This was 20 years ago but my brother got into an Ivy (reach, clearly) and waitlisted at UVA (he was a TJHSST graduate so I guess they had met their quote from there already)

Anonymous wrote:Mine got into engineering at UMD (also honor program), University of IL Urbana Champaign, CMU, and others with honors program acceptance and yet was not invited into the honors program at UMBC. She got in everywhere but the rejection for honors at UMBC really surprised us.

UMBC Honors is for the cream of the crop. Those people typically can go anywhere in the country, either as an undergrad or a grad. Not surprised by the rejection.

Anonymous wrote:Lack of demonstrated interest. If you don't have alum parents, never visited campus, never paid for a summer camp, and your "why ___?" essay is surface level bulls***, odds are you're NOT going to college 1,000 miles away from home, you're just shotgunning blasting the app.

Ugh this makes me nervous. My DS's first choice school is a "safety school" (fits most of the description in 18:44.) He definitely has the stats to get into something "higher"--but this is the school he wants and feels is the best fit.
He knows a few current students at the school so he's been to visit a few times, gone to football games, etc. but has never gone on an "official campus tour." I told him he might want to but he insisted he's been on campus enough times to have got a good feel for it.
He did go to a summer camp there over the summer so hopefully that will help with "demonstrated interest?"

He applied last week so I guess we should know in the next couple weeks if the lack of official campus tour has ruined his chances.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD didn't get into her safety but got into all the other 7 schools she applied to. I'm pretty certain she must have screwed up the application.

How can you screw up the application? Isn't every application the same with the Common App? What additional information could be screwed up?

It's not a real safety unless it's a one-page application on the college's website where you self-report all the scores and they have a rolling two-week turnaround.

Seriously, though, it was a great feeling for DC to have an admit in hand even before senior year started.

Yes, DD was accepted at her dream school, an ivy, and rejected by several safety schools she applied to.

A teammate of my son was rejected from his safeties, rejected at his reach, and had to scramble to submit to those with rolling admissions and open spaces this past Spring. He’s at WVU this fall and according to his mom, happy but still planning on applying to transfer.

It happened to me (I was a freshman in 1999). I was accepted at Harvard and rejected by CU Boulder.

I was a strong student, but my guidance counselor and parents had been preparing me to be rejected by Harvard, and my dad had gotten me some CU Boulder tee shirts and folders when we visited in May. He didn't buy me any Harvard merchandise when we visited because, he said later, he was sure I would be rejected and was uncomfortable with how strongly I had set my heart on Harvard.

I still wore the CU Boulder tees while running along the Charles

Lack of demonstrated interest. If you don't have alum parents, never visited campus, never paid for a summer camp, and your "why ___?" essay is surface level bulls***, odds are you're NOT going to college 1,000 miles away from home, you're just shotgunning blasting the app.

Mine got into engineering at UMD (also honor program), University of IL Urbana Champaign, CMU, and others with honors program acceptance and yet was not invited into the honors program at UMBC. She got in everywhere but the rejection for honors at UMBC really surprised us.

It comes down to the definition of safety. In my world, if the student is not certain to be admitted, then it can't be a safety. My rule of thumb would be >50% acceptance rate with stats >75th percentile.

Sometimes posters seem to confuse a low match/target with what is truly safe.

State schools often make useful safeties because they tend to weigh on objective stats rather than additional factors. If the flagship is too selective for safety territory, then look at other state schools.

Personally, I think it's unwise to rely on Naviance scattergrams that present a different picture from the school's published stats.

Speaking of stats, stay away from third-party click-bait sites. Stick to the college's own site for data and possibly https://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/.

Looking back several years of data ... every student who applied to University of Minnesota from our HS was rejected, until someone applied who had actually visited. They got in.

My daughter was accepted at MIT, Vandy, UCLA and UC-Berkeley, but not at UMich (I know none of those schools are really "safeties" but we were a bit surprised.)

Handful of waitlist at Maryland when, by stats, should have been a safety.

Have your students been rejected from safeties even if they visited the safeties and demonstrated interest in other ways?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes. A school is trying to attain a certain level of diversity. In any crop of applicants, even in a school with a 6% acceptance rate, they may be short on some of that diversity. Thus, a kid could might get into Brown (7% acceptance) but not UMichigan (30%), if that kid's qualifications are in relative short supply in the Brown applicant field.

You can spin it anyway you want. But no way a student holding a ticket to Brown or Yale will be choosing Michigan for the same price.

Who said they would choose Michigan? I'm just saying that they may get into Brown and not Michigan. It happens.

That’s why they call safeties. A student will not choose Michigan if they are holding tickets to more selective schools. OP’s question is are students actually rejected from safeties and get into their more selective school choices. And the answer appears to be in the affirmative.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DD didn't get into her safety but got into all the other 7 schools she applied to. I'm pretty certain she must have screwed up the application.

How can you screw up the application? Isn't every application the same with the Common App? What additional information could be screwed up?

First of all, admissions might have different reactions to essays. What one things is clever, another might find off-putting.

Second, different recommendations may go to different schools.

Some admissions officers might pick up on things that others don’t.