What's planned
Nothing changes on the site with this release; these are plans, readable on the roadmap under Admission chances, next.
- Five levels instead of three. Quad's estimate will read High reach, Reach, Target, Likely, or Safe. A student with top grades sees an Elite college as a Reach (a reach for everyone, and possible); a student far below its range sees a High reach. The list orders itself closest first, a High-reach Dream no longer starts in early decision, and the balance line asks for two colleges that are Likely or Safe.
- Quad's selectivity. Every college gets a tier, Elite, Highly selective, Selective, Accessible, or Open, from the figures it publishes: its admit rate for your state, its admitted students' scores and grades, yield, how much of the class it fills early, its ten-year direction, and how much it says it reads. Shown on the profile with the inputs listed.
- Applicants like you. "Applicants like you — from Indiana — were admitted at 71%" replaces "Your pool", with a panel listing every rate the college publishes for your situation.
- Depth. Your courses read as tracks by subject against your intended major, and an activities list read by years, role, and recognition in your top two, each with a suggestion, and counted only at colleges that say they read it.
- Beyond the numbers. Where you stand in your class, awards, work hours, a legacy toggle and a recruited-athlete pick per college, and interest you've shown, each used only where the college says it counts.
Behind the scenes
The estimate's commitments are rewritten: it never uses race, ethnicity, sex, or religion; every individual in the outcomes it learns from is anonymized; legacy is used only where a college weighs it and the state allows it; and the student's high school isn't used in this version. The method's rules (never shown on the site) move to a third version with a measured academic distance and the selectivity tier in place of a fixed 20% cutoff.