<p>Given the difficulty of predicting any pattern of admission to high-reach schools, my daughter is finding it hard to decide which schools to visit. Five days, five schools: should we go to the ones she really wants to attend (Williams/Middlebury/Dartmouth/Bowdoin/Brown), or drop one or two of the reaches in favor of a match or two? And what constitutes a match, for a kid with pretty strong but not overwhelming stats (2330/3.9/average ECs/interest in biology and env sci/no hook)? Everyone says to find a safety at which your child will be happy, but the definition of safety seems to be, one at which 75% of applicants is accepted, and such a school invariably has much, much lower average stats than my kid. I can't think she'd be happy at a school like her high school, where her friends don't understand why she's working so hard (at this point in the AP year, she herself isn't sure why she's working so hard--the AP grind is really telling on her--but that's another discussion). I read the discussion about high-stat kids at lower-stat schools with interest, and I think the concerns expressed by posters who found themselves or their kids unchallenged by their safety schools to be compelling. So what is a viable safety, or match, and--to return to the topic--should we try to visit them in this first trip, or not?</p>
<p>Your daughter has excellent scores and grades, but if you’ve read any of the decision threads for the schools you mention, it will be tough to get in without a hook. I think that the best safety is one that has early action or rolling decisions. That way, the student has at least one acceptance in place early. It is risky for someone with stats like your daughter’s to use a small LAC as a safety. They only accept a small number of students, and often waitlist or reject students who appear to be using them as a safety school. You might want to consider a less selective school with a strong honors program. </p>
<p>I would add at least one less selective school to your trip. You can visit two schools in one day if they are in the same city. You might want to check some of the college guides for “overlap schools” to get ideas of other schools to consider.</p>
<p>We did Smith, MH, Amherst and Brown in two days last year.</p>
<p>Boy were we tired.</p>
<p>But it was worth it, even though only two of the schools ultimately offered acceptances to my D.</p>
<p>Five days, five schools seems very doable and if you can do it, do it. Take notes, though, because they will start to run together.</p>
<p>Visit the ones she really wants to visit now. You can visit others over the next twelve months.</p>
<p>Be careful not to visit during a school’s “admitted students” days – which all happen in April!</p>
<p>The trip you are considering has a couple of schools that are pretty far from the others–you could replace Bowdoin and/or Dartmouth with Tufts and/or Wesleyan and/or Boston College.</p>
<p>If I were you, I would start throwing some safety/match schools into your visits earlier rather than later. D1 fell in love with one of the schools that was supposed to be a safety. She is in the 75% rank of scores (actually well above it on SAT CR, about at it on Math). She applied to several higher ranking schools and got into some of them. But the school she chose has a strong program in her particular area of interest, and gave her good merit money. The students were friendly and the campus was pretty.</p>
<p>She worried about the same things you are, that maybe it would be too easy or maybe she would not have friends who were academically as strong as she is. Those fears proved groundless; she has worked hard and made friends with others who do as well. She is on track to graduate Phi Beta Kappa next year barring any unforeseen hiccups in the fall, but she would tell you she has worked diligently for that honor and learned a lot in the process. She has also taken great advantage of relationships with professors to help her secure internships; when you are a top student, you have leverage with them. The school has also invited her to apply for some scholarships and participate in some on campus activities that she probably would not get to do as a more average student at a tippy-top school.</p>
<p>In retrospect, we spent too much visit time on reach schools. Wanting to get into them does not translate into actually admissions. For D2, we have made what I think is a more realistic list of schools (including reach, match, and safeties). We used the Fiske book to narrow down to schools with good programs in her major, with the geography and other characterstics (size, etc) that she thinks she wants.</p>
<p>First, I don’t think a safety has to have a 75% acceptance rate. My younger son (a B+ student, but high SAT scores) considered American, Syracuse, U of Vermont and Boston U as possible safeties which at the time had acceptance rates in the 50-65% range. If your school has Naviance you may be able to pinpoint likely safeties more easily. It was obvious from looking at the data that no one with my younger son’s stats had ever been rejected. We did the same thing for my older son - a techie guy. It was obvious from his stats he’d be in at RPI, and indeed he heard by Thanksgiving that he was in.</p>
