For strong students (grades, tests, ECs), what are your child's safeties and targets?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:If you wonder over to the BC thread, a bunch of people there are saying BC is a safety. Maybe take a look.

BC is often seen as a safety for students shooting for Notre Dame, Duke and Vanderbilt.

But safeties vary so much depending on someone’s major and interests. A STEM kid is going to have a very different list of reaches and safeties than a liberal arts kid.

I don't think you understand fully what a safety is.

BC is more like a target, and ND, duke and Vanderbilt are reaches. Places like Fairfield, PC, ad Fordham are safeties, if you will. Some might argue Villanova, but that is no guarantee by any means. BC had an acceptance rate of 13% this year. That is not a safety.

Villanova is a safety, you just have to ED. They’re just a big yield protector like Fairfield. 60% ED acceptance rate

Nobody should ED to a safety. ED to a target is controversial!

Actually yeah you’re right. I meant Villanova would be a guarantee if ED like Fairfield, and they listed Fairfield as a safety. Neither are actual safeties simply by virtue of yield protecting though. Agreed that Fordham would be a good choice along with GW, Syracuse, and maybe Santa Clara if willing to go to the west coast. LACs like Union, Lafayette, conn college would be worth checking out as well. PC does a little yield protecting and is a step down along with Fairfield compared to the other schools so I’d personally skip unless 100% set on a northeast catholic school

[Anonymous]

DS has a 4.0 UW, 4.8 W, 14 APs, 1560 SAT

Applying for Aerospace or Mechanical Engineering

Safeties: Auburn, Ohio State
Targets: UMD, Purdue, Boulder, VT
Reaches: GT, ND, Rice, USAFA, USNA

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS has a 4.0 UW, 4.8 W, 14 APs, 1560 SAT

Applying for Aerospace or Mechanical Engineering

Safeties: Auburn, Ohio State
Targets: UMD, Purdue, Boulder, VT
Reaches: GT, ND, Rice, USAFA, USNA

Np: What type of ECs does your kid have? Any awards?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Safeties will be UMD (in-state) and McGill (discount due to French citizenship). No idea about targets. Reaches will be top 10.

Maryland is not remotely a safety in state.

PP you replied to. Sigh, this is why these threads never do well. For my kids, UMD is a safety. I posted above about my second kid, who has a far better profile than my first kid, who was accepted to UMD (and chose another safety to attend). They both have very high test scores and GPAs, 12 APs, blah blah blah, but my second is far stronger in STEM and has STEM internships and national awards. Applying EA, there is no way she doesn't get in. She knows she cannot blow off any of her essays, to guard against yield protection (but I don't think UMD yield protects a lot).

I think you are right--they don't yield protect. Private school kids tend to do much better in admissions than public schools, yet the yield out of privates is abysmal.

I don’t think state flagships should yield protect, ethically. Public in-state education should be available to all qualified students who meet the admissions requirements. They have no way of knowing what other circumstances (financial, family, etc) would cause that very high stats kid to turn down an Ivy acceptance and need to stay in-state.

In-state acceptance rate is also around 44%.

I don’t know if they do or don’t yield protect, but if they do I would be extremely disappointed in that university.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Safeties will be UMD (in-state) and McGill (discount due to French citizenship). No idea about targets. Reaches will be top 10.

Maryland is not remotely a safety in state.

PP you replied to. Sigh, this is why these threads never do well. For my kids, UMD is a safety. I posted above about my second kid, who has a far better profile than my first kid, who was accepted to UMD (and chose another safety to attend). They both have very high test scores and GPAs, 12 APs, blah blah blah, but my second is far stronger in STEM and has STEM internships and national awards. Applying EA, there is no way she doesn't get in. She knows she cannot blow off any of her essays, to guard against yield protection (but I don't think UMD yield protects a lot).

I think you are right--they don't yield protect. Private school kids tend to do much better in admissions than public schools, yet the yield out of privates is abysmal.

I don’t think state flagships should yield protect, ethically. Public in-state education should be available to all qualified students who meet the admissions requirements. They have no way of knowing what other circumstances (financial, family, etc) would cause that very high stats kid to turn down an Ivy acceptance and need to stay in-state.

