<p>UNI
31 Boston College 31%
31 College of William and Mary(VA) * 32%
30 University of North Carolina—Chapel Hill * 32%
25 University of Virginia * 33%
23 Carnegie Mellon University¶ 33%
34 Brandeis University(MA) 35%
37 Lehigh University¶ 38%
35 University of California—San Diego * 38%
37 University of Rochester(NY) 38%
47 University of Miami(FL) 39%
33 New York University 39%
41 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute(NY) 40%
25 Wake Forest University(NC) 40%</p>
<p>LAC
18 Hamilton College (NY) 30%
23 Oberlin College (OH) 31%
8 Carleton College (MN) 31%
30 Bucknell University ¶ 31%
41 Connecticut College 32%
21 Bates College (ME) 32%
32 University of Richmond (VA) 33%
21 Colgate University (NY) 33%
26 Colorado College 34%
4 Wellesley College (MA) 34%
23 Colby College (ME) 34%
38 Bard College (NY) 35%
32 College of the Holy Cross (MA) 35%
23 Scripps College (CA) 39%
32 Kenyon College (OH) 39%
47 Gettysburg College ¶ 40%</p>
<h2>7 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 10%</h2>
<p>9 Dartmouth College(NH) 12%
7 California Institute of Technology 13%
5 University of Pennsylvania 14%
9 Duke University(NC) 16%
17 Vanderbilt University(TN) 18%
15 Cornell University(NY) 18%
9 University of Chicago 19%</p>
<h2>21 Georgetown University(DC) 20%</h2>
<p>13 Johns Hopkins University(MD) 21%
13 Washington University in St. Louis 21%
17 Rice University(TX) 21%
22 University of California—Berkeley * 22%
25 University of California—Los Angeles * 23%
12 Northwestern University(IL) 23%
28 Tufts University(MA) 24%
23 University of Southern California 24%
51 Tulane University(LA) 26%
19 University of Notre Dame(IN) 29%
20 Emory University(GA) 29%</p>
<p>LAC
6 Pomona College (CA) 15%
2 Amherst College (MA) 15%
3 Swarthmore College ¶ ° 16%
11 Claremont McKenna College (CA) 17%
4 Middlebury College (VT) 17%
1 Williams College (MA) 19%</p>
<h2>14 Washington and Lee University (VA) 19%</h2>
<p>6 Bowdoin College (ME) 20%
12 Wesleyan University (CT) 21%
12 Vassar College (NY) 24%
18 Harvey Mudd College (CA) 25%
46 Pitzer College (CA) 26%
9 Haverford College ¶ 26%
26 Barnard College (NY) 28%
9 Davidson College (NC) 29%</p>
<p>Carleton (31%) is likely to be every bit as selective as Wesleyan (21%) when you factor in scores and GPA. Toss in class-balancing factors (ECs, geographic/ethnic diversity, etc.) and all bets are off for many individual applicants. </p>
<p>For a strong, full-pay Ivy caliber applicant, some of the 30-40 percenters may be close to “safety” territory, especially if they offer an EA option. Otherwise, these are more typically “match” schools.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone these are great ideas. ill research many of these. my thinking in referring to these schools as “safeties”, while many may refer to them as other things, is that, at a certain point, I would be better off paying in-state tuition at University of Washington than shelling out 50K a year for a lesser education.
For example many people have told me to consider Santa Clara as a safety. Both UW and Santa Clara have a 58% acceptance rate and around 520-650 sat averages per category. The first numerical difference is that I would pay 10k at UW vs 50K at Santa Clara. And honestly what would I lose in terms of quality of education? Yes, they are obviously much different schools in terms of location, size, feel, etc. but if I end up settling for a safety school I’ll be willing to make the sacrifice so my parents don’t feel I’m wasting their money.
A bit long-winded, but basically I want nothing safer (%-wise) nor of lesser quality than UW. But thanks again to everyone</p>
<p>None of us KNOW that for a fact. Not that it matters in the least, but it is highly doubtful the final numbers for UNC will be below 30 percent. Same for UVA. Barnard, otoh, should be below 30 percent admission rate … again. </p>
<p>Fwiw, The Choice numbers are just April/May estimates. The only verifiable figures are for the Class of 2014 and available through the last CDS. The rest is pure speculation.</p>
<p>Your “match” (a.k.a. “target”) schools probably fall in the 2nd or 3rd 25. I believe most of those 75 schools (and others) have qualities that, for some people, are worth paying some premium over a less expensive school like UW. Suggestion: If you’re in Washington state, go visit Whitman College if you want to see how a typical “30-40%” LAC compares to your state flagship.</p>
<p>is this a joke? seriously? 30-40% as a “safety.” Sorry, honey, I don’t care if you have a 2300 on your SAT’s, calling a school like BC, UVA, UNC, etc a safety is plain insulting and quite frankly, if that’s what you think a safety school is, I don’t care how smart you think you are, you have a lot to learn about college admissions. My school has a 15% acceptance rate and I would never have the audacity to consider myself so high above them. Good luck getting into college… a percentage mentality is not a way to base a school’s “safeness”… but don’t listen to any of us.</p>
<p>The problem with this approach is that applicants to these schools are self selecting. You will have a significant difference in Joe Bobs Taxidermy School which accepts 30-40 and a Tier 2 that accepts the same.</p>
<p>Emory could be a safety for a student w/high, reasonable scores for a selective institution and its admit rate is only 26ish (the new class was apparently that low). Our stats are lower than some w/higher admit rates (seriously, for a high caliber applicant, as long as it isn’t too high, because they’ll yield protect you, Emory is a pretty good bet. Much better chance than most selective[20-40% admit rate] LACs and definitely better than every other top 20. The only thing you should fear applying here is the “flavor of the month” admissions scheme). I wouldn’t use admit rate to approach safeties. For example, Georgia Tech has a 40% admit rate and their M/V scores are essentially identical to ours. It really depends on the caliber of the applicants, or better yet, the types they chose to accept. Some may merely have low app. numbers and select 30-40% which have extremely high stats. and bank on some pretty good students yielding. Find a different way to choose safeties. NYU w/a 30% admit rate is also equal to Emory. UVa and UNC on the other hand, while selective may be a little more doable than either (but not really, especially for OOS). UCLA is very doable despite its admit rate: <a href=“http://www.aim.ucla.edu/publications/main.asp[/url]”>http://www.aim.ucla.edu/publications/main.asp</a></p>
