Meet the Facebook App That Predicts College Admissions

Could a new Facebook application replace the high school guidance counselor when it comes to giving seniors advice on where to apply to college? AdmissionSplash claims to be able to predict what college will accept a student. Instead of spending the time and money applying to a bunch of schools they have no chance of getting into, seniors can focus on the schools most likely to send them that much-coveted acceptance letter.

A student first inputs a list of all the schools—dream schools to safety schools—that she wants to attend. Then she plugs in all the pertinent information about herself—grades, test scores, extra-curricular activities. The app uses algorithms—right now they're customized for about 1,500 schools—to generate the likelihood of acceptance, and ranks a student's chances from "very poor" to "very good."

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How accurate is it? Some margin of error is to be expected since students can't upload a stellar letter of recommendation or their expertly crafted admissions essays. But, in a small sample of 88 applicants to UCLA, 85 percent of the seniors that the app said would be accepted actually received admissions offers.

Of course, you don't need an app to tell you that if you have a 2.5 GPA, your chances of being accepted to Harvard are "very poor." But, given that high school students spend plenty of time on Facebook, moving college admissions guidance to where they're already hanging out is a smart move.

photo (cc) via Flickr user Oran Viriyincy