<p>*Academic Safety: You know for certain that you will be admitted based on your grades and test scores. You know this because it is posted right on the college/university website and/or your high school has years of records of admission at that place and no one with your profile has ever been rejected.</p>
<p>Financial Safety: You know for certain that you can afford it without any aid other than federally determined (FAFSA) aid and/or guaranteed state aid and/or guaranteed merit-based aid from that college/university.</p>
<p>Please note that some Financial Safeties will not be academically safe, and some Academic Safeties will not be financially safe.</p>
<p>Rock-Solid Safety: Meets the criteria for both Academic and Financial Safety.</p>
<p>True Safety: A Rock-Solid that not only offers your major(s) but you are willing to attend.*</p>
<p>I really can’t figure out why the need for all these different safety labels…especially when students are often just applying to 1-3 safeties and the rest are reaches and matches.</p>
<p>To me, a safety needs to meet the following criteria:</p>
<p>1) The student must like the school and be willing to attend it if the other schools don’t work out.</p>
<p>2) The school must have the student’s intended major, but also a variety of majors in case the student changes his major at some point.</p>
<p>3) The student must be virtually 100% certain of admittance (for instance, at a state school that has guaranteed acceptance for certain stats if you apply on time.).</p>
<p>4) The student must be certain that he has all costs covered thru ASSURED govt grants, ASSURED merit scholarships, small fed student loans, and/or family funds. Of course, you must be certain how much your parents will be contributing in “family funds” if you’d be relying on those funds to pay for your safety.</p>
<p>If a school doesn’t meet the above criteria, it’s not a safety (aka financial safety). It can be a “possible,” but not a safety. As long a student has 1-3 safeties that meet the above listed criteria, he then can apply to whichever other schools he wants with the security of knowing that he has at least one “in the bag.”</p>