What are your high stat kid’s safeties?

[Anonymous]

Rochester

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Tufts, Frostburg, Pitt, Charleston..

How is tufts a safety?

LOL Tufts was never a safety, and the PP that wrote that doesn't know what they are talking about, and has probably never even been to New England.

[Anonymous]

Can we have some remotely intelligent posts about colleges? Most of the PP's have no ida what they are saying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Back in the day, I would have put Boston University and not even Northeastern as a safety. We can full pay private so looking to add some safeties.

Syracuse, Loyola Marymount, Emerson College, Elon

[Anonymous]

My kids didn't really apply to any safety.
Instead a bunch of matches.

We figured what's the chance of getting rejected by all the match schools?
Pretty small if they system is not too bad.

Worked out well.

[Anonymous]

Pitt, Clemson

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rochester

Acceptance rate too low to be a safety. More of a high target.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This isn’t a universal question. You have to pay attention to the data from your specific school. My kid was told W&M and BC were safeties. These are not traditionally safeties (and amazing schools) but kids with similar stats had never been denied, even in non-binding admit situations. Most of this board will argue with this though. And kid was applying to UMD and others too in case.

Really interested in this too. Can you share stats, in state or OOS and when this was?

[Anonymous]

My kid is in middle school. This is depressing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Fairfield, Bucknell, Drew, and Lehigh

This is a good list.

Bucknell yield is very low and they are ok with it.

And given how low the Asian population is, they are thrilled when Asian kids apply and don’t discriminate

I would target the PA privates - bucjnell, Lehigh, Gettysburg, Dickinson, F&M, Lafayette

Unlike nescac’s they don’t collude and aren’t nearly as worried about yield protection

Can you clarify your point about NESCACs colluding?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in middle school. This is depressing.

Somewhere in recent decades, college became a business, students began over prepping, and there are simply too many applicants to accommodate seemingly fewer admission slots.

The common app is one issue, but overpopulation is another. We are becoming China.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Barrett-ASU

Barrett Honors College at Arizona State University is an incredible safety school.

Yup. And they give great merit.

[Anonymous]

For my kids - Pitt, umcp, umbc, smcm,

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This isn’t a universal question. You have to pay attention to the data from your specific school. My kid was told W&M and BC were safeties. These are not traditionally safeties (and amazing schools) but kids with similar stats had never been denied, even in non-binding admit situations. Most of this board will argue with this though. And kid was applying to UMD and others too in case.

A couple of thoughts. Naviance is inherently backward-looking and very risky for relying on, by itself, for choosing a safety. People have been burned before with such an approach. (Anecdotally, despite having been surrounded by green checks in Naviance, my URM, full pay. legacy, from a Jesuit high school, with good scores, was denied at BC. Test optional had a significant effect there, making predictions based on Naviance even less reliable.) Also, the acceptance rate in the high teens. Not in the ballpark of what should be referred to as a "safety."

"Backup," "likely," are fine terms. But it's critical to distinguish between "backups" that are actual safeties and those that are not.

Our plan for a high stats kid is to apply to places that are probably safeties (but not definitely safeties) that have EA and notify before RD applications are done. Then, if he doesn't get in, I guess we scramble for "true" safeties.

So, for example, Pitt is getting harder to get into. It might not be a true safety, but if you get into Pitt in October, as kids I know did, then it serves as your safety in that you can stop looking for another safety.

That's a fair approach. Schools with rolling deadlines are great for this purpose if they are also sufficiently desirable and the offer is affordable.

It's also possible to go in the opposite direction, find safeties with late app deadlines where one can apply after RD results, e.g. Arizona, though it pays to have that determined ahead of time, especially with regard to scholarship deadlines.

Proper prior planning prevents poor performance...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My kid is in middle school. This is depressing.

No it isn't. It's a sign that there are now strong students at so many schools. If you let go of the ridiculous notion that your kid needs to go somewhere that was prestigious 20 years ago, your kid will find a peer group in many places, and can have a wonderful experience.

The fact that there are so many bright hard working young people in our country that colleges are filled with them, is not depressing at all.