<p>There are some smaller LAC type schools with ‘big time’ sports, problem is none of them are true safeties. Might be worth a look anyway.</p>
<p>Wake forest, Davidson and Richmond come to mind.</p>
<p>Nobody has mentioned the honors programs at some “safety” schools. These can provide the intellectual challenge/company that smart kids want (other kids studying on a Saturday night with 2100 SATs) but yet be a financial safety (with merit money). It might be easier to find one of these programs that your student will love!</p>
<p>kiddie… that is one of the things that makes S2 school great… a very cohesive small honors college with specific courses and a 4 year involvement with the same group… not just a bunch of classes designated as honors that those with certain gpa’s will take</p>
<p>cbug, a lot of the big 10 school have things like living-learning communities that make the big campus seem much smaller. For example, Michigan State had the James Madison program that really enticed one of my sons. He got in and seriously considered that option, although he ultimately chose another school (but not the most prestigious he got in to). Some honors programs help make the campus seem more intimate. Some kids find their campus “family” on the campus newspaper or radio station or other EC activity. Also, once he gets into his major, a lot of departments become very nurturing of their own students.</p>
<p>OP, your ds sounds like mine. He loved his safety, a large in-state uni, but for different reasons than he loved the eventual winner, a LAC. </p>
<p>He had two main criteria: strong academics and a strong sense of community. He felt like he could get strong academics at the safety through the honors college. After that it was what KIND of community he wanted. The LAC offered smaller classes, engaged professors (rather than TAs) and a greater proportion of “his people” per capita. The safety had big-time sports that created a great sense of community, but it certainly was different from the LAC. What else did he love about the safety? He would have entered one class shy of sophomore status, thanks to all his AP credit.</p>
<p>He was admitted to the safety on a rolling admit basis. It was the first school that admitted him, which may have contributed to the love. I was thrilled that when it came to decision time he had a vast array of schools from which to choose, that he didn’t HAVE to go to a LAC because they were his only option. He could just pick the school he thought would be the best fit.</p>
<p>And while I agree that there is no one perfect school, that there are any number of schools where a kid could be happy and thrive – just as there are probably any number of men I could have happily married – I do think that sometimes lightning strikes and kids do know when they’ve found “the one.” Doesn’t mean other great schools aren’t out there, but a little bit of magic can be a good thing.</p>
<p>ETA: cross-posted with kiddie!</p>
<p>There are different things that a child can “LOVE” about a safety. D picked one safety because it had rolling admissions and was very close to a beach. She eventually chose another school based on academics, but would have been perfectly happy (in fact, ecstatic) to spend 4 years studying on a beach.</p>
<p>My D fell in love with one of her safeties and actually wound up choosing it over one of her “dream” schools and other great options. We were happy because they offered her great merit aid and we will all avoid debt. In the end there were things she loved about all of her choices and probably the perfect school would have been a mash-up. But she loved her safety and in the end it was the one she picked. And now she is finishing up her Freshman year still loving it. I think having a school love YOU and woo you certainly helps you fall in love back.</p>
<p>For MOST people, the safety school is where they plan to go. It’s really a luxury and a privilege to be applying to a spread of schools. Around here, most kids have plans to go to a local school, maybe part time, and work. There is no question of not getting accepted because the enrollment is pretty much open. </p>
<p>In my day, many years ago, those students who did think about other options, still pretty much had the local state option as what their primary stated plan was. But they might also see if they could get into Big State Flagship U, and if they were really good students, try some private options as well. With scholarship money, maybe it would fly. But the plan was always what was locally available and affordable.</p>
<p>Things have changed now in many settings where the thing to do, the cool thing is go away to college and the more prestigious the name, the more cachet the kid has. It’s become a ritual. And safety has become synonymous to failure as has the community college route.</p>
<p>*There’s tons of advice on CC saying “Love thy safety.” The trouble is my kid doesn’t love the one he has on his list. He doesn’t hate it either. He is also rejecting ALL suggestions of new safeties to add. And wouldn’t you know it, financial aid is very important to us. I’m worried that he will never find one he likes. </p>
<p>Knowing him the way I do, I’m sure he’s thinking that since he likes two (one a match and one a reach) on his list of just three, he would be happy attending either one. Therefore he doesn’t think he needs to worry about the safety or even add any more schools period. Even though I’ve explained the money situation over and over, I don’t think it’s sinking in.*</p>
<p>Since money is a huge concern for you, then you may have to “pull rank” and insist that your son apply to a few financial safeties that YOU have selected that you think he might like.</p>
<p>He’ll either go along with that, or that will inspire him to find a few financial safeties on his own. </p>
<p>My older son insisted that he wasn’t going to like a safety that I proposed to him. He ended up visiting, liking it, going there, LOVED IT, and can’t imagine having gone elsewhere for undergrad. He’s now a grad student elsewhere.</p>
<p>*If you can name me a school where the average SAT is >2100 with an intellectually focused student body, where studying on a saturday night is not an anomaly, will provide nonstop challenges to a kid who self studied for a 5 on Calc BC, and has acceptance rates >70% (or whatever is required to qualify for safety), then DS would have loved that ‘safety.’ *</p>
<p>This involves very shallow thinking. Why does the “avg” SAT of the ENTIRE school have to be a 2100? The only thing that should matter is the strength of the students within the major. Why should an Eng’g major give a rat’s patootie if the Fine Arts major or the Dance major has a SAT of 1750? These majors won’t be in your Physics class or your Gen Chem class unless they’re the brainy ones who are also pre-med…but then they also won’t be the modest SAT kid either.</p>
