What is considered a safety?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A safety was a known safety once the "admit" decision was received. Several had rolling notification (public u's, not too selective). Once DD and DS had a couple of these acceptances - Oct & Nov, they moved on to applications to match, and reach schools. If you can find a good public school choice, in or out of state with rolling notification, it works very well as a safety - as long as that's the type of school being considered.

There are lots of decent schools, many of them public, that offer early admissions without too much in the way of required essays beyond the Common App, and which will give you an answer by October or November. Be sure to apply early admissions not early decision, because ED locks you in for that school. I highly recommend doing this, because it gave DC a lot of comfort ("some schools like me!") before the ED results from a tougher college arrived in December.

+1. I highly recommend going either EA or ED (binding) depending on how definite your child is about a particular school. Also, fewer schools have binding EDs than EAs. Those that can, do. All I can add about that is that Washington & Lee has two ED dates; Virginia Tech has ED, as well. I'm sure other parents can add to the ED list. But our DC only wanted a VA university that was EA and that is the only school we applied to EA - we were done by Dec. 15th! Saved us from a nightmare of applications and essay writing in December and January. For the sanity of your family go EA or ED if your child is set.

[Anonymous]

Naviance is usually good for safeties, if you have a high-performing child, but not good for matches/reaches

[Anonymous]

My child with good extracurriculars, a varity sport and an ACT of 32 only got into colleges where she scored above the 75%ile. And some of them, where, again she scored at or above the 75%ile she did not. Admission for girls is particularly difficult. Boys have a little more leeway. Lots of kids used UVM as a safety school when she applied a few years ago. You might want to look at the scores there to get an idea of what might be appropriate.

The required stats are more forgiving if you apply early decision. But that means absolutely deciding on the school of your dreams early on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My child with good extracurriculars, a varity sport and an ACT of 32 only got into colleges where she scored above the 75%ile. And some of them, where, again she scored at or above the 75%ile she did not. Admission for girls is particularly difficult. Boys have a little more leeway. Lots of kids used UVM as a safety school when she applied a few years ago. You might want to look at the scores there to get an idea of what might be appropriate.

The required stats are more forgiving if you apply early decision. But that means absolutely deciding on the school of your dreams early on.

Well, that is scary. How selective were the schools where she was rejected?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child with good extracurriculars, a varity sport and an ACT of 32 only got into colleges where she scored above the 75%ile. And some of them, where, again she scored at or above the 75%ile she did not. Admission for girls is particularly difficult. Boys have a little more leeway. Lots of kids used UVM as a safety school when she applied a few years ago. You might want to look at the scores there to get an idea of what might be appropriate.

The required stats are more forgiving if you apply early decision. But that means absolutely deciding on the school of your dreams early on.

Well, that is scary. How selective were the schools where she was rejected?

11:26 put it well. "No college or university that accepts less than 10% (maybe even less than 20%) of applicants is going to be a "safety" for almost any kid. You routinely hear of kids with perfect SATs and GPAs being turned down by the most selective colleges."

The schools my daughter was rejected from (or wait-listed at) were those with acceptance rates of 25% or less. The school she attends is a USNEWS top 25 with an admissions rate of around 25%. She did receive merit aid and a Presidential scholarship from less competitive schools looking to boost their stats - her safety schools. It meant a lot to her to know that she was in "somewhere" instead of having to wait for April 1st.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My child with good extracurriculars, a varity sport and an ACT of 32 only got into colleges where she scored above the 75%ile. And some of them, where, again she scored at or above the 75%ile she did not. Admission for girls is particularly difficult. Boys have a little more leeway. Lots of kids used UVM as a safety school when she applied a few years ago. You might want to look at the scores there to get an idea of what might be appropriate.

The required stats are more forgiving if you apply early decision. But that means absolutely deciding on the school of your dreams early on.

Well, that is scary. How selective were the schools where she was rejected?

11:26 put it well. "No college or university that accepts less than 10% (maybe even less than 20%) of applicants is going to be a "safety" for almost any kid. You routinely hear of kids with perfect SATs and GPAs being turned down by the most selective colleges."

The schools my daughter was rejected from (or wait-listed at) were those with acceptance rates of 25% or less. The school she attends is a USNEWS top 25 with an admissions rate of around 25%. She did receive merit aid and a Presidential scholarship from less competitive schools looking to boost their stats - her safety schools. It meant a lot to her to know that she was in "somewhere" instead of having to wait for April 1st.

Oops posted too soon. I do believe that if she had applied to a more selective school during the ED process she could have ended up at a more highly ranked school. Several classmates and friends at her school applied ED and were accepted with lower stats than hers. All's well that ends well. She is thriving at the college she has ended up attending.

[Anonymous]

OP -- I'd say it depends on the type of school. If your son is applying to SLACs he's probably in better shape than his stats suggest because those schools are always trying to load up on boys. Check out the Common Data Set for individual schools for the number of male vs. female applicants. The disparity can be pretty huge, and that could work in your favor.

FWIW my DD with similar stats did far better in college admissions than we expected. I think that's because we were pretty strategic in picking schools that didn't see tons of DC private school kids, and she visited and interviewed at the reaches.