<p>I've been visiting schools this past year, and I have a rough list together of what I have categorized as reaches/matches</p>
<p>Reaches:
MIT
Harvard
Princeton
Stanford
Yale
Dartmouth</p>
<p>Matches:
JHU
Cal
UCLA</p>
<p>Having been to every school on this list except Yale (and I've heard a lot of good things about Yale), I'm confident I'm not applying simply for prestige. I visited Caltech and decided I wouldn't like it much there, and I'm definitely not applying to every Ivy.</p>
<p>Questions: does this seem like a reasonable list of places/categories (e.g. as an in-stater can Berkeley be considered a match)? Also, I don't really have any safety schools. What are some good safeties that are strong in math, science, and study abroad? I have a strong GPA, rank, and test scores if that helps narrow down what would be considered safeties. Thanks.</p>
<p>If you are being realistic about the schools on the list so far, the University of Rochester would be a potential safety. Great school, in that hard-to-find mid-sized U category, strong in sciences AND humanities, doesn't get as much attention as it deserves. (For some unknown reason, it is not in the PR's 366 Best Colleges book, while many, many lesser schools are.) I've heard that the campus is nice, too. I don't know much about their study abroad opportunities, but I assume they are there. Check it out.</p>
<p>Have you considered Rice? (Not a safety, but perhaps a match.)</p>
<p>I don't want to be too specific for the sake of privacy, but I'm ranked in the top 1% of my school, EC's are solid (not a laundry list, just a few strong ones I've done since I was a freshman or sophomore), and test scores are what you'd expect out of an Ivy aspiring candidate.</p>
<p>it's reasonable, although it'll bleed your parents' wallet.</p>
<p>as a fellow in-stater, i would put UCB and UCLA as high matches/low reaches. 1) they're temperamental in admissions and are the only two UCs to evaluate holistically and 2) state cut-backs--it's gonna be harder to get into UCs this year, just like how CSUs had a similar cut back earlier this year.</p>
<p>safeties...you're in in-stater and focusing on the science (which is apparent from your application to MIT and interest in caltech). why not the other UCs? how about UCSD, UCD, and UCSB? they're good schools for the money you pay (significantly less than the ivy league party), and good safeties to fall back on. UCSD recently had a professor receive a nobel prize in chemistry, UCD has a good biology/biochem/anything bio program, and UCSB is decent all-around. </p>
<p>I viewed safeties as colleges that i can fall back on and be worth the money I pay. for example, i would not be willing to treat a private college--that's not top caliber and makes me pay the same amount as an ivy league school--as a safety. I would however be willing to treat UCD or UCSB or UCI as a safety b/c yes, they're weaker in academics, but the tuition is correspondingly less. For that reason, I applied to B, LA, SD, and SB.</p>