Build a balanced college list.
Prospect builds, grades and compares your college list from your GPA and test scores. It shows where each school stands for you, how balanced the whole list is, and what to change before you apply.
Admit rates and test ranges come from each school's Common Data Set.
A list of eight schools: two Reach, two Target, two Likely, two Safety. Balance grade A-.
How it works
Enter your GPA and test scores
Type them in, or calculate your GPA from a PDF transcript.
Add the schools you're considering
Each one gets a category for you, with the estimate behind it.
Read your list's grade
Prospect grades the balance of the whole list and names the change that would raise it.
Illustrative student: 3.8 unweighted GPA · 1450 SAT · 5 AP courses. Estimates are examples, not predictions.
Each school gets a category for you.
Your estimated chance at each school becomes one of four categories, so you can see where every school sits and how many of each kind your list has.
- Safety
- 70% or better — you'd be surprised not to get in.
- Likely
- 40–69% — a good bet, not a sure thing.
- Target
- 20–39% — realistic, and where most of the work of a list happens.
- Reach
- 5–19% — worth a shot; never the whole list. Any school that admits under 10% counts as a Reach, whatever your stats.
Estimates start from each school's Common Data Set admit rate for your application plan, then adjust for your profile. Below 5% shows as Unlikely and counts as a Reach.
Four examples: 6% becomes Reach, 24% becomes Target, 58% becomes Likely, 91% becomes Safety.
Prospect grades the whole list.
The grade reflects how your schools spread across the four categories. A list with too many reaches gets a low grade and the specific schools that would fix it.
A six-school list with five Reach schools grades D. Adding two Likely and two Safety schools raises it to A-.
Aim for 8–12 schools across Reach, Target, Likely, and Safety.
Compare schools side by side.
Put up to four schools next to each other: admit rates, test ranges, early plans, and where each one lands on your list.
Compare schools| MichiganMI | Boston CollegeMA | PurdueIN | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Your category | Reach | Target | Likely |
| Acceptance rate | 15.6% | 16.2% | 43.4%, highest of the three |
| SAT range (25th–75th) | 1360–1530 | 1460–1520 | 1220–1470 |
| ACT range | 31–34 | 33–35 | 28–34 |
| Early plan | Early Action | Early Decision | Early Action |
| Early-plan admit rate | Not published | 33.4% | Not published |
Build your list
Start with your GPA and test scores, then add the schools you're considering.