Anonymous
Post 09/03/2019 12:20     Subject: Re:Do you know of any situations where student got into "reach" schools but not safety schools?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:PSA, schools that yield protect SHOULD NOT BE considered safeties BY DEFINITION!!!

Schools with <50% acceptance rates are NOT safeties.

People rejected from "safeties" did not actually have safeties.

This question is OT, but how in the world are we supposed to find out if a school yield protects? This obviously isn't something that they put forward on their websites!

Look over last year's discussions (e.g. on college confidential) to see whether high-stats applicants are sometimes among the rejected or among those deferred in the early round.

This does not typically happen at schools with higher acceptance rates (say, >70%). Yield protection seems to be more of an issue in the middle ranges (say, 40-55%).

Example of a school that yield protects: Santa Clara U. Overall acceptance rate approaches 50%. High-stats applicants are routinely rejected if they don't show demonstrated interest and/or a good fit with jesuit educational ideals. Another important note: the overall acceptance rate at a university may not be indicative of the acceptance rate to a particular program or major. Engineering (CS specifically!) and business are often more competitive than the school's overall stats suggest. Some schools publish separate stats, but most do not.

Less-selective state colleges and lower-ranked privates tend to admit more on stats and less holistically (i.e. less on subjective factors) and accordingly make for more reliable safeties. Look to the back quarter of the top 100 national universities or just beyond the top 50 LACs.

Adding, schools in the back quarter of the top 100 national universities are a mixture of safeties and low matches for the high-stats applicant. Look carefully.
Anonymous
Post 09/03/2019 12:20     Subject: Re:Do you know of any situations where student got into "reach" schools but not safety schools?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:PSA, schools that yield protect SHOULD NOT BE considered safeties BY DEFINITION!!!

Schools with <50% acceptance rates are NOT safeties.

People rejected from "safeties" did not actually have safeties.



This question is OT, but how in the world are we supposed to find out if a school yield protects? This obviously isn't something that they put forward on their websites!


For starters, you should check the school's Common Data Set. The table at C7 has an entry for "Level of Applicant's Interest." If the school indicates that interest is considered, important, or very important, you can assume they are more likely to yield protect that a college that indicates that the factor is not considered. Also College Confidential is a good source. Just do a forum search for which schools yield protect.
Anonymous
Post 09/03/2019 12:15     Subject: Re:Do you know of any situations where student got into "reach" schools but not safety schools?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:PSA, schools that yield protect SHOULD NOT BE considered safeties BY DEFINITION!!!

Schools with <50% acceptance rates are NOT safeties.

People rejected from "safeties" did not actually have safeties.



This question is OT, but how in the world are we supposed to find out if a school yield protects? This obviously isn't something that they put forward on their websites!

Look over last year's discussions (e.g. on college confidential) to see whether high-stats applicants are sometimes among the rejected or among those deferred in the early round.

This does not typically happen at schools with higher acceptance rates (say, >70%). Yield protection seems to be more of an issue in the middle ranges (say, 40-55%).

Example of a school that yield protects: Santa Clara U. Overall acceptance rate approaches 50%. High-stats applicants are routinely rejected if they don't show demonstrated interest and/or a good fit with jesuit educational ideals. Another important note: the overall acceptance rate at a university may not be indicative of the acceptance rate to a particular program or major. Engineering (CS specifically!) and business are often more competitive than the school's overall stats suggest. Some schools publish separate stats, but most do not.

Less-selective state colleges and lower-ranked privates tend to admit more on stats and less holistically (i.e. less on subjective factors) and accordingly make for more reliable safeties. Look to the back quarter of the top 100 national universities or just beyond the top 50 LACs.
Anonymous
Post 09/03/2019 12:12     Subject: Re:Do you know of any situations where student got into "reach" schools but not safety schools?
Friendly reminder to this year’s parents that uMich should be considered a reach for most — here’s a point of reference: last year my unhooked DD with 3.7 uwGPA (10 APs) and 32 ACT, and great ECs (club pres, solid internships, etc) was rejected from uMich. She had visited and emailed her admissions rep about her interest. We certainly knew it was a long shot with those stats, but hey, that’s what reaches are for. If your kid has similar stats, you should also consider uMich a long shot.

BTW, DD also was rejected from William and Mary (OOS), BC, Tufts, and Tulane. She visited the first three but not Tulane.
Anonymous
Post 09/03/2019 12:11     Subject: Do you know of any situations where student got into "reach" schools but not safety schools?
Anonymous wrote:Do you know of any students (either your own kid, or maybe the kid of a friend or neighbor) where they were accepted at highly selective schools but ended up NOT getting accepted at schools that were meant to be safeties? Do safety schools ever deny a student because they know a student of that caliber is only using them as a safety, and they'd rather save acceptance for those they think will likely go there?


I was accepted at Georgetown and Washington & Lee, and waitlisted (ultimately didn't get in) at Dickinson, which was my major safety.
Anonymous
Post 09/03/2019 11:54     Subject: Re:Do you know of any situations where student got into "reach" schools but not safety schools?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:PSA, schools that yield protect SHOULD NOT BE considered safeties BY DEFINITION!!!

