Finding a Safety School

Hi, I’m trying to come up with a safety school for me. Any thoughts? I am a junior in high school, and recently realized that with the exception of NYU, my entire college short list consisted of less than 10% acceptance rates (MIT, Harvard, Yale, London School of Economics, Oxford). I am looking for a school to study (most likely) economics and computer science, although I do have a passion for linguistics. Some info about me:
I am an accelerated students (skipped two grades, 8th and 9th). I have an SAT combined score of 1550, with a 790 math. I took ten courses last year, nine this year (including five APs and a college course) and next year will take the majority of my courses at my local University. I live in a suburb in the Northeast, and have a 4.0 unweighted GPA. I do a bunch of extracurriculars (varsity debater, math team, etc.), volunteer regularly, and do comp Sci research in my spare time. MIT is my dream school, but I need other options.

Will you need financial aid, and if so, what kind (need, merit, both)?

The most likely safety school would be your state flagship. Many top students thought Northeastern, BU, BC, Case Western etc. would be safeties and ended up deferred EA.

Home state?

UCSD, UCD
U Wisconsin
U Minnesota
U Maryland
U Rochester
BU, BC,
Penn State
U Texas
Ohio State
UIUC
UVA
U Washington

Probably even Vandy, Wash U, UCB and UCLA

@nw2this i don’t think you understand the concept of a safety school.

1 Criteria for a safety, it needs to be affordable. Schools like UCSD/UCD/UCLA/UCB for an OOS applicant will be around $60K/year. Definitely not affordable although OP has NYU on the list?

So @Juliak709: what is your college budget?

There is no joint Econ & CS degree program at Oxford. Since you have to apply into one specific program, your CS choices are straight CS, Maths & CS or CS & Philosophy.

There are two kinds of safeties.

Truly Safe:

  1. Admits based on stats, and you have those stats.
  2. Affordable with only aid guaranteed for your stats and/or federally determined aid (FAFSA) and/or guaranteed state aid.
  3. Your potential major is offered.
  4. You are more than happy to attend if all else goes wrong on in the application process.
    If you hve excellent grades and test scores, you can find some potential True Safeties in the thread onAutomatic Scholarships in the Financial Aid forum.

Pretty-darn Safe:
All students like you from your high school in prvious years have been accepted. No guarantee that that pattern will continue of course, but fairly likely.
Given that you aren’t a typical student for your school, your guidance counselor probably can’t cough up a list of Pretty-darn Safe places for you. However, given that you are going to be taking most of your classes next year at your local university, that one sure looks Pretty-darn Safe to me. Sit down with your parents and run its Net Price Calculator.

Lastly, you will be two years younger than most college freshmen. How do your parents feel about you leaving home and living in a college dorm with typical-age college students? How far away from home are they willing to see you go? Completeing a couple of years at your local U and then transferring (or whipping through that local U as fast as you can and then heading to grad school) might make better sense. You’d be leaving home for college elsewhere at the age most students go. You also could take a gap year (or two) and pursue other interests because of the additonal time your younger age gives you.

Also, your desired major must not be excessively competitive for admission as a frosh, or later if there is no frosh direct admission.

For example, some students may find some schools to be matches or safeties for general admission, but reaches for the CS major.

I personally don’t believe there are really any true safeties anymore: I have seen really stellar Ivy level candidates get dinged or WL by say BC or BU because those schools KNOW that student isnt coming there. Yet Ivy admittance can be fickle regardless of qualifications. I am not saying that technically a school cant be safety meaning University of NH would be crazy to turn such a student down but on the other hand why bother…

You aren’t just missing safeties, you are missing matches as well.

A student has to be careful to show interest in their safety. Get on the email list early, visit, and write a detailed and enthusiastic “why college x?” essay if needed. And if a college relies on interest, you probably need a couple of them to be more sure of having an admission.

Certainly an in-state public school can often be a safety, or an OOS public that isn’t too selective if the OP can afford to pay for that as well. But it does depend on the school.

OP skipped two grades, so she may be entering college as a 16 year old. Could that influence what schools are considered safeties if there are potential safeties that prefer not to admit very young students?

Many of the schools you list are not safeties for anyone. You have done amazing things for someone your age. You should be quite proud of that. It’s probably unusual for people to tell you anything other than you’re the best. However, what you will find is that kids (MANY MANY MANY) with perfect scores and grades will get deferred or rejected from schools like Vandy and others on your list. Getting in to UVA or UCB as an OOS is no easy feat. You may very well gain admission. But, statistically, it’s far more likely you won’t. So you need to pick a few slam dunks. Admissions is about a lot more than grades and scores.

Not all less selective schools consider level of interest.

An applicant with a realistic chance at Ivy schools can find automatic full ride safeties.

Younger students sometimes struggle to match the EC accomplishments of students who have had a full 4 years of HS, too. That can hurt admissions.

@Otterma makes a good point. I do think some schools are spooked about having a very young student on campus. I wish the OP would return and at least tell us what state he or she is from. That would help.

@Center - You missed the first criteria for true safey: guaranteed admission for specific stats. That includes open admission institutions like most community colleges, and a fair number of private institutions (e.g. Harvard Extension, Columbia College Chicago) that will let anyone enroll, and institutions that publish specific stats that result in automatic dmission (Iowa State University, UnIversity of Alabama, etc.) for qualified applicants.

What you describe are some formerly pretty-darn safe institutions. They never were truly safe. There always have been surprises for some applicants because admissions decisions are made after human beings read the applications.

Do OP’s parents think she will be socially-ready for “regular” college after HS graduation? If not, perhaps she should look at Simon’s Rock.

For safeties, she should look at quality state universities in both her own state and others. She should consider adding U of Michigan to her list, if she can afford it. While it’s not really a true safety, she’s highly likely to be admitted with her stats, and it is academically a peer of her first choice schools.

“I live in a suburb in the Northeast”

Other than OP’s home state and budget, another question that comes to mind is what sort of school she would prefer.

For us, also living in a suburb in the Northeast and also with high stats (although somewhat less than 1550 SAT and no skipped grades), our safeties were our in-state flagship, and a variety of universities in Canada. Given OP’s list, her state flagship and McGill seem like two possible schools to add.

McGill is however big and somewhat impersonal for a 16 year old university freshman. There are a few smaller schools up there (eg, Mount Allison, Acadia) which would also be safeties with OP’s stats but the downside is that they are largely unknown in the US.

I also wonder about schools such as Bowdoin or Wellesley. These might be good matches but I wouldn’t consider either to be a safety.

Connecticut but I am looking for something slightly above the caliber of UCONN (I’ve been taking courses there since fourteen)