The Foreign Service Journal, June 2018

62 JUNE 2018 | THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL EDUCATION SUPPLEMENT entirely at past admissions numbers. Students often categorize their college choices in three simple categories—Reach, Likely and Fallback—based on how their test scores and grade-point average (GPA) fall into a scatter plot. After a student narrows this list down based on simple factors such as academic areas of study, proximity to an international air- port and attractiveness of the admissions website, he or she often feels pleased with the resulting list. But Becky Konowicz, assistant dean of undergraduate admissions at Santa Clara University and president-elect of the International Association for Col- lege Admissions Counseling, highlights how imprecise the categories “likely” and “fallback” truly are. “Those terms leave out the unpredict- ability of enrollment management and the fact that no university wants to be a student’s ‘fallback’ option,” Konowicz says. “University enrollment goals and priori- ties do change year to year. It is important to realize that shifts can occur strategically or by fluke for a university, impacting admission decisions.” “When you use terminol- ogy like ‘reach,’ ‘likely’ and ‘fallback,’ the focus is on selectivity rather than fit,” explains Sarah Loring de Garcia, who has more than a decade of experience as a high school counselor. So we recommend doing away with the idea of “fallback” and “reach” schools, and instead supporting students to identify six to eight “strong match” colleges for their list. Strong matches are those schools for which there is a strong fit of selection criteria and interests, and for which the student’s history of academic rigor, GPA and test scores (where required or Students beginning the college search should reflect on their high school experience.Which style of class did they learn best in?