<p>Large publics offer 100s of majors. There are about 10-12 majors where the brainy kids are largely concentrated in…Eng’g (various disciplines), math, physics, chem, bio, The Classics, Finance, Econ, and a few others. Who cares what scores kids in other majors across campus have? Some of those majors include kids with highly developed right-brains who have talents that the SAT/ACT can’t measure, but they can do things that the left-brain kids can only dream about.</p>
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<p>While you are correct with respect to community colleges, it is not always the case that the local state university will be a safety for many, or any, applicant. A high school senior living in the city of Berkeley may not find the local state university to be a safety.</p>
<p>In California, most state universities have at least some majors which have higher admission standards (which are usually not known until after the admissions cycle is done) than the published systemwide minimums, so there can be some uncertainty for many students applying to their local state universities.</p>
<p>Most kids will enjoy and grow to love the college they end up attending.</p>
<p>“For MOST people, the safety school is where they plan to go.”</p>
<p>Yes, this is true of most American college kids, even most middle-class American college kids. The CC population is very unusual in its nationwide searches, emphasis on private schools, etc. Even in California, tens of thousands of middle-class kids happily aim for San Jose State or whatever nearby campus their HS classmates attend.</p>
<p>Calif needs to get back to the idea that the local CSU is the safety school for students with at least “basic good stats”. </p>
<p>A student applying to his commutable CSU with a 2.8 CSU GPA and a 1170 M+CR (26 ACT) shouldn’t be fretting over whether he will be admitted. Those with lower scores can the local CC as a safety. The CCs in Calif are very good.</p>
<p>m2ck: I agree. In addition most schools have honors programs which have the same standards as most of the selective schools. I’m sure many of the large schools have just as many students with SATs of 2100+ as most of the selective schools and I would venture a guess they congregate together. Good luck to the OP</p>
<p>A word on small schools- don’t let your kid fall into the trap of thinking that big school automatically means bad. A university of 20,000 students may have a med school, law school, four or five other graduate schools which aren’t even on the same campus (or may have a bus that connects them.) So the relevant student population for undergrad could be 5 or 6 thousand students-- it may sound big, but I attended a HS with a graduating class of 1100 so these college are only marginally bigger than my dumpy HS.</p>
<p>I hear SO MANY kids who only want a small college- which is fantastic if they’re choosing it for the right reasons. But choosing it because they automatically assume that a big university means they’ll be anonymous, have no friends, get lost in a crowd of 500 people all showing up for dinner at the exact same time, etc. is illogical. Bigger universities have lots of ways they quickly get cut down to manageable size. Bigger universities have more than one dining hall. Bigger universities can quickly become smaller once you make friends, meet professors in your department, etc. but a small college will never become bigger if you outgrow it by junior year.</p>
<p>Opens up a lot more “safety” possibilities.</p>
<p>I think you need to love or at least really like your safety. I have never met a kid so special he or she couldn’t have found a safety (admissions wise) that would have worked well. The money complicates matters since you really need to trade off a lot of other things if you’re hoping for significant merit aid… but at least admissions wise, I challenge any parent here to stump the experts.</p>
<p>When I hired engineers we sent recruiting teams to U Missouri at Rolla (now with a different name.) I defy you to find engineers better prepared than those kids- who competed very favorably against our recruits from MIT, Cal Tech, CMU. I don’t know what tuition costs or if that’s an affordable option, but it’s absurd to think that a kid who loves MIT or Cal Tech can’t find a safety school. I’ve hired new accounting grads from Wharton and from U Texas. I’ve hired kids with degrees in math from JHU and Chicago, but also Purdue and Georgia Tech and UIUC.</p>
<p>It is squishier on the humanities side (not that the faculty isn’t superb at the “safety schools”… but that differences in preparation among the students is more readily apparent and harder to remediate by the college) but I still issue a challenge that the collective wisdom of CC can find a safety school for anyone.</p>
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<p>Baseline CSU eligibility would accept an in-state 2.5 GPA and 900 SAT CR+M student to a non-impacted campus and major. However, population growth has outpaced the building of CSUs and increasing capacity; presumably, budget cuts are behind the reduction of capacity (or increases in capacity slower than population growth). Unfortunately for post-secondary education, California voters have other budget priorities (K-12, heath/welfare, prisons, lower taxes).</p>
<p>Also, some CSUs (e.g. SLO, SD, LB, and others) do attract a lot of students from outside of their local areas, so even local students (who do get some preference in CSU admissions) can find them more competitive. In addition, some majors are at full capacity at most CSUs and therefore require higher than baseline stats for admission.</p>
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<p>Isn’t this the truth! It used to be that only a few CSUs were impacted. Now, all but a few are impacted…CSU Bakersfield anyone?</p>
<p>Keeps going through my head every time I refresh this thread:</p>
<p>[The</a> Isley Brothers Song “Love The One You’re With” - YouTube](<a href=“The Isley Brothers Song "Love The One You're With" - YouTube”>The Isley Brothers Song "Love The One You're With" - YouTube)</p>
<p>Yes, most CSUs have at least some impacted majors, some are impacted for all majors, and some are impacted at the campus level.</p>
<p>CSU impaction information is here:
[CSU</a> Campus Impaction Information | Student Academic Support | CSU](<a href=“http://www.calstate.edu/sas/impaction-campus-info.shtml]CSU”>http://www.calstate.edu/sas/impaction-campus-info.shtml)
[Impaction</a> | Student Academic Support | CSU](<a href=“http://www.calstate.edu/sas/impactioninfo.shtml]Impaction”>http://www.calstate.edu/sas/impactioninfo.shtml)</p>