<p>We did three trips. Two colleges one day that were less than a 2 hour drive away. Two colleges in two days that were four hour drive away. And three colleges in three days that were about a five hour drive away. I think a college a day if there isn’t too much driving between them is doable. </p>
<p>I do think it’s worth identifying a safety your child will like is important and for a safety I think visits are even more important than they are for the matches and reaches. You want to find one that has a critical mass of students like your child’s. We found for instance, that American’s IR offerings and DC location meant that in my son’s field it was a much better college than its stats might indicate. BTW another great option for safeties is the EA acceptance. After younger son got into Chicago he didn’t even bother to apply to his second safety.</p>
<p>One possible safety for your daughter might be a tech school like RPI which needs more women. I know a young woman who, while she didn’t love RPI did biology/environ. sci. there, had plenty of opportunities to do research, and is now a grad student at Cornell. They were generous with AP credits and she graduated early.</p>
<p>In retrospect my son would have visited every school he applied to ahead of time. It was too hard to write essays without a visit. He found perusing websites and books for insight more difficult. He’s my intuitive kid.</p>
<p>This early in the game (your DD is a junior?), I’d focus on what’s logistically feasible and what she’s interested in (as of now–she might have a totally different list in six months).</p>
<p>And I think CC’ers tend to consider safeties to be schools with stats that would put your kid above the 75th percentile, not schools with a 75% admit rate.</p>
<p>If she’s considering LACs, keep in mind if she applies to some really good schools that aren’t tippy-top in the rankings, she’s likely to get some good merit aid.</p>
<p>I agree that including some schools with rolling admissions and/or EA is great come next year. It’s wonderful having some admissions in hand before the March onslaught.</p>
<p>Bottom line–relax and have fun.</p>
<p>You have a tough dilemma. It’s not an uncommon dilemma, but it’s still tough.</p>
<p>It’s really hard to pay attention and to maintain presence for five schools in five days, much less seven or eight schools in five days. For me 5/5, maybe 6/5 would be the absolute limit.</p>
<p>It’s really hard for a kid to feel enthusiastic about a school he or she hasn’t seen, especially compared to schools he or she HAS seen, and especially if it doesn’t have a magic name.</p>
<p>The things that tend to give schools magic names – wealth, beauty, extensive facilities – makes them especially rewarding to visit, and easy to fall in love with.</p>
<p>But . . . you really don’t have to visit Middlebury, Williams, and Dartmouth to know whether you will fit in at one of them. If you think one is OK, you would probably do fine at any of them. I know that’s heresy, but it’s true. It is worth visiting one of them to get a reaction to the beautiful-school-in-the-middle-of-nowhere dynamic, and it would be pleasurable to visit them all, but in the end it’s self-indulgent.</p>
<p>Getting a decent safety is a lot more important, and a lot tougher. Tufts and Wesleyan don’t qualify. Colby, Bates, or Bard might, however. Or Connecticut College (which is less than an hour from Brown). Or Trinity College in Hartford. Or Bennington (very near Williams). None of these qualifies as a total safety, but if your daughter applied to three of them (and took the applications seriously), I would be stunned if she didn’t get into two, and probably all three. But just visiting one potential safety is playing the lottery. She’s not going to like it as much as the fancy schools, and she may not like it much at all, and then you will have lost ground, not moved the ball forward. If you are looking for good safeties, you really have to look.</p>
<p>Another approach to safety I often recommend, although it is at odds with the rustic-LAC tone of your visiting list (except Brown), is McGill University in Montreal or the University of Toronto, both of which have completely predictable admissions based on grades and test scores, and which are equivalent to well-above-average U.S. public flagships. They have big enrollments with a wide range of students, but there are plenty of top students there, and world-class faculty. You could probably work things to visit McGill on your trip – it is about the same distance from Middlebury as Williams, and a heck of a lot closer than Brown.</p>
<p>(What did my kids do? Same as mathmom’s. EA/rolling acceptances made the rest of the safety search irrelevant.)</p>
<p>The safety school is the really important one. Finding the school which she would love to go to and which you are pretty sure to be able to afford is far more important that choosing which reach schools to visit. I’d concentrate visits first on these.</p>
