How accurate is princetonreview.com?

Question

when I put in my information in th counselor-o-matic part, i got that georgetown was a reach, but YALE, cornell, and johns hopkins were good match schools? is it really accurate?

Answer 1

I've attended four universities (Villanova, Minnesota, Duke and Berkeley) and taught at three (MIT, Penn and Maryland). I've found that what Princeton Review has to say about these schools is pretty accurate.

All the schools that you mention are very hard to get into. Everyone knows that Yale is harder to get into than Georgetown -- in general. I wonder if it has something to do with the program that interests you.

Each school has some programs that are harder to get into than others at the same school.

Here is an example of what I mean. Suppose you are a very good student who wants to study either engineering or business. I could see you being turned down for business at Penn (Wharton) but accepted for their engineering program -- and also being accepted for business at MIT (Sloan) but being turned down for their engineering program.

Princeton Review's system is not perfect -- but I think it is an excellent tool.