Building and prioritizing a target list
Everything in this stop has been research. This is where it turns into a list you actually work — ordered, sized to what you can handle, and built on evidence rather than reputation.
A work plan, not a wish list
Every school on this list costs you hours. That's the constraint that decides everything else.
Research the program properly. Write an email that couldn't have been sent to anyone else. Follow up two or three weeks later. Track what happened. Repeat when something changes. That's a real commitment per school, repeated across a season.
Which is why a list of sixty is not an ambitious list — it's a list that will get sixty template emails and no replies. The right size isn't a number someone recommends to you. It's however many you can genuinely work at that standard.
Two questions, not one
Most families rank schools on a single axis — how much do I want this? A list that works ranks on two, and priority lives where they intersect.
Fit against the criteria you ranked at the start of this stop — major, cost, distance, size, culture, level.
Source: your fit criteria. If you skipped that page, this axis is just a feeling.
Realistic level, roster need in your class, whether they recruit your region, and whether there's been any actual contact.
Source: the thin / balanced / crowded work, plus what's already in your tracker.
This is your priority tier, and where most of your outreach hours belong. It's also usually smaller than families expect, which is the useful part.
Worth having a few. Not worth building the plan around. Keep them and keep them proportionate.
The honest question: why is this on the list? If the answer is "because they'd probably take me," that's not a reason — it's a habit.
Off the list. Every hour spent here is an hour not spent on the top-left quadrant.
Assign tiers on evidence, not reputation
Before the research in this stop, all a family has to sort on is what they've heard of. That's the entire reason items 12 to 14 exist — so the tiers stop being guesses.
Top of your realistic range. You'd need to perform at or above your current ceiling, or the roster picture is crowded, or both.
Worth pursuing. Don't build the strategy around them.
Your profile genuinely matches what they recruit, and the roster projection shows a plausible path in your class.
Most of your energy. Most commitments come from here.
You'd be a strong candidate and an offer is likely if you pursue it actively.
Not fallbacks — insurance that you have real options by the end of junior year.
- Roster need in your class — a thin position moves a Stretch school toward Target more than anything else on this list
- Evidence of real contact — a coach who replied substantively is telling you which tier they're in
- Whether they recruit your region — a national name that never leaves its footprint is a Stretch regardless of your numbers
- Net cost — a school you can't afford isn't a Target, however good the fit is otherwise
- Admissions likelihood — a coach can advocate; they can't admit you
Derive the number from the hours you can genuinely give this in a normal week during a season — don't take it from a recommendation. For most families that lands around 15 to 25 across all three tiers, but the honest calculation is what matters.
And the mix matters more than the total. A list of twenty that's eighteen Stretch schools isn't a target list — it's a wish list with a spreadsheet. How many schools should be on your list? →
The sequence
The search work is done. This is sorting, not searching. Open the dashboard →
Major not offered. Cost impossible. Distance outside what you'd accept. These come off before anything gets ranked — a school that fails a non-negotiable can't be prioritised, only regretted later.
Want, and likelihood. High / medium / low is enough resolution — you're sorting, not calculating.
Not from reputation, and not from how the school sounds when you say it out loud.
The low-want / low-likelihood quadrant goes first. Then the low-want / likely ones, unless you can articulate why they're there.
Within it, put the thin-roster programs first. That ordering is your outreach queue — it decides what you do on Monday, which is the whole point of building the list.
Schools coming off is the process working. Families read it as losing ground.
A coach says they're set at your position. A program signs two of your class. A visit tells you it isn't the place. Every one of those is information you paid for with research and outreach, and the correct response is to remove the school and move up the queue.
A coach reaches out unprompted · a new program surfaces that fits · your level picture changes · a roster shifts in your favour
A non-negotiable fails on closer inspection · the coach says they're set · sustained silence after genuine, specific effort · a visit answers the question
Revisit the whole list twice a year — once before autumn outreach, once after the spring season. Not weekly; that's churn rather than progress.
It answers one question: what do I do next?
A finished target list tells you which coach to email tonight, what to say that's specific to their program, and when to follow up. Everything in this stop has been building toward that, and the next stop is doing it.
Keep it in the dashboard rather than in your head. A list you can't see isn't a plan — and the contact tracker only works if the list feeding it is current. Open the dashboard →
Next steps
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