<p>I've been thinking about the college admissions process lately, and with the extremely low acceptance rates of top colleges, and the number of applicants increasing each year, I'm worried that I won't get accepted to even one of the top schools that I apply to! It's really upsetting. Maybe if I came up with a list of great safety schools, it would make me feel better (and lots of others who feel the same way!) So know of any great safety schools for Ivy League/ Top 20-30 hopefuls that are probably just as great, but don't get as much recognition or receive less applicants? Thanks!</p>
<p>Michigan, ur state flagship, UCs</p>
<p>i'm in the same boat as you...</p>
<p>you should think in terms of what you want in a college, not necessarily ranking. like, i could say some random school to you that is GREAT and very selective, but you might want a city school...or a school with under 1000....or coed...or whatever. you should start your search as what you want, then narrow into safeties, matches, and top based on your stats...it's much easier than narrowing from a list of random "good colleges"</p>
<p>UCs are NOT safety schools unless they are the lesser UCs. This year in admissions was CRAZY! Boston University is a good safety school.</p>
<p>I'm having the same problem because I really want to get out of state, besides the fact that my state schools aren't very strong for my field and basically everyone in my high school goes there. I'm thinking like BU, Baylor, Missouri S&T, Tulane, U-Miami, IU, Pepperdine, Purdue. </p>
<p>You can see how much I suck at this haha. :)</p>
<p>Does the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor count? I guess not, because it is a Top 20-30... My most certain safety is my state flagship.</p>
<p>Some other schools you might be interested in are the University of Maryland and George Washington University. I've heard good things about them, but I won't apply for various reasons that might not apply to you. You should look into buying a book (or borrowing from the public library) like the Insider's Guide to Colleges. It provides interesting subjective information about colleges along with objective information.</p>
<p>There's no such thing as a safety that can match a top school. Your state university would be a good choice. You can always apply for honors for a more intellectual atmosphere. The lesser UC's are great as well. </p>
<p>*Post this in the College Search and Selection section. You'll probably find more information there.</p>
<p>Well, it depends...IMO my schools are all either reaches or safeties.</p>
<p>NYU - definite safety (likely letter in the first week of march despite not finishing the supplement AND submitting it late lol)
CMU - higher safety (decision "made" on march 4th)
JHU - highest safety bordering on match
Columbia - low reach
MIT/Harvard/Princeton - medium reach (and of course I already got rejected from one of these)</p>
<p>But I really think it was just the pure chance that the schools I applied to followed a very gradual "difficulty" gradient up to the JHU-Columbia spike. If I had decided to apply to a SUNY then yeah, that would have been a very low safety (and a waste of time applying to)</p>
<p>Honestly, match/safety/reach means nothing. Either you're in or you're out.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Does the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor count? I guess not, because it is a Top 20-30... My most certain safety is my state flagship.
[/quote]
ditto</p>
<p>
[quote]
NYU - definite safety (likely letter in the first week of march despite not finishing the supplement AND submitting it late lol)
[/quote]
not if it's Stern</p>
<p>and really...wow...how can anyone call JHU a safety..it's at most a match unless you're bush's son.</p>
<p>
[quote]
match/safety/reach means nothing.
[/quote]
uhhhh....really?</p>
<p>
[quote]
Either you're in or you're out.
[/quote]
ditto</p>
<p>My safeties were Northeastern, and UC Irvine. </p>
<p>Though UC Irvine was kind of a crapshoot this year, you can check that forum for more info on that.</p>
<p>
[quote]
and really...wow...how can anyone call JHU a safety..it's at most a match unless you're bush's son.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Easy. I applied to BME. Getting into the school of general engineering was a foregone conclusion on this end (I am aware that applying to BME does not raise one's chances of general admissions). So, if you mean BME at JHU, I would pencil that in as a match for me (since I know of people with significantly less aptitude in bio/chem who got into the program)</p>
<p>yup, i agree that it can be a match..</p>
<p>I hate it when people are like "high reach / slight reach / low match" and all that crap. Let's see, if you're applying to schools in the top 30, then logic tells you that schools 30-50 would be good safeties. One school from 30-40, and one school from 40-50. Of course, this is assuming that you are somewhat in the ballpark statistically for the top 30 schools. That's really all you need to know. My safeties were UC Santa Barbara and UC San Diego.</p>
<p>And pic, JHU is not a safety. Not even for you, buddy.</p>
<p>Safety/match is the difference in confidence of getting accepted, and I just was uh, confident? And I was right? GG</p>
<p>Alright, I'll take that definition. Congrats.</p>
<p>Any school you know you would be happy attending that has rolling admissions. That will relieve the stress of waiting for admissions from the Ivies later on because you can remind yourself that you're going to college no matter what.</p>
<p>IF you live in Texas UT Austin and Texas A&M are great safety schools...if you make top 10%...you get automatic entry
IF you live in CA UC Riverside and UC Merced are ok...even UC Davis,SB,SC, and Irvine to some degree...
they're a lot of good universities which are easy to get into...
to name some:
Boston University, SMU, Univ. Miami., etc...</p>
<p>Some UCs can be safties -- but not all. The best safties being UCM,UCR,UCSC,UCI,UCSB</p>
<p>However, UCI was tougher this year.</p>
<p>OK, thses are my definitions of safety, match and reach.
Safety = school whos avg. SAT score is ~50 pts.+ lower than yours.
Match = school avg. SAT score is within +/- ~40 pts. of your score.
Reach = school with avg. SAT score ~50 pts+ higher than yours.
(GPA must also be taken into account) There are some schools, however, that guarantee admissions to applicants with certain SATs and GPAs and if you meet that criteria you can obviously consider the school a safety. There are also schools such as Harvard, Stanford, MIT, etc. that can't really be considered safeties or even matches for anyone due to their selectivity. </p>
<p>I didn't go through every school and look at their avg. stats to determine where I was going to apply, but once I did find the schools that I wanted to apply to, I made sure that I did have matches and safeties. In the end I ended up with 1 safety (it was one of those guaranteed safeties if you had the right stats and I did apply to the honors college too), 2 matches, 1 high match/low reach if you will and 2 reaches.</p>
<p>University of Illinois Urbana Champaign</p>