Safety, Probable, Target, Reach: Why a balanced school list is critical (and how to balance it!)

It’s time for juniors to begin an important transition.  Over the next 3-5 months, they’ll need to transition their mindset from college exploration mode…to college application mode.  This is a crucial mindset transition, and one that doesn’t happen overnight. That’s why I help my students ease into this transition, slowly wrapping up their aggressive school list building…and moving towards a new mindset:

The truth is, for most high school juniors, in 8 months…just 8 months!...they’ll be hard at work wrapping up their first round of college applications.

Before they can do so, it’s tremendously important that your child has balance to their school list. In my program, I have my students bucket their schools into four main categories:

Safety (>75% chance of acceptance)

Probable (50% to 75% chance of acceptance)

Target (25% to 50% chance of acceptance)

Reach (<25% chance of acceptance)

Don’t know how to help your child bucket their schools? This video will give you all the tips you need, including the very College Planning workbook I use with all my students. It’s yours to keep for free.  Take it back to your high schooler and start that transition to application mode and a thoughtfully balanced school list.

Time: 26 minutes

For: Parents of 9th, 10th, 11th graders

To a stress-free college plan!

-Jack