Updated on August 30, 2022

A balanced list of colleges maximizes your chances of admission to a college that you will actually be excited to attend. A great college list balances what you want against what the colleges want. To create that list requires research on who the colleges are and a good understanding of how to put that great college list together.

What is a balanced college list?

According to common wisdom, a balanced college list should comprise of a mix of:

• “stretch” schools that would be tough, but not impossible to get into based on the applicant’s academic and activity profile,

• “right fit” schools where the applicant’s profile matches the profile of admitted students at those schools, and

• “safety” schools where the applicant should easily gain admission based on their academic and activity profile

Ideally, everyone of these colleges on the list must be ones that the applicant will be happy to attend if admitted. We elaborate on the factors you must take into account when matching your academic and activity credentials with the colleges you want to put onto your list.

How many colleges should you apply to?

While this common wisdom about the mix of colleges on a college list continues to hold true, the total number of colleges a student must apply to as a hedge to ensure that they get in somewhere has increased significantly.

The deluge of applications that colleges now receive after going test optional has made the application process substantially more uncertain and competitive with acceptance rates plummeting at all of the top colleges. While test optionality has opened up opportunities for many applicants who might have otherwise skipped applying to the more academically elite colleges, it has also made it substantially more challenging for all who apply.

It used to be reasonable for an applicant to apply to an average of six to eight colleges, but these days, an applicant who applies to so few colleges runs the risk of getting in nowhere.

To be safe, an applicant needs to widen the net of colleges on their list, especially for their “right fit” and “safety” schools.

The large increase in applications now threatens the the assumption about many colleges once seen with equanimity as “right fit” and “safety” schools.

The number of applications to the top colleges jumped substantially in the 2020/2021 admissions cycle when near universal test optionality was announced, and even though the rate of increase slowed down substantially or even reversed itself for some colleges in the 2021/2022 admissions cycle, it is a fact that the number of applications received by the highly selective colleges have settled at a new elevated level, while their acceptance rates have settled at a new low.

Given that the number of available spots at these top colleges remain unchanged, we can expect the admissions process to permanently take on a new level of stress and anxiety.

In response, several colleges have announced that they will no longer disclose their acceptance rates in the hope of dampening the frenzy. This response seems very much like one put in place after the horse has already bolted and solves nothing.

In the absence of new information that application levels have dropped or capacity has increased, a rational applicant to the highly selective colleges must take pre-emptive action so they are not left empty handed when acceptances are announced. The best way to do so is to apply to many more colleges deemed as “right fit” and “safety” schools than previous cohorts needed to.

Managing Your Own Expectations

There was a time not so many years ago when an academically top performing student pro-active in their high school activities would have had assured passage to one of the 61 highly selective colleges. In fact, that student’s entire college list would likely have comprised of colleges within the list of 61. That was a time when many of the colleges in the list of 61 had acceptance rates of 30% or higher. All 61 of those highly selective colleges today have acceptance rates of 25% or less.

Today, it would be a foolhardy applicant who limits their college list to those colleges within the 61 highly selective ones. Not one of the colleges on the list of 61 can be viewed as a “safety” school. For a select group with strong academics and activities that make them stand out from the crowd, the 61 highly selective colleges could represent a list of “stretch” and ”right fit” schools. For many more applicants, the 61 high selective colleges are now “stretch” schools.

Finding the Academic Match

The first step in developing your college list is in finding your academic match. The colleges evaluate a series of criteria relating to academic performance, including GPA, rigor of high school courses especially AP courses, class rank and standardized test scores. The lower the acceptance rate, the more demanding the college will be for high academic performance.

High School GPA

While most top colleges have stopped publishing average GPAs of admitted students because of non-standardized grading practices amongst high schools, they still evaluate an applicant’s GPA as an indicator of the student’s academic work ethic. A student with an unweighted GPA of 3.6 is unlikely to be a strong candidate for the colleges with single digit acceptance rates unless the underwhelming GPA can be offset by other factors including a long list of AP courses taken, near perfect test scores, a stellar essay and/or an activity that makes the applicant stand out above the crowd.

Academic Rigor of Classes

The highly selective colleges pay close attention to an applicant’s willingness to engage intellectual challenge and take academically rigorous courses. AP classes are the best demonstration of intellectual rigor, so are Honors level classes. The more of these you take the better, though many of the very elite private colleges only take into account official AP scores of 4 and 5.

Since high schools offer varying numbers of AP classes, admissions officers will take into consideration the total number of AP classes an applicant had access to in high school. Colleges will not penalize applicants just because their high school offered fewer AP courses, they do not expect applicants to go outside of their school system to access AP classes.

If the applicant’s high school offered only three AP classes, and the applicant took all three of them, then that student would be evaluated extremely well. A student who had access to fifteen AP classes at their high school, but only took three without reasonable excuse would be evaluated less well.

The colleges are also familiar with the academic rigor practiced by many of the elite private high schools and will evaluate students from those schools accordingly.

Standardized Test Scores

The colleges all publish test score ranges for the 25th percentile to 75th percentile of their admitted students. Half of the college’s admitted students scored within the published range, while one quarter of admitted students scored above the range, and one quarter scored below the range.

Read What a College’s Test Score Ranges Mean

While it is not fatal to score below the published ranges, it is important to remember that a test score below the 25th percentile must be compensated by other factors like the ones we discussed earlier. Athlete recruits, for example, may present test scores below the 25th percentile, but so long as they are still within the range set by the college’s Academic Index, they will be admitted.

