Safeties for a strong student

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid's safety, according to college vine or wise (can't remember) for CS is U of Chicago - Urbana, GA Tech, UMD.

Hard target is CMU and U of Michigan.

Reach: Cal, UCLA, MIT

800 on SAT
Taking MVC right now
5 on AP Calc test

Several 5s on other AP tests.

My kid did not get into any safety or hard target on collegevine, even though they were in greater than 75% group. They did however get into a reach...so whatever. I'm not sure I believe in safeties anymore.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid's safety, according to college vine or wise (can't remember) for CS is U of Chicago - Urbana, GA Tech, UMD.

Hard target is CMU and U of Michigan.

Reach: Cal, UCLA, MIT

800 on SAT
Taking MVC right now
5 on AP Calc test

Several 5s on other AP tests.

How is Georgia Tech CS a safety for a non-resident of Georgia ?

No such school as "U of Chicago-Urbana".

that's what it said. DC has very strong stats.

And yea, I mixed up U of I and U of C.

Most of the prediction sites don’t distinguish between in state and out of state applicants. The GA tech most likely assumes in state status.

[Anonymous]

My 4.62 GPA, 1590 SAT DS who applied as a CS major

Safeties:
Penn State
UMN (I think this is an extremely underrated school)
GMU

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your kid is 4.0+, 1500+ student, what are their safeties?

I told my kids they need to have true safeties. One kid said Boston University and other kid said USC. I told them they should have a few true safeties. I was thinking Penn State.

BU most likely No. USC hell No.

They don't understand what safety is.
Back to drawing board.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid's safety, according to college vine or wise (can't remember) for CS is U of Chicago - Urbana, GA Tech, UMD.

Hard target is CMU and U of Michigan.

Reach: Cal, UCLA, MIT

800 on SAT
Taking MVC right now
5 on AP Calc test

Several 5s on other AP tests.

How is Georgia Tech CS a safety for a non-resident of Georgia ?

No such school as "U of Chicago-Urbana".

that's what it said. DC has very strong stats.

And yea, I mixed up U of I and U of C.

Most of the prediction sites don’t distinguish between in state and out of state applicants. The GA tech most likely assumes in state status.

Odd thing about the two main universities in Georgia is that while Ge. Tech considers residency, Univ. of Georgia does not (unless it changed in the last year or two--I have not checked).

[Anonymous]

I keep seeing posts like this. I’m not trying to start a public vs private debate, but at our DC’s small private (non Big 3), the placement ranges from great to solid. Is everyone going to their “dream school”? No, but there isn’t one one the list that would be a disappointment if it’s where DC got accepted and felt they could be happy. Over the past 2 cycles, by DC’s private HS matriculations for the middle 50% (based on college rankings not class rank, which they don’t do) are below. FWIW, the school probably had no scholarship athletes. It’s a small school (graduating class of 40-45). The top quartile are going to T25s/T20 SLACs (e.g., Columbia, Cornell, Chicago, Williams, Haverford, Hopkins, Vanderbilt, CMU, Notre Dame, UCLA, UVA, Mich etc). For the middle 50%, below are ALL of the colleges (not a sampling) for the past 2 years (in no particular order):

USC
UNC
Wake
UCSB
BC
W&M (x3)
NYU
GATech (x4)
UC Davis
Case Western
BU (x2)
Villanova (x2)
Northeastern
UMD (x2)
Holy Cross
Purdue (x2)
RPI

Bottom 25% of colleges are schools like these (which still seem more than solid to me).
Pitt
GWU
VT
Lafayette
Gettysburg
Temple
Clemson
San Diego
Indiana
Colorado
UVM
RIT
St. Louis
Alabama
VCU
Embry Riddle
Loyola MD
WV

[Anonymous]

Arizona State. The panacea to the acceptance problem

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid's safety, according to college vine or wise (can't remember) for CS is U of Chicago - Urbana, GA Tech, UMD.

Hard target is CMU and U of Michigan.

Reach: Cal, UCLA, MIT

800 on SAT
Taking MVC right now
5 on AP Calc test

Several 5s on other AP tests.

How is Georgia Tech CS a safety for a non-resident of Georgia ?

No such school as "U of Chicago-Urbana".

that's what it said. DC has very strong stats.

And yea, I mixed up U of I and U of C.