Schools with <50% acceptance rates are NOT safeties.

People rejected from "safeties" did not actually have safeties.



This question is OT, but how in the world are we supposed to find out if a school yield protects? This obviously isn't something that they put forward on their websites!


If you have to ask.... then it is not a safety.
Anonymous
Post 09/03/2019 11:52     Subject: Do you know of any situations where student got into "reach" schools but not safety schools?
Many of the kids "rejected by safeties" for a good reason: the school looks at the application and sees that the applicant is overqualified as compared to the pool of accepted and attended students. Universities are aware that most students are sending in as many applications as possible and that many who are applying have no intention of attending even if accepted. So those students are rejected.
It is time that students (and parents) stopped the practice of collecting acceptances--applying to schools they are not interested in attending just to get the acceptances. I have heard (and personally know of) students who applied to 18 or 20 schools, most of which they did not visit or had little interest in, only because the schools were perceived as 'easy to get into.'
Anonymous
Post 09/03/2019 11:23     Subject: Re:Do you know of any situations where student got into "reach" schools but not safety schools?
Anonymous wrote:PSA, schools that yield protect SHOULD NOT BE considered safeties BY DEFINITION!!!

Schools with <50% acceptance rates are NOT safeties.

People rejected from "safeties" did not actually have safeties.



This question is OT, but how in the world are we supposed to find out if a school yield protects? This obviously isn't something that they put forward on their websites!
Anonymous
Post 09/03/2019 11:05     Subject: Re:Do you know of any situations where student got into "reach" schools but not safety schools?
Anonymous wrote:Happend to both me and dh. Met at Stanford in 87. Neither of us got into our safeties. Mine was Franklin & Marshall and his was Haverford.

Examples of safety miscalculations. Those schools were not actual safeties.
Anonymous
Post 09/03/2019 11:02     Subject: Re:Do you know of any situations where student got into "reach" schools but not safety schools?
PSA, schools that yield protect SHOULD NOT BE considered safeties BY DEFINITION!!!

Schools with <50% acceptance rates are NOT safeties.

People rejected from "safeties" did not actually have safeties.

Anonymous
Post 09/03/2019 09:50     Subject: Do you know of any situations where student got into "reach" schools but not safety schools?
Anonymous wrote:It happens all the time-yield protection. Those high stats students are frequently waitlisted.


This. This happened to our DC. Got into two of three reach schools, both national USN top 40s. Got into the very best of the safeties. Did NOT get into a single other safety. The safeties that are regularly used as safeties have become sophisticated at managing the statistics. They know who is just not likely to enroll.

If your DC wants to go to a school for which DC is above-high-numbers, it is very wise to directly contact admissions, express interest, maybe apply early, definitely do a formal visit - so that they know that DC is likely to enroll and is not simply filing with a safety.
Anonymous
Post 09/03/2019 00:10     Subject: Do you know of any situations where student got into "reach" schools but not safety schools?
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:Nephew:

Waitlisted: UVA

Rejected: JMU, W&L, UMD, GMU, UMich, OSU, LSU, Florida

Accepted: UPenn and BU

His scores and grades were better than his sisters and she was a Jr at UVA at the time. Go figure!


Accepted to an Ivy but flat out rejected from George Mason? Was his application there late or incomplete or something? I know people (20 years ago of course) who went ot George Mason from my FCPS high school and they were.... not top students. No AP classes, no GT classes (or AAP or whatever they call them now if not GT), got a bunch of Bs in a bunch of non advanced classes basically, and no leadership/ EC stuff.


20 years ago is night and day from today. I wouldn’t have gotten into the school that I attended and I graduated HS in 2001. That said, I’m guessing this kid half assed their essay.



So true. A lot of DC's friends got rejected from GMU. The 75th percentile median for last year's entering class was a 3.93 GPA; bottom 25th percentile was a 3.47. 75th percentile ACT was a 30. http://research.schev.edu//enrollment/B10_FreshmenProfile.asp
Anonymous
Post 09/02/2019 22:38     Subject: Do you know of any situations where student got into "reach" schools but not safety schools?
Anonymous wrote:Everyone knows Umich yield protects. I've never seen anyone with above average intelligence get in. It's always the mediocre students who can barely get into community college are the ones to get full rides to Michigan

lmao. okay.
Anonymous
Post 09/02/2019 22:36     Subject: Re:Do you know of any situations where student got into "reach" schools but not safety schools?
Happend to both me and dh. Met at Stanford in 87. Neither of us got into our safeties. Mine was Franklin & Marshall and his was Haverford.
Anonymous
Post 09/02/2019 20:11     Subject: Do you know of any situations where student got into "reach" schools but not safety schools?
Being denied from a safety is oxymoronic. That just means the school was never actually safe, i.e. there was a miscalculation. Colleges that consider demonstrated interest are not safeties (no matter that the acceptance rate hovers above 50% sometimes). Colleges with acceptance rates under 50% are not safeties (no matter what Naviance says). And colleges that are not certain to be affordable are not safeties.