In-state acceptance rate is also around 44%.

I don’t know if they do or don’t yield protect, but if they do I would be extremely disappointed in that university.

In-state acceptance at UMD, to clarify I was talking about Maryland

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DS has a 4.0 UW, 4.8 W, 14 APs, 1560 SAT

Applying for Aerospace or Mechanical Engineering

Safeties: Auburn, Ohio State
Targets: UMD, Purdue, Boulder, VT
Reaches: GT, ND, Rice, USAFA, USNA

For Aerospace there are several California options with good industry placement including the Cal states which are less expensive than the UCs.

Cal State Long Beach is nick named space beach. SJSU has good placement with NASA Ames. Cal Poly SLO, Cal Poly Pomona ans SDSU have goood aerospace engineering programs. The Cal State programs are designed to create day one career prepared engineers using applied methodology. They have long standing relationships with employers as a pipeline.

UCSD and UCD have aerospace engineering majors. It is far easier to get into UCs for OOS but I don’t know whether that holds true to engineering.

[Anonymous]

Premed. Currently
Reaches: Duke, Brown,
Target: WashU, Vanderbilt
Safeties: Emory, Case Western

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Premed. Currently
Reaches: Duke, Brown,
Target: WashU, Vanderbilt
Safeties: Emory, Case Western

Those are not safeties or targets for anyone

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Premed. Currently
Reaches: Duke, Brown,
Target: WashU, Vanderbilt
Safeties: Emory, Case Western

Im assuming you're the president and your child is applying right?

[Anonymous]

DS has a 4.0 UW, 4.5 W, 11 APs (plus 2 more in senior year), 2 DE (Calc III and Lin Alg) + 2 more in senior year, 1560 SAT. National awards in math, regional awards in music

Safety: IU, Pitt
Targets: UMD (not CS), Case, Rochester
Reaches: JHU, Yale, NW, Rice

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Typically, your state flagship is your safety. However, it is probably not true in Virginia, and definitely not true in California. Michigan in-state yes a safety for their strong kids. Every other state, Ny, NJ, probably all true that you can use in-state flagship as a safety.

Private high schools are different, many do not apply to any state schools. DC used schools like Richmond, Rochester, Case as their safeties. Full pay, all accepted.

If you are in the top 9% you are guaranteed to get into a UC. Additionally, if you are in the top 10% of your school there is a 90% chance you'll get into one of UCSC, UCD, UC Irvine, UCSB or UCSD. 100% chance at UC Riverside and UC Merced.

[Anonymous]

UMD

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Safeties will be UMD (in-state) and McGill (discount due to French citizenship). No idea about targets. Reaches will be top 10.

Maryland is not remotely a safety in state.

It is for some kids I really do think. Mine has a 1600, 4.85 GPA, multiple national awards, significant school and national leadership, competitive internships, a sport, other stuff, and is the only kid in their class to have done several of these things. They are personable and social too. Typing this out probalby jinxes it, but if they get into 0 schools including UMD we will have a bigger problem. They'll pick another Common App safety for RD, just don't know what it is yet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Holy Cross, Northeastern, Bucknell, High Point.

I'm surprised to see Northeastern and High Point on the same list. They strike me as polar opposites with respect to campus environment and school culture. I'd expect to see Northeastern paired with Drexel and RPI and High Point paired with Richmond and Elon.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Safeties will be UMD (in-state) and McGill (discount due to French citizenship). No idea about targets. Reaches will be top 10.

Maryland is not remotely a safety in state.

It is for some kids I really do think. Mine has a 1600, 4.85 GPA, multiple national awards, significant school and national leadership, competitive internships, a sport, other stuff, and is the only kid in their class to have done several of these things. They are personable and social too. Typing this out probalby jinxes it, but if they get into 0 schools including UMD we will have a bigger problem. They'll pick another Common App safety for RD, just don't know what it is yet.

I think you’re fine if your student has a second definite safety on the list. UMD is probably very likely based on that profile.