<p>In fact, it seems more plausible than either UVa or UNC.</p>
<p>Okay, I lied. Tech isn’t anywhere near us despite what their admissions site/portal says. Using Common Data Set indicates that they are about 70 points lower on the bottom and top end. I think I’m going to use Common Data sets as opposed to admission websites for now on, because many times there is a discrepancy (often quite large, especially at public schools) between the two. I checked Emory’s data set and it said that the 25% started at 1310 as opposed to the 1290 listed on the admissions website (so maybe Emory could be lying in the CDS and Tech lying in admissions, or the schools choose to report their numbers differently. I’ll take an average for Emory and say its 1300 for 25%). Y’all should seriously look at data sets for public schools, in many cases, you’ll be amazed at the discrepancies (in fact, I even found it for one public school, USC). Can anyone explain this to me? Which one is more reliable (admissions or common data), or do both lie (I’m guessing it’s this one) and you should just use both to perhaps estimate where you stand, but take neither as concrete?</p>
<p>Some of these schools are not as safe as you think for super-high stats kids. Some schools assume you are just applying as a safety, and will go to one of the Ivies if you get in. These schools may reject you just to protect their yield. Some call it the Tufts Syndrome. Anyway, if you want to use some of these schools as a safety, you need to show some interest beforehand. If their first contact with you is the application, they may assume you’re applying just in case. If they see that you previously visited or had some other contact, then they will believe your interest is genuine.</p>
<p>No, the CDSs were definitely reporting the correct years. I thought that too until I started to notice most schools’ upward trend. I mean, for that to be true at the public schools I speak of, with the discrepancies as large as I observed, they must be reporting 10 years in the past (like 2010 must be=2000) and that doesn’t seem to be the case. I checked ours for example and it matched pretty well w/our academic profile (attempts to list demographics and other info. points about each portion of the university). Middle-50s were essentially flat at Emory from 2004-2008, then decreased in 2009 and recovered in 2010. The academic profile would show the same ranges up until 2007 where they started to show straight up SAT averages, were we noticeably peaked in 2008 and declined a lot in 2009 and recovered some in 2010. Tech’s stats. make sense when you actually consider that their average SATs (they list these somewhere) are skewed to the right of the median as opposed to the left like ours (they may have a higher percentage sitting at the super high end of the 75% whereas ours is much tighter or more sit at the low end of the 25% than theirs sit at high end of 75%). However, even w/that said, they the middle-50 is still much lower.</p>
<p>This is not as straightforward a question as it seems to some of you: if you have high stats (2300+, 4.0, decent but not abfab ECs), coming up with matches and safeties is complicated by the reality of yield protection. If your SAT scores, for example, are well above the 75% rank for a school, your school’s naviance projection doesn’t include you, etc., how are you to gauge your chances of admission? We’ve all seen the stories of people accepted to top-tier schools and rejected or waitlisted at schools they thought were matches or even safeties; we’ve seen people waitlisted at multiple ivies and rejected at matches. It’s not a question of simply aiming too high, or being a repellent person despite your good scores (as some responders seem to like to think): there really seems to be a danger of “they know they’re your safety so they won’t accept you,” or “this is such a strong candidate, he’ll get in somewhere else; let’s take someone more typical of our usual stats.” For example, at my daughter’s school Naviance shows a clear pattern for Vassar: acceptances at the 2100-2200 mark. Only rejections above that (several). So what, then, becomes a match? And for heaven’s sake, what’s a safety? Any school with acceptance rates above a certain point is going to look skeptically at a high-stat kid, who is clearly “using it for a safety”; apart from applying to state schools, there seem to be no safeties. And if you don’t want to attend a huge state school, it seems your only option is to apply to as many matches as you can–which makes it harder to “demonstrate interest” in them. And then everyone will tell you, if you don’t get into any of them, well, you should have had better safeties. </p>
<p>And while I know this might strike some people as a high-class problem–yeah, too bad the SAT scores were so high, huh?–it’s part of what makes the process so nerve-rackingly opaque.</p>
<p>when you check student profiles on an admissions site, be sure they are not referring to admitted students – this obviously will be higher at most schools than the enrolled students. You will find the enrolled students’ stats on the common data sets.</p>
<p>^^ How do you know the apparent pattern is due to “yield protection”? Maybe some of those high-stats kids take their match & safety schools for granted and get careless with the applications. According to the Vassar CDS, the 75th percentile scores are 740CR, 720M, and 750W. I don’t know what the combined scores are, but they sure don’t appear to be rejecting everyone above 2200. Your school’s pattern may be unusual for some reason.</p>