Your chances at a US university: how Edline computes the admission call and the budget band

On every saved university you see two things. The admission call — reach, realistic, or likely. And the budget band — fits, borderline, or does not fit — beside it. They are computed separately because they answer different questions: will they admit me, and can we pay. A university can be likely on scores and out of reach on money, and the other way round.

Neither is a percentage. A percentage would create false precision: at a university admitting 5%, a 12% chance says nothing about one person. A label says more: it explains why you landed there and what it changes in the list.

Your profile data — the average grade in your school's own scale, SAT or ACT if you have one, IELTS or TOEFL — is compared with what the university publishes about admitted students: the middle range of scores (usually the middle 50%), the share admitted and, where known, the share of internationals admitted. Grades on Kazakhstan's five-point or hundred-point scale are converted to a GPA by published equivalence rules, not by eye.

• Below the range: your score is below the middle 50% of admitted students, or the university admits so few that even a strong profile stays a reach. Label: reach.
• Inside the range: your profile looks like the profile of those admitted. Label: realistic.
• Above the range: you are stronger than most admitted and the admit rate is not extreme. Label: likely.

At some universities the range barely helps: admission is below a few percent and half of the strongest applicants are refused. Those always stay reaches whatever the score, and the list marks them as unpredictable. That is not pessimism; it is the admission statistics the university publishes itself.

What the call does not weigh — and admissions does: essays, recommendations, activities, interviews. That is why the call is about the list, not about fate: it helps build a list of three rows, not decide whether you get into one particular university.

You state in your profile what the family can pay per year. For each university, its own published cost is taken — with a note on whether housing is included — together with its aid rules for internationals: need-blind, need-aware, merit scholarships only, or nothing. That gives an expected bill for your family, which is compared with the budget.

• Fits: the expected bill is not above the budget — either the price itself or thanks to aid the university promises by its rules.
• Borderline: the gap is small, or aid is possible but not promised — a need-aware university with a reach call, for example.
• Does not fit: the gap is large and the university has no aid rules that would close it.
• No data: the university has not published a cost or its rules — the card says so outright instead of hiding it behind an average.

The band depends on the call in one place: at need-aware universities need-based aid is more real for the applicants they want. So borderline with a reach call and fits with a likely call can stand on the same university for two different students.

What need-blind, need-aware and merit mean

Every figure about a university — score ranges, share admitted, cost, aid rules — comes from its own admissions and cost pages and is stored with the link and the date it was checked. The catalogue holds 670 universities today; where a university lacks something, the card says so, and the call is computed from what exists, with a note that it is partial.

Your data is your profile. The estimate is recomputed when you change it: a new SAT score or a corrected budget changes the labels on every card at once.

Methodology and disclosures

1. Create an account and fill in the profile: grades in your own scale, tests if taken, the family budget.
2. Save universities from the catalogue — as many as you like, on any plan.
3. Every card shows the call and the budget band; on the free plan, those and one report on your chances across the list.
4. Premium opens the breakdown for each university: why the call is what it is, which of your figures holds it there, and what would change the label.

The report is the same computation read across the whole list at once: where the list leans towards reaches, where the likelies are missing, where the money does not add up, and what to do in the next 30 days.