Why are my estimates for Ivy League schools so high? Answered
When I go to my dashboard, it shows that schools like Harvard, Dartmouth, and MIT are hard Target schools. I am very confused by this, as a couple of days ago it said that all these schools were long reach. Keep in mind that I have not changed anything about my profile, it is the exact same as it was before.
For reference, I am a rising Sophomore and my unweighted GPA is 3.9, I haven't taken the SAT or any SAT classes but my practice tests are around the 1450s, my coursework by senior year will be 7 AP classes, 18 Honors classes, and 2 College course taken at a community college, and my extracurriculars are 3 D tier, 4 F tier, and 3 I tier. I am currently planning to add 2-3 C tiers that I'm still working on but they aren't (and have never been) in collegevine yet.
I am just confused on why these ivies (or ivy level) schools are targets instead of reaches. I'm hoping that someone can tell me why these estimates are so high and what my actual estimates are based on what I wrote above.
My demographics are:
Race: Prefer not to say, Gender: Female, Intended major: Computer Science, Financial Aid: Don't Know Yet
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2 answers
I can't explain what is happening with College Vine's algorithm, but the same thing just happened on my son's profile. Schools that had been reaches (or long reaches) last week are now being listed as targets, or hard targets, even though nothing changed in his profile. In his case, I'm pretty sure that the prior estimates are correct - those schools are still reaches and long reaches and didn't suddenly become targets. With Ivy League schools, I don't think anyone is ever really considered a "target" given their extremely low admissions stats, regardless of anything on your profile, so I would assume that those schools are still reaches for you (as they would be for everyone).
Interested to know if someone from College Vine might be able to answer what's happening with their model on the back end, as it's clearly something.
Since you are a rising Soph, CV chancing only uses 1 full year of data for you so it can't possibly be very accurate. For most CV members, they have uploaded 3 full years of data with actual test scores and in my opinion, none of the schools you've listed would ever be hard target except for Dartmouth if you had higher stats like a 1500+SAT/34+ACT, 8-10 APs with mostly 5s, and SAT II scores like 750-800 on 3 tests and tier 3 and 4 ECs. But Harvard/MIT should always be a reach since their acceptance rate is 4.5-7% and they are historically some of the toughest schools to get into. More than 50% of Harvard applicants have near-perfect stats all around. I think chancing gets more accurate as you input more years of data. Next year it will be more accurate for you and when you are a rising Sr., most accurate. Until then focus on finding your Spikes and improving your talents and holding your grades.
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