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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Safeties are high test optional schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Drexel is having a lot of trouble with enrollment: First-year enrollment fell from 2,850 students in 2023 to 2,369 in 2024 and then to 1,918 in 2025.

[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.

UMD doesn't yield protect, but they do have variable acceptances by high school. I've known several (literally, several) kids with higher than 1520 SAT and tons of APs and all or almost all As who were rejected from UMD>. They ended up going to other state schools (Ohio State, Indiana) with significant merit. I knew someone admitted to Penn and rejected from UMD. It's not a safety. And it's a high target if you come from a school where test scores, etc are very high.

[Anonymous]

UVA, Gatech, UMich. Got into all.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UT Dallas because it's a full-ride for NMFs, and Texas A&M because it waives OOS tuition for NMFs. No Bama even though it's a big NMF school.

I thought you have to ED these to get the full scholarship if NMF?

[Anonymous]

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

Good luck with this. Your targets and safeties are all ED-or-bust yield protection schools. And your reaches require major hooks. Let me guess, this is your first child?

[Anonymous]

ASU was my city loving kid’s safety. Was admitted to their Honors college which is the best in the country.

[Anonymous]

Targets—Holy Cross, Richmond, UMD, Wisconsin

Safeties- GW, Indiana

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Safeties are high test optional schools.

Those arent high TO schools. Around 70% of Emory and Case students submit test scores. Only 50% of Vandy students submit. 60% of WashU students submit so wouldn't those be the safeties?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Safeties are high test optional schools.

Those arent high TO schools. Around 70% of Emory and Case students submit test scores. Only 50% of Vandy students submit. 60% of WashU students submit so wouldn't those be the safeties?

You’re defining safeties as those with a high percentage of students applying test optional? Is this serious or am I completely misunderstanding? Not an approach that will lead to a good outcome. You’re not looking at acceptance rates, or how your student’s GPA and test scores align with the profile of that school (is your student in the top 25% of those profiles etc), or Naviance data to see how your HS traditionally fares with those schools? Acceptance rate for Vanderbilt was under 5% this cycle - only 2.8% in RD. Just one example. Reach for all regardless of stats, as are so many schools listed in the comments.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Safeties are high test optional schools.

Those arent high TO schools. Around 70% of Emory and Case students submit test scores. Only 50% of Vandy students submit. 60% of WashU students submit so wouldn't those be the safeties?

Source for this other than a college prep place? From Emory itself…

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Safeties are high test optional schools.

Those arent high TO schools. Around 70% of Emory and Case students submit test scores. Only 50% of Vandy students submit. 60% of WashU students submit so wouldn't those be the safeties?

No, Emory was 32% TO last cycle and 37% plus previous cycles. That's high. Plus 32% below median test scores gives hope.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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?

Safeties are high test optional schools.

Those arent high TO schools. Around 70% of Emory and Case students submit test scores. Only 50% of Vandy students submit. 60% of WashU students submit so wouldn't those be the safeties?

Source for this other than a college prep place? From Emory itself…

32% of their admitted class last cycle did not supply or submit any test score. Oft those admitted, 47% submitted an SAT score and 21% submitted an ACT score. They don't indicate of this 32% what are the number of students that submitted both tests and were therefore counted twice as submitting scores. So, it is likely higher than even 32%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

Good luck with this. Your targets and safeties are all ED-or-bust yield protection schools. And your reaches require major hooks. Let me guess, this is your first child?

I know high stats kids who made the mistake of treating Case and Emory as safeties/targets and were disappointed. They were safeties 35 years ago. Times have changed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

Good luck with this. Your targets and safeties are all ED-or-bust yield protection schools. And your reaches require major hooks. Let me guess, this is your first child?

NP. Case Western should be fine.