<p>
[quote]
The way we can be most sure that that college is a "safety" for our son, when the time comes for him to apply to college in fall 2009, is to seize the earliest opportunity to submit a "rolling" application to that college (which indeed will be an "on the spot" application during the first week of October), so that we get an instant read of his chances at that college.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This needs to be repeated. As tokenadult points out there are very few ways to get a reality check before it is too late in the admissions process. Applying as early as possible to a school with rolling admissions is one of them. Hopefully everyone can find a school with rolling admissions that:
1) will accept them
2) is affordable
3) would be enjoyable and beneficial if they end up there</p>
<p>A friend of mine only applied to very elite schools (HYPS, Amhearst, and Swarthmore) and was rejected from all of them.</p>
<p>He was really confident in himself and thought that he would get into one of those places for sure. Of course, he's kicking himself now for not applying to any safties.</p>
<p>Although I agree completely with the concept of safety schools, I really hate the nickname. It has gotten quite the negative reputation. Tokenadult has it right in terms of what this school should be for the applicant. Certainly you need to like it and be willing to attend. Many kids end up at their safety and love it. In terms of "kids being dumb", a school with an honors program may help that aspect. Although my D would not have been thrilled to only have been accepted to 1 school she did admit that the honors program there certainly made it more appealing, and she was accepted to that as well. With lots of money, too. I have told D #2 to try and avoid the word safety. If she doesn't happen to get in it saves face, and if a friend doesn't get in and she does, it can mean fewer hard feelings.....and again, that negative connotation of "going to your safety" means you didn't get in anywhere good....which is nuts.</p>
<p>I would say almost as important as applying to a safety that you love is applying to a match you love. I would even go so far as to say the most important colleges you pick are your matches. If you apply to a bunch of top uber selective colleges and one safety (lets say you got in here by mid November and really didn't have to worry about getting into college) you will not have the best end result. You might only be accepted to your safety. You might be accepted to some of the selective schools, but only receive money from your safety. However, with good match schools you decrease the risk of only getting into one college, or only getting money from one college. If your two acceptances are to Harvard and Maryland (my state school) with $0 from H and a full ride to UMD it basically becomes a money debate. However, with a 10 or 15k scholarship to a match, it can be a good middle ground for not paying full price while having the option to go somewhere with a better name or better programs. Match schools are probably the best ones to look at for a strong student who doesn't qualify for need based aid but can't pay the full price.</p>
<p>
[quote]
When determining a safety, are the websites like Princeton and College Board fairly accurate?
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I can't say about the College Board site, but I found the Princeton site to be very optimistic. Schools that in my opinion would be reaches for my son turned out to be matches, and schools that I thought were matches turned out to fall in the safety category on Princeton. I think this gives a false sense of security. However, having said that, I might be paranoid because I've seen so many posts here on CC from kids with great stats rejected from schools that seemed to be matches. My son also hasn't applied to any college yet, as he's a junior this year, so I don't have actual results.</p>
<p>I think the only true safety school for DS1 will be UC-Merced.</p>
<p>To a large extent the question is, how good is admissions information that is even a year old? Some schools experience 20% leaps in applications in one year. Safeties turn into matches and matches into reaches with little warning. After reading CC for a year and a half I have yet to read, 'X used to be a tough school to get in to, but it's not now.' Paranoia at the end of the jr year is better than panic at the end of the sr year.</p>
<p>Sometime last year when I first discovered this website, our often lackadaiscal son was taking little interest in creating a list of prospective colleges.</p>
<p>And some wise cc parent told me to relax, come up with 2 or 3 schools that would accept him, that he would consider attending, that would offer him a decent education and meet our financial constraints.</p>
<p>So I did. And I prodded him throughout the summer and early fall to read college profiles in various guide books, and even to visit three campuses over the summer. He eventually developed a list of 8 schools (including the three safeties that I insisted upon) He ended up applying to 6 schools; the two that dropped off the list required four essays. I figured that was just as well, if he can't be bothered with the work it takes to apply, I doubt that he'd do the work required to graduate. </p>
<p>And here we are now, and he'll attend a "safety school", that I suggested and he chose, and I am very excited for him.</p>
<p>i definitely second the "don't trust your GC" comment. mine said that Emory was a safety for me. number 1: i got waitlisted. number 2: emory isn't a safety for ANYONE.</p>
<p>i had about 5 safeties on my list that i loved, so everything worked out just fine.</p>
<p>vballmom: I think UC Merced is a dark horse. I have a feeling that students who attend UCM and plan to attend grad school after will come out of there with excellent preparation for whatever field they enter. You can't beat the combo of UC resources w/ the LAC size. I am trying to convince one of my DDs to give it a look as a safety. If she refuses I may employ the "Mommy School" method. It's a great idea.</p>
<p>vballmom: mythmom is the one who I first saw use the term "mommy school" it refers to picking a college which you, the mommy, think your child should apply to because of financial or other reasons. She said that though neither of her kids ended up attending their mommy school they both grew to love the schools she chose and would have been happy there had the need arisen.</p>
<p>What about a child that wants to apply to Tufts but may not be 100 percent certatin it's their # 1 choice. We have been trying to find small to medium safeties in the northeast for some time now. My child has certain particulars including : no religious affiliation, fairly equal male,female ratio stong arts and not an eternal winter. Any help would be very much appreciated. By the way she is a strong student from a public specialized HS with great EC's and great teacher recs.</p>
<p>Mommy school is of my own coinage. Although my kids did develop their own lists and chose their own college and I am usually a very laissez faire parent, I do think in something as important as college admissions it was fair to bring my 30+ years of more experience to bear and insist they apply to one school each I thought they were foolishly overlooking.</p>
<p>I was lucky both kids agreed. If they hadn't, I might have gone the, "then I'm not paying the application fees," route, but that certainly wasn't necessary.</p>
<p>S fell in loves with his, UofC, after he heard they had the phoenix as a mascot, and D was okay with hers, Smith and Mt. Holyoke (she only wanted Barnard.)</p>
<p>All was well. </p>
<p>I called it a mommy school to them to make fun of myself, which kids always love. They didn't call me mommy any more at that point.</p>
<p>in my case there were no mommy schools...just daddy school (state flagship
), which was continually shoved into my head.
Some more words of advice when selecting "safties", or even match schools, be sure to check with the school if you have some sort of special condition, if that will affect their admissions decisions, especially if these are private schools, they can discriminate in whatever way possible. </p>
<p>I ran into this problems when I was getting my college letters. I am graduating at 15, and some colleges relaly didnt like this. I had applied to GW and brandeis as safties, hoping for some merit$, and ended up getting rejected by both because of my age. However, other schools I had asked if this would be a problem, and some said yes and some said no. The ones that said no all accepted me, and the ones that said this is a problem all rejected me... However, I will happily be attending my dream high-match next fall! (one that was quite ok with my special situation)</p>
<p>Here's a funny thing: my child got rejected at two affordable state "safeties" and accepted at two reaches. Unfortunately to find out the two reaches were unaffordable for us. Luckily a few "matches" that were in there were accepted at and affordable!</p>
<p>UC admissions were crazy this year. When I went to UCD's admissions criteria/points system page and figured both of my DDs' admission number, My D who had the lower GPA actually had the higher number because she is an AVID student and that gave her a bump her sister didn't get. It used to seem that the GPA and test scores were the only part of the equation but as campuses have become more competitive they are factoring in more academic variables.</p>
<p>class in Minneapolis in November as part of a tour connected with the National Association for Gifted Children conference. I appreciate the tip to look carefully at how colleges define their admission variables.</p>