<p>Keilexandra,
I doubt you’ll find such a school. The caliber of students and the intellectual vibe make Swarthmore different. There are schools that are easier to get into that will provide similar opportunities (like Reed), but there are no “true safeties” that will make the cut.</p>
<p>Well, “similar” is a relative word. Caliber of students, of course, is impossible to find at a “true safety”; but are there really no schools that accept >40% of applicants that encourage a similar intellectual vibe?</p>
<p>Look at the suggestions I gave, in addition to Trinity University in San Antonio and St. John’s College, which has campuses in Annapolis and Santa Fe, but whose curriculum I disapprove of.</p>
<p>Your list is very diverse and interesting, dchow. For example, I don’t think of Allegheny or Trinity (CT or TX) as particularly intellectual; on the other hand, you’ve also got my own “hidden gem” schools like Beloit, Earlham, Knox.</p>
<p>St. John’s curriculum, alas, is definitely not for me, when I can’t even stomach Chicago’s core.</p>
<p>Also, to contribute two names I received in a PM: Macalester and URochester.</p>
<p>Whitman College in Washington.</p>
<p>I second Earlham, and to an extent, Oberlin. I also prefer to call them “likelies” rather than safeties.</p>
<p>Keilexandra, you mentioned that you don’t find Trinity University in San Antonio or Allegheny particularly intellectual, but why? I don’t think they’re any less intellectual than Beloit or Earlham. I know plenty of people who go to Whitman College, and I wouldn’t really consider them to be intellectual. But that doesn’t mean that the academics are bad. Actually, I think Trinity University and Whitman are excellent liberal arts colleges.</p>
<p>^ I think all of them are excellent liberal arts colleges, but I don’t “feel” like Trinity or Allegheny are particularly intellectual. Not a vibe I can back up with any evidence, just a general feeling.</p>
<p>i’m not sure i’m really getting the point of this thread. when i said that i considered haverford a safety school, seconded by a bretheren, the op comes back and says that noone should consider haverford a safety. on the flip side, a slam dunk for a swattie, such as trinity or allegheny aren’t intellectual enough for a swattie. so, what is it going to be? the truth is, the swat class, taken as a whole is probably the best out there. i say this because swat is unencumbered by having to fill athletic teams and a large legacy pool. as such, schools like haverford, although a tough nut for the general populace, is an 18 inch putt for your typical swattie. i only mentioned haverford and wesleyan earlier to crack a few nuts, but when i think about my own experience, i did consider those two schools as not particulary trying for me to have gotten into back then. isn’t that what a safety school is?</p>
<p>Well, the point of this thread was to get suggestions for safeties… the low acceptance rates of Haverford and Wesleyan make them NOT safeties in any sense. Less selective than Swat, low reaches/high matches, yes. But not safeties.</p>
<p>Of course, if you’re talking more than two years back, the numbers may have been different. If I’m not mistaken, this past year both schools admitted around 1 in 4 applicants. That’s not safe.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Even two years back, Wes admitted less than 30% of its applicants, and I’m pretty sure Haverford was even lower. </p>
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<p>No, a safety/likely is a school that you would find it highly improbable that you would NOT get into. A school that is not particularly trying/hard to get into, ie. one where you match the stats, is more like a match. A safety you should probably be well above the 75th percentile – AND, unless it’s the kind of school that admits on numbers alone, it needs to have a fairly high acceptance rate. </p>
<p>So, even if you were above the 75th percentile for Haverford and Wes (which will not be true even of most Swarthmore applicants, I don’t think), their admissions processes are quirky enough that you can’t count on an acceptance.</p>
<p>Of course, there are always stories of someone who didn’t get into their safety, but did get into Harvard. But that’s very rare if you pick a true safety.</p>
<p>Haverford and Wesleyan have been CONSISTENTLY among the most selective schools in the U.S. for YEARS AND YEARS. Their acceptance rates this year were around 21%. Just because someone may think they have a decent shot at getting in, doesn’t mean they’re safeties, dig?</p>
<p>applying the metrics espoused herein, the scenario that a safety is a school whereby it would be improbable not to get into based upon ones reasonable expectations…haverford and wesleyan would have been “safety” schools for me. this is irrespective of what the schools admit rates are but on the statistics provided for previous incoming classes. not speaking for the rest of my swarthmore class, although, i am fairly typical, i stand by my position. i dug.</p>
<p>Yeah, keep telling yourself that.</p>
<p>For many Swarthmore applicants, a true safety might not be another very small LAC. There’s a problem with having a LAC as a safety: they tend to be small, they tend to have holistic admissions, which means that EVEN if your SAT’s are 2200+, your GPA is 4.7 and your applic is a standout, i’ts hard to feel secure about being admitted. The other problem is that most other LACs differ from Swarthmore in important ways: they are more fratty/athletic/preppy/less intellectual – and the ‘safer’ they are, the more prominent those differences tend to be. Also, being LACs, it’s harder to find ‘your people’ if you are not going to fit in with the dominant campus type. So I believe that looking for a safety for Swarthmore, for most kids, should mean looking at significantly bigger schools.</p>
<p>For my child (admitted RD to Swarthmore), rolling admission to U of Michigan in December removed the need to think too hard about a safety.</p>
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<p>^ Interestingly enough, I considered the same approach… except that my family can’t come anywhere close to affording Michigan’s OOS tuition. And FA packages don’t come out in December.</p>
<p>So–expanding beyond just LACs, what other “safety” options have previous applicants used?</p>
<p>In-state honors college is probably the closest you can get to a safety if you are looking for high admissions rates.</p>
<p>If you are willing to apply ED to Swarthmore, you will know early enough if you need to worry about safeties…</p>
<p>In 2004, S applied to both Haverford & Swat. He was accepted at Swat (and attended), but was waitlisted at Haverford. According to his counselor, Swat was a reach & Haverford a match. Admissions is truly a crap shoot & there’s no way of predicting what will happen, especially at small LACs.</p>
<p>^^ I really want to apply ED to Swat, but practically speaking, I’ll probably apply SCEA to Yale first and see what happens. If I’m deferred, I have a decent financial argument to persuade my parents to let me apply EDII–but in that case, I’ll still need safeties.</p>
<p>Keilexandra: The safety schools I listed are as close, I think, as you can get to Swarthmore. You seem to not have very much evidence at all for why you don’t find Trinity University intellectual. Have you done any research, or are you just dismissing Trinity University because you don’t know anything about it and it isn’t mentioned often on CollegeConfidential? I recommend that you keep an open mind and explore all the colleges I recommended. After you do more research, then narrow your list down. Besides, I don’t see anyone else naming more safeties.</p>