Straight up bonkers to call Pomona and Harvey Mudd matches, let alone safeties. Here is the info from Harvey Mudd's profile:

SAT Scores – Middle 50 Percent
SAT Evidence-Based Reading and Writing: 720–760
SAT Math: 770–800
SAT Subject Test Math II: 760–800
ACT Composite – Middle 50 Percent
34–35

These testing standards are higher than Stanford, Yale, Harvard, ETC. I recall only Caltech and MIT are higher.

Pomona is an extremely diverse school; while their raw testing is slightly lower than Harvey Mudd, they're taking a higher chunk of their class as URMs/low income students than just about any other top school. If you're a white privileged applicant from this area, Pomona will have extremely high admission standards for you. According to the Bethesda Magazine (https://bethesdamagazine.com/bethesda-magazine/september-october-2018/where-bethesda-area-high-school-grads-applied-to-college/), only 4.8% of Bethesda school applicants got in at Pomona- lower than Princeton, Stanford, Yale, and Harvard. Claremont McKenna College, which is another tough school to get into within the system, had only 5.1% getting in, again lower than all of the aforementioned schools.

Scripps and Pitzer could be matches- never safeties with such a low acceptance rate- but are still very selective schools. The consortium is good to check out if visiting west, but these schools are among the toughest liberal art colleges in the country to get into.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you mean to say Pomona and Harvey Mudd are safeties?

No way

Exactly. Harvey Mudd is in no way, shape, or form a safety. But if you're looking at engineering, it should absolutely be on your list for SoCal.

Get over yourself. This kid is looking at places like Caltech and Stanford. Harvest Mudd certainly is a safety for this kind of student.

This kid has been in school for a bout 2 weeks. Who knows if Calteach or Stanford are even in the realm of possibility. And I agree with others. the Pomona schools, HM in particular, are NOT safeties. They may be a match (although HM is super competitive) but not a safety.

Our kid got into Yale and Columbia but rejected from Pomona. NOT remotely a safety or match with a 7% acceptance rate/34 median ACT/1495 median ACT/35% valedictorian among admitted students. And we anecdotally know a few kids who did get into Caltech but not into Mudd.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you mean to say Pomona and Harvey Mudd are safeties?

No way

Exactly. Harvey Mudd is in no way, shape, or form a safety. But if you're looking at engineering, it should absolutely be on your list for SoCal.

Get over yourself. This kid is looking at places like Caltech and Stanford. Harvest Mudd certainly is a safety for this kind of student.

This kid has been in school for a bout 2 weeks. Who knows if Calteach or Stanford are even in the realm of possibility. And I agree with others. the Pomona schools, HM in particular, are NOT safeties. They may be a match (although HM is super competitive) but not a safety.

I’d look closer first. Once you know what type of college would be best fit, then I’d take longer trip. Also, encourage your child to engage in and enjoy the high school years before adding college pressure.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you mean to say Pomona and Harvey Mudd are safeties?

No way

Exactly. Harvey Mudd is in no way, shape, or form a safety. But if you're looking at engineering, it should absolutely be on your list for SoCal.

Get over yourself. This kid is looking at places like Caltech and Stanford. Harvest Mudd certainly is a safety for this kind of student.

This 9th grade kid has been in high school for one week or less. How in the world would the parent know what tier school to look at? This is just ludicrous. I call troll!!

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you mean to say Pomona and Harvey Mudd are safeties?

No way

Exactly. Harvey Mudd is in no way, shape, or form a safety. But if you're looking at engineering, it should absolutely be on your list for SoCal.

Get over yourself. This kid is looking at places like Caltech and Stanford. Harvest Mudd certainly is a safety for this kind of student.

I can't tell if this is a sarcastic post or not. I'm going to assume you're being funny. FYI OP, Harvey Mudd has a 14.5% acceptance rate, about 1 out of 7 applicants (1). This makes it the 27th most selective school in the U.S. (2).

(1) https://www.hmc.edu/institutional-research/wp-content/uploads/sites/42/2019/01/2018-19-CDS_Complete.pdf#page=5
(2) https://www.educationcorner.com/colleges-with-lowest-acceptance-rates.html

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Do you mean to say Pomona and Harvey Mudd are safeties?

No way

Exactly. Harvey Mudd is in no way, shape, or form a safety. But if you're looking at engineering, it should absolutely be on your list for SoCal.

Get over yourself. This kid is looking at places like Caltech and Stanford. Harvest Mudd certainly is a safety for this kind of student.

Anonymous wrote:Do you mean to say Pomona and Harvey Mudd are safeties?

No way

Exactly. Harvey Mudd is in no way, shape, or form a safety. But if you're looking at engineering, it should absolutely be on your list for SoCal.

It might be early but there can be another purpose. We took ours very early in high school to inspire him. We hoped it would remind him why he should work hard, to show him the payoff. Plus it became a great way to spend time together. Colleges in general are beautiful places and make for lovely “hiking”. If it was within driving distance it was a cheap way to spend a pleasant day. Sometimes they even fed us for free.

We quickly tired of the information sessions, though, and learned to skip them. They all say the same thing anyway - we’re awesome, our grads go to these amazing grad schools, tradition x is cool, etc. Tours are essential so you can get into the buildings, and the guides are generally well-informed enough to answer questions.

Do you mean to say Pomona and Harvey Mudd are safeties?

No way

Anonymous wrote:My DS is a freshman and we are planning to tour Stanford, Berkeley, Caltech, UCLA during spring break April 2020 .
Is it too early?

You should definitely add safeties. Pomona for your budding lawyer. Harvey Mudd for the engineer.

Wait until 11th grade. Your child is 14 years old!!

I don't think it's too early. If you're looking all over the country, there's not that much time. We took our DC (rising freshman) to a few schools this summer. DC wants to play a sport in college, so needs to start the process a little early. But, still, I think it's fine for kids to at least start thinking about what they want at this point. I honestly don't see any downside as long as your kid is a willing participant (I wouldn't force it if your kid resists).

OP -- you could add Davis to your list for Northern Cal. Not quite as hard to get into as UCLA and Cal.

OP- here Thanks for the list 20.14 and 20.22

Cal Poly for engineering.