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Planning your School List

Writer's picture: Aled LinesAled Lines

College applications require planning and strategic thinking to optimize success. Read on to discover how to plan your school list.


When it comes time to actually apply to college, there are certain strategies that can help to optimize your odds of success.


Understanding Your Profile


"Students maximize their chances for postsecondary success when they take advantage of whatever rigorous academic opportunities are available at their schools." - Grant H. Blume

Every student has a unique academic profile; a mix of qualities and attributes that are reflected in the application itself. For example, a student who has a strong interest in the humanities and is highly involved in Model United Nations would look quite different on paper from a student-athlete specializing in STEM subjects. There are a few different ingredients to understand when examining your academic profile.


Grades and Transcript

Firstly, you should understand your high school transcript and know your GPA. While this isn't necessarily the single most important aspect of your application, it's definitely a key component of your profile. When colleges look at your high school grades, they'll primarily be looking at the level of rigor, and your grade results. For that reason, if you're reading this and you still have a year or two before you're going to apply to college, you should strongly consider taking more rigorous courses. AP, IB, and college-level classes are all universally considered rigorous. However, when it comes to general classes, it depends on individual circumstances. As a heuristic rule, try to maximize classes you enjoy, and classes that challenge you. Your GPA will reflect your ability to perform in an academic context, so do your best to ensure that it stays as high as possible while also challenging yourself.


Standardized Tests This particular category is subject to change in the post Covid-19 world, but it's worth mentioning regardless.

While your standardized test results (much like your high school grades) don't define you as a person, they do help serve as a useful indicator for colleges to assess your application. Most students seeking to apply to university in the United States should take the SAT at least once before their senior year. Having AP or SAT II results will also help to demonstrate aptitude in a particular subject. If you're an international student, you'll likely also to take an English proficiency test such as IELTS or TOEFL.

With Covid-19 lockdowns affecting students' access to testing centers, many colleges and universities have waived certain test requirements for the 2020-2021 application season. Please refer to individual university websites for more details.


Extracurricular Activities Are you an athlete? Or maybe you're an accomplished musician, or a passionate member of your school's robotics team. Your activities outside of the classroom will allow colleges to get a glimpse at what interests and excites you. Furthermore, your level of achievement in these activities will demonstrate your commitment to your interests. If you're performing any of your extracurricular activities at a high level, be sure to mention it.


Assessing Your Odds

Assessing whether or not your application will be successful is a highly uncertain process. However, you're still encouraged to do what you can to ensure that you have a general idea of how competitive your application will be. One resource I would suggest here is CollegeData, which will give you a rough estimation of how likely you might be to successfully apply to a particular school.


Your Final College List

While the specifics may vary between students, I would generally suggest aiming for a college list of 7 - 10 schools, arranged into three basic tiers: Reach, Target, and Safe schools.


Reach Schools: These are what might otherwise be referred to as "dream schools". Reach schools are colleges or universities that lie on the distant end of what you would reasonably hope to successfully apply to. Depending on the strength of your academic profile, these schools could be Ivy League schools or any other highly competitive university. While I would never want to dissuade a student from applying to his or her reach option, it's also important to be realistic as well. The fees you (or your parents) will be paying to apply to your universities will add up, so you don't necessarily want to send out too many reach applications. I would suggest keeping 1-3 reach schools as part of your college list.


Target Schools:

This will make up the majority of your college list. Your target schools should all be colleges or universities that you'd love to attend and also lie within the range of what you could reasonably expect to successfully apply to. Again, what constitutes a target school will vary from student to student based on different academic profiles. You should fall in the middle range of the academic requirements of most of your target schools. I would suggest selecting 3-5 target schools.


Safe Schools:

These are the colleges and universities you're likely guaranteed to gain entry into. Your academic scores should be clearly above what the school requires of applicants. Despite being safe choices, these schools should still be ones which you would be happy to attend if you had the opportunity. If you've properly assessed your target schools, or been lucky with your reach school, you likely won't be picking your safe school, but you should still be completely content with the idea of attending your safe school.


Final Thoughts Regardless of a school's status as reach, target, or safe, you should be excited by the prospect of studying there. While it's normal to be more thrilled by the notion of attending a dream school, you should always ensure that every single school in your list would be a place you'd happily spend the next four years of your life. College represents an unparalleled opportunity for personal and academic discovery, and oftentimes the best discoveries come from the least-expected places.


Further Reading: Christopher Tremblay wrote an excellent piece titled "The College Search, the College Choice, and Applying to College", which can be found below:


National Association for College Admission Counseling. Fundamentals of College Admission Counseling (5th Edition): A textbook for graduate students and practicing counselors . National Association for College Admission Counseling. Kindle Edition.

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