It might be what the website said, but no school with an admissions rate in the single digits is a safety — regardless of stats. Naviance says every top school, including MIT, Stanford, and Princeton are matches based on DC’s stats. But these schools have roughly a 5% acceptance rate. So they are reaches regardless of what Naviance says.
Your DC might have very strong stats, but is applying to one of the most in demand majors. The schools you are looking at are not safeties for CS, regardless of his strong stats. UMD is the closest if you are in state. Even then, there is a chance he could be admitted to the university but not directly into CS.

so, then how are people determining "safeties" if not by what a website shows, whether that's naviance or some other website?

DC is in a magnet, and our school doesn't do rankings.

Also, someone told me that naviance is not reliable, either, especially for magnet students.

You determine “safeties” based on acceptance rate. Some people say over 75%. I would say over 50%. If you are in MD, UMD is likely a safety. But a direct admit to CS is not.

OP, PP has provided some good insights here, including that CS direct admit is very, very difficult, even at schools with high admit rates. Best to think of what people call safety as a "more likely" (the term I used with my DCs) - it is more likely that your DC may be admitted, but not a guarantee. Nothing now in college admissions is a safety, especially when applying for a CS major.

On another note, I'm surprised that your DC has UChicago in the safety spot on their list. Even if your DC's stats align with past admit stats, so do many, many others who do not get in. Just think of it as a game show where you have the right answers to get through door one, but getting through the second door will involve some degree of luck.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My 4.62 GPA, 1590 SAT DS who applied as a CS major

Safeties:
Penn State
UMN (I think this is an extremely underrated school)
GMU

Agree 100%. Very happy it's on DS's radar considering an urban school is a "requirenent". Cold, but so are Boston, Cleveland and Chicago.

[Anonymous]

Pitt and maybe umd-cp for DD applying for CS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid's safety, according to college vine or wise (can't remember) for CS is U of Chicago - Urbana, GA Tech, UMD.

Hard target is CMU and U of Michigan.

Reach: Cal, UCLA, MIT

800 on SAT
Taking MVC right now
5 on AP Calc test

Several 5s on other AP tests.

How is Georgia Tech CS a safety for a non-resident of Georgia ?

No such school as "U of Chicago-Urbana".

that's what it said. DC has very strong stats.

And yea, I mixed up U of I and U of C.

Most of the prediction sites don’t distinguish between in state and out of state applicants. The GA tech most likely assumes in state status.

Odd thing about the two main universities in Georgia is that while Ge. Tech considers residency, Univ. of Georgia does not (unless it changed in the last year or two--I have not checked).

Yes they do, University of Herogia admits significantly less oos than Ga Tech.

[Anonymous]

Focus on the "happy" component, regardless of the stats (as 8:18 said).

I was a very strong student and went to a safety (Beloit) and it was a terrific experience. My "alternative" school was Swarthmore and I'm so glad I chose Beloit. I got a ton of merit aid and graduated with 8K in student loans, total (this was in 2006).

Anyway, my point is that if you're a strong student, many schools can be safeties and some students might even end up accepting a safety over a reach, so don't just try to maximize the "caliber" of your safety from a stats perspective -- don't think "oh, what's the "best" safety I can apply to", think "what's a school I really like that should be easy for me to get into."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If your kid is 4.0+, 1500+ student, what are their safeties?

I told my kids they need to have true safeties. One kid said Boston University and other kid said USC. I told them they should have a few true safeties. I was thinking Penn State.

Penn State, VTech, Georgetown, maybe UMich.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If your kid is 4.0+, 1500+ student, what are their safeties?

I told my kids they need to have true safeties. One kid said Boston University and other kid said USC. I told them they should have a few true safeties. I was thinking Penn State.

Penn State, VTech, Georgetown, maybe UMich.

Georgetown and UMich are not safeties. In what world is Georgetown a safety?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid's safety, according to college vine or wise (can't remember) for CS is U of Chicago - Urbana, GA Tech, UMD.

Hard target is CMU and U of Michigan.

Reach: Cal, UCLA, MIT

800 on SAT
Taking MVC right now
5 on AP Calc test

Several 5s on other AP tests.

You need to know your student's class rank / high school GPA before looking for safeties. Again, Georgia Tech CS is not a safety--especially not even a 50/50 shot for a non-resident.

4.0 UW GPA; weighted is 4.6+ Not sure exactly what.
1580 SAT

No class ranking.

The student's stats are the smallest part of determining safeties -- the percent accepted is what defines a safety. Every school in the top 120 has high stats kids above the 75% of the school's average.