Why there is no percentage
Essays, recommendations, this year’s applicant pool, and unpublished institutional priorities are not numbers anyone has. A calculator that prints a percentage is describing a crowd, then labelling it as you.
Free · Five questions · No account
College chances — without the fake percentage.
Five questions. About a minute. Real colleges tagged Reach, Target, or Likely against their own published ranges — plus what your family would actually pay.
Reach
Target
Likely
against that college’s published range — not a made-up percentage
Money is an input, not a footnote
Home state sets the in-state or out-of-state price. A college your family cannot pay for is not a Target, however well the GPA matches.
Every figure is checkable
Test policy, published range, tuition, deadline — each carries the web address it came from and the date it was verified. You can audit the reasoning. You cannot audit a percentage.
How a band is decided
- Step 1
Five facts from you
GPA, home state, current grade, test score if you have one, and the annual budget your family can actually pay.
- Step 2
Compared to their numbers
Each college’s own published test-score range — not an overall acceptance rate dressed up as your odds.
- Step 3
Reach, Target, or Likely
Plus the reason it landed there, the price for your state, and a source you can click. A missing fact makes the band coarser, and the page says so.
Frequently asked
Why will University Application Guide not give me a percentage?
Because nobody can compute one honestly for an individual applicant. A percentage would require knowing how a specific admissions committee will weigh your essays, your recommendations, and the shape of this year's applicant pool against institutional priorities that are never published. None of that is available to any calculator, ours included. A number produced without those inputs is a guess wearing a decimal point.
Other sites show me a percentage. Are they wrong?
They are showing you something real, just not what it appears to be. A figure of that kind is generally built from a college's published overall acceptance rate, adjusted by how your Grade Point Average and test score compare to its published ranges. That is a statement about a large group of past applicants, not a forecast about you. The arithmetic is usually sound; the label is what misleads.
So what do I get instead?
One of three bands for each college — Reach, Target, or Likely — plus the reason it landed there. A band compares your academic profile against that college's own published range, and every fact behind it carries a source web address and the date it was verified. You can check our work, which you cannot do with a percentage.
Is a band just a percentage with the number hidden?
No. A band states how your profile compares to a college's published academic range. It makes no claim about what an admissions committee will decide. That distinction is the entire point: we tell you where you stand against the published facts, and we do not pretend to know the outcome.
Do I need an account to see my bands?
No. The four-question preview on this page needs no account, no payment card, and saves nothing about you. It shows the band, price and deadline for the three closest matches. A free account shows the rest of your six, adds course rigor and intended major, saves your list, and covers every verified college.
How much does it cost?
Starting is free and needs no payment card. The full report is a one-time $79, with no subscription and no automatic renewal.
Starting is free.
The five-question preview needs no payment card. The full report is a one-time $79 — no subscription and no automatic renewal. We never sell student data.
Related reading: Exactly how a band is calculated.