<p>I was thinking of Tufts and Wes as more matchy for the OP’s kid. I agree that they are not safeties.</p>
<p>I agree with mini…find five financially and academically safe or match schools and put those on the plate first. It is hard to get a kid to eat their dinner if you give them dessert first.</p>
<p>I agree with JHS for a girl with those stats. But weird things happen. On the Colby board some kid got into Wes and not into Colby. </p>
<p>Skidmore, imo, would be a safe safety for her.</p>
<p>Thanks, I think your advice–to visit at least one safety, not all reaches–is good; I’m thinking of swapping Williams for Colby and Bates (since we’ll be in Maine, anyway). We can visit Connecticut College and/or Bard on a daytrip sometime, too, and we’re also planning some other trips; this one is to the far north!</p>
<p>But having stats in the upper 75th doesn’t seem to be much of a reassurance; with CR800, math 770, she’s pretty much in the upper 75th everywhere, including these reaches, but I know damn well she’s not getting in to all of them, or even necessarily any of them. That’s what I mean when I say that the traditional definitions of safety and match don’t seem to me to work well; having seen the bloodbath of this year, both personally and on CC, the unpredictability of admissions seems remarkable. Can you really depend on any school with a selection rate of 50% or less as a safety? Of course, you could apply to multiple matches, and count on getting in somewhere–but I’ve seen that strategy backfire, too. Finding a safety you will truly be happy at seems a real challenge, assuming you don’t want a large state school.</p>
<p>A girl with your daughter’s (admirable!) stats but no hooks is quite possibly looking at many waitlists from your current choices.</p>
<p>Agree with Hunt, to visit a couple schools somewhat less selective on your trip. Try to pick ones where SOMETHING appeals, like location (Boston?) or a specific program.</p>
<p>And totally agree with the JHS’s EA/Rolling strategy. However, this year, at our quite competitive high school, there are highly qualified kids with EA/Rolling acceptances being rejected or waitlisted from the rest of their schools. Would have been nice for them to have more choices; something more in the middle, without having to battle getting off a waitlist.</p>
<p>I will add that I know the danger of setting your standards high to start with–having gone to Duke in February, she now has it at the top of her list. Part of my motivation is to show her some northern schools that can compete in beauty and programs!</p>
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<p>I wouldn’t consider that a safety. It’s hard to define a safety these days, but here’s my definition.</p>
<p>A school which admits at least 40% of the students who apply in the regular admissions round where your kid’s stats are above the 75th percentile and which you are certain you can pay for. </p>
<p>I have seen a lot of kids get burned because they chose as their safeties or matches selective schools that offer both ED I and ED II and fill most of their slots for unhooked BWRKs who are white or Asian with two college educated parents during those early rounds. </p>
<p>In other words, when you are trying to figure out whether Old Widget College is a safety, don’t just focus on the overall admissions rate. If your kid is not applying early to that college, the relevant stat is the percentage who apply in the regular round who are accepted.</p>
<p>Jonri – what a good insight/rule of thumb.</p>
<p>mini and JHS above are spot on: get the safety thing sorted out first. Getting into your top choices is an easy problem to resolve. Choosing among matches/safeties is really tricky. To me, there’s a bigger difference between Wesleyan and Bowdoin (solid matches, not safeties) than there is between Dartmouth and Williams (reaches).</p>
<p>With her numbers, she’s almost a lock to get into one or more of her 5 safeties and/or 4-5 solid matches. But she had better like them because she very well might end up at one of them. </p>
<p>I mean, is she really going to turn down Williams or Dartmouth for Bowdoin (no disrespect to Bowdoin intended, but few make such a choice)? But she has an excellent chance of ending up choosing between Midd and Bowdoin, or Wes and Bowdoin, or Colby and Wes or some combination/permutation of all her matches/ safeties.</p>
<p>Reaches take care of themselves (usually).</p>
<p>from the point of view showing interest, Colby and Bates will care more that your D took the time to visit than Williams did. I can’t even recall if Williams has a sign-in. They don’t interview, I know that. Williams can afford to be less picky about visits; it’s not being used as often as a back-up as Bates and Colby would be (not that these two schools aren’t first choices for many; but with high stats, you really need to play the “show me the love” game). Bates makes it very clear that interviewing is very important. This first trip might be too early to do that, but if your daughter feels like she can get to research the school beforehand and practice an interview, it is well worth setting it up for this trip.</p>