I’m a senior who has already applied to 14 schools. Do I have enough safety schools? Am I right in thinking that Davis, UCSB, and UW are safeties? If not, I’m thinking of applying to Occidental as well, since it has a Jan 15 deadline.
The schools I’ve already applied to:
Barnard
Columbia
Johns Hopkins
Harvey Mudd
Pomona
Scripps
Smith
UC Berkeley
UC Davis
UCLA
UC San Diego
UC Santa Barbara
University of Washington
Yale
My stats:
GPA: 4.35 weighted, 3.96 unweighted
ACT: 34 composite (27 writing)
ECs: Speech and debate president (and other positions like VP, treasurer), first chair flute in band for all four years, first chair flute + soloist in outside wind ensemble, four years of varsity badminton, six years with competitive Asian cultural dance troupe, 120+ community service hours, six years studying at university-affiliated academic summer program and two years being a TA there
I’m an East Asian female who immigrated to the US as a child, and I live in California, if these are of note.
Your intended major may matter. Some majors (e.g. computer science) are significantly harder to get into than the school overall, at places like many UCs and Washington. So what may look like a safety or low match based on overall school stats may not be for your intended major.
Can you and your parents afford all of these schools?
2, this student would probably receive up to $8,500/yr as an OOS merit scholarship to UW. Even if she did not go to UWSOM, the undergrads have access to the UW Medical Center on campus for internships, research opportunities, etc.
@mom2collegekids yeah I’m thinking about premed. My cousin (somewhat estranged so I can’t ask too many questions lol) is an immunology major at UW and is applying to med schools next year.
@ucbalumnus Thank you for the link! 4.3 UC GPA, which I think puts me above 75th percentile for Davis and SB? Then again, my intended majors are molecular biology/environmental science.
As a California resident it looks like you are guaranteed admission into at least one UC – so I think you are set. I’d think that UCSB would be a definite safety, but if for some odd reason you were denied admission to the UC campuses you selected, you would be offered a spot somewhere else. (But don’t sweat it, I think you’ve got good chances at most of the UC campuses). I think UW would be a safety too, since you said that your parents will pay.
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yeah I’m thinking about premed. My cousin (somewhat estranged so I can’t ask too many questions lol) is an immunology major at UW and is applying to med schools next year.
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Just be aware that as a Calif resident, you won’t get accepted to UW’s med school. If you want to be premed, then it’s better to create a tie with a state whose med schools DO give preference to OOS students who went to undergrad there.
I don’t know if UWisconsin’s deadline has passed, but if it hasn’t, send them an app. Their med school does accept OOS students.
@mom2collegekids Ah I see. I’ll keep that in mind if I get into UW.
The deadline for UWisconsin is Feb 1! I’ll definitely look into applying. Thank you for the advice!
Going out of state may not make too much sense as a pre-med, since short notice travel to medical school interviews in your state of residency will be more difficult and expensive than if you attend a school located where it is convenient to travel to those medical schools.
Also, since medical school is expensive, attending a lower cost school may allow applying some of the money toward medical school costs (will your parents do that?).
@londondad Haha thanks for the vote of confidence. But I heard that UCSD has a lot of applicants applying as bio majors and is therefore super competitive?
@ucbalumnus Haha, good thing I applied to 8 California colleges then. We haven’t really talked about it but I’ll probably have to pay for med school myself.
@Longhaul Wait really?? My college counselor assured us that it was! D:
@foggys, our experience - HS 2013 grad, attend private school in NJ but resided in PA, ACT 34, NMF, I don’t recall GPA, but it was just below 4.0 UW. He visited Occidental. Showed interest. We had financial need. He was not accepted to Oxy, Colorado College (we were told our financial need played a factor here) or Pomona. He was accepted to Pitzer, Rhodes, Trinity, Alabama, wait listed Haverford and then accepted.
Sometimes there is disagreement as to what constitutes a “safety” – I think sometime the word “safety” is used when the person really means “likely”. Occidental is not mega-selective, but it admits fewer than half of all of its applicants – so I don’t think it can be deemed a “safety”.
I think when admission rates at a private LAC are at the level of ~75% or above, you can start calling a school a safety, assuming your stats are in the upper half of applicants.
A school like Occidental is unlikely to outright reject you, but they certainly could waitlist you.
My guess is that admissions readers at LAC’s probably develop something of a gut sense over time, and they probably think they can sense when an applicant is using them only as a safety and is likely to be accepted elsewhere.
