have been other factors involved.
Finally, a question to contribute to the discussion: I'm graduating in 3 years and will have taken 10 APs by graduation. Had I stayed a 4th, I would be taking 5-6 more, which would substantially increase my chances. Since colleges holistically evaluate this aspect, would it be more accurate if I plug in the # of APs that reflect my weighted GPA rather than the actual number of APs I'm taking?
My opinion about the ED/EA applicants is that while their early commitment shows that they are truly invested in a college, those students typically have more competitive stats than the RD pool. That’s why there is a higher acceptance rate for them than the RD. So I agree with you on that.
With the ACT thing, some elite colleges don’t accept superscore so it would raise your chances to have a 36 across the board rather than a 34 in one area.
I think when applying for college, they’re only going to consider the number of APs you ACTUALLY took, as you didn’t necessarily have to graduate early. They might even consider your application slightly weak as there are others in your application pool who took a full 4 years of Highschool and had more AP classes and a more rigorous schedule than you. So yea, just put in the number of APs you’ve taken rather than the ones you COULD have taken but didn’t. They don’t care about hypothetical classes unless there’s a genuine reason for not taking them like you had to pay for them, or your school didn’t offer them.
I mean another reason for the ED rates being higher could simply be that because it's earlier, you don't know how close the quotas are to being met, so you have more leeway to admit students who in RD would have otherwise been waitlisted. That's why I'm playing my ED card because I know i'm gonna be waitlisted at my first choice school in RD.
In terms of ACT scores, I agree that it would have some sort of impact, especially given that most people tend to average higher scores on english and lower scores on math at my school. This could mess with their algorithm and lower the chances more.
As for APs, I feel as though I may be disadvantaged in that area, but I really didn't have a choice because I ran out of math (Calc AB and BC) and chemistry classes (AP Chem, Organic Chem) to take. I've known I've wanted to major in chemistry for years and I've been pursuing this path, and to sum things up, I realized that the only way for me to efficiently further my studies was to go to college early. Besides, while I took less APs, I also took less unweighted classes since I took less classes in total, and my weighted GPA is (extremely likely) in the top 10 in my new graduating class. I hate to go on the defensive, but do you think that this would balance out the weaknesses?
Regardless, I think the simulator is a good indicator of comparing my likelihoods of getting into schools relative to each other, but I really take a lot of the miniscule factors here with a grain of salt.
If you’re top 10 in your graduating class, that changes the game a bit. Colleges will see that and be like “oh, they definitely are the top of their game”. It probably would balance out the weaknesses in my opinion.
You can only take so many weighted classes so your GPA might not change regardless of whether you stayed an extra year or not. I might be wrong though
Like for me, I’ve only taken 2 AP classes and have a 4.2 overall GPA. However if I took 3 AP classes every year (leaving me with 9 by junior year), taking an extra 3-5 APs could only raise my GPA by so much as I would be as close to a 5.0 as possible either way.
I honestly believe it would be the same regardless in your situation. If you graduate in 4 years with 12-14 APs, that looks good to admissions. If you graduate top of your class with 9 APs in 3 years, that also looks good to admissions. However, you run the risk of missing out on the maturity factor that comes with an extra year of Highschool and they might be slightly hesitant when comparing you to other applicants who have 1) more APs than you and 2) more extracurriculars from that extra year.
I’ve seen on this site that 9-12 APs is a good number to have for the elite colleges so you should be good either way
I agree with the maturity factor. I've been told that by many people so I asked one of my recommenders who knew me well to specifically drill in the fact that I demonstrated maturity. It's just daunting sometimes to look at other people around me who are taking a lot more.
I'm not too concerned with extracurriculars as I've started all of mine before high school, and I feel like I've accomplished what I've wanted to. Ultimately, getting started on my life goals was the main reason for graduating early.
You really shouldn't worry about the percentages. It all comes down to your test scores, application, and if the school requires an essay. I have heard that some colleges will do in-person applications, if that is so, I'm sure they will also look at character. So don't worry.
Yeah I understand. But like if the culmination of all my test scores, extracurriculars, and my personal profile leaves me at a 12% chance? Then I don’t know how much a personal essay will help me. I just want to know if I should shoot for a school I have almost 0% chance on ED or look elsewhere
If you shouldn't worry about percentages then what is the point of the chancing engine at all then? I disagree with this sentiment because there is a substantial amount of data in the CV database from previous applicants and admits so they have a better idea than stating that a holistic approach will is more important to think about. If you have a 10% CV rate, there is a 90% fail rate. It doesn't matter if you have a great essay, this would be a super far reach school, and applying there would be futile. But I'm not ever going to dissuade anyone from buying 1 or 10 lottery tickets right? But that's how I feel about super low-chance schools. They are lottery tickets.
A 12% CV chance school is not a good ED school.
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