For applicants, who do not take a standardized test, then GPA, course rigor and class rank will play a bigger role in the evaluation along with quality of activities and the quality of the essay.

It is noteworthy that while the colleges have gone test optional, they still place a lot of weight on the test score. At the colleges that did disclose the relevant data, applicants who submitted test scores were admitted at multiples the rate of applicants who did not submit test scores. To the colleges, the test score continues to be a strong indicator of ability to handle rigorous college academics.

Read Do test scores improve chances of admissions?

Class Rank

Many colleges publish their class rank data, but the actual number of students who disclose their class rank is generally quite small.

Based on the disclosed data, it is not uncommon for 90% or more of their admitted students to rank in the top 10% of their class.

At Columbia University, for example, 96% of their admitted students ranked within the top 10% of their high school class. So, if you are targeting Columbia as your college, make sure your class rank is a match as only 4% of their admitted students were not in the top 10% of their high school class.

Harvard University does not evaluate class rank for admissions purposes, but it publishes data confirming that 94% of its admitted students rank in the top 10% of their high school class.

Evaluating your Academic Performance

Students should keep in mind the 3 categories of colleges that must be included in any college list including:

• Academic “stretch” schools where your academic credentials are between the middle to low end of that college’s academic profile for admitted students,

• Academic “right fit” schools where your academic credentials fall between the middle to top end of that college’s academic profile for admitted students.

• Academic “safety” school where your academic credentials exceed the top end of that college’s academic profile for an admitted student

To start with, you should identify an average of three to four “stretch” schools, six to eight “right fit” schools and six to eight “safety” schools to add to your college list. This list will get whittled down as you evaluate other factors like the availability of major you want to take, the cultural and social aspects of the colleges and the affordability of the college.

Write down your academic credentials, and match them up against the academic profile for admitted students from your college wish list. You should be able to separate out the “stretch” schools from the “right fit” schools and “safety” schools based on your academic profile.

Researching the colleges

Both the College Board and Princeton Review offer free resources for you to research a college’s academic profile.

You can learn more in our article Where to gather information to create your college list?

Activities and Qualities

If an applicant’s extra-curricular activities have been school related, even if the applicant held a leadership role, the chances of that applicant getting admitted to one of the colleges with single digit acceptance rates is remote without demonstrable achievement at the regional or national level with those activities. This holds true for both Early Decision or Regular Decision applications and even if the applicant has legacy and attended an elite private school.

Read This Year’s College Admissions Horror Show

The top colleges want “superstars” who stand out in one unique thing. They want applicants who demonstrate specific qualities through their activities and/or through their essay. They want applicants who have stretched outside of their comfort zones, they want applicants who pursued and achieved excellence, they want applicants who stand out in their own unique way.

Read How to impress admissions at top colleges

The rule of thumb is: the lower a college’s acceptance rate the more unique an applicant must be to gain admission. If you to attend Princeton or Harvard, then you must make sure that you have done something truly unique that makes you stand out.

Without a unique element, the colleges with single digit acceptance rates are all “stretch” schools even if you have stellar academic results. While essays and recommendation letters could make a difference, these colleges will remain as “stretch” schools.

Read Key Admission Criteria Used by  Top Colleges

For applicants with stellar academics, but less exciting activities, the colleges on the list of 61 highly selective colleges with acceptance rates in the high teens and twenties are viable “right fit” schools provided their activities embody the qualities desired by these colleges, and the essay stands out.

Does the college offer courses and majors you desire?

Unless you insists on access to very specific set of STEM classes or a rare major offered at a limited number of colleges, colleges generally offer a broad range of classes and majors to satisfy most applicants’ intellectual pursuits.

There will always be some variation in the courses offered for a major, let’s take a history major for example, between the colleges. If content matters a great deal to an applicant, then they should pay close attention to the classes on offer when creating their college list.

Do you find the social life and culture of the campus appealing?

Every college and campus has its own character, culture and uniqueness. These characteristics are driven by the college’s location, history, resources, size of student population and academic programs. Some colleges will hold greater appeal to you than others. Some applicants prefer colleges with bucolic campuses, others like Greek life, others yet like colleges in big cities and there are those who care about how good the food is on campus.

If you were lucky enough to make a campus visit, then you would have first hand feel for what the college is like. If not, you need to make a list of priorities about what you value most and match this with the colleges you have on your list.

Can you afford the college?

The headline tuition fees and costs for housing and food are very high for all of the highly selective private colleges, hovering between $75,000 to $85,000 per year. Except for the wealthiest students who do not qualify for financial aid, most students do not pay the headlined costs.

How much financial aid is available varies by college and the resources it makes available to students with need. An applicant must make sure that they will be awarded sufficient aid to attend that college if accepted.

Every college provides access to a Net Price Calculator in the financial aid section of their websites. You can use this calculator to estimate the amount of financial aid you are likely to receive from that college based on your family’s financial circumstances.

Read Are the colleges on my list affordable?

The public universities on the highly selective colleges list typically offer substantially lower tuition fees for in-state students though both in-state and out-of-state students pay the same for their housing and food. While the tuition cost differential for an in-state and out-of-state student at a public university is significant, the overall cost of a public university is still less than the cost of an elite private college.

It is also important to keep in mind that financial aid at public universities is usually available to in-state students with very little leftover for out-of-state students. So do the homework if you are applying to a public university as an out-of-state student.

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