OP, a safety school for someone with your stats is probably going to have an acceptance rate of around 40%. Consider Fordham, Baylor, Syracuse, and Purdue for starters. I think they meet much of your criteria.
ETA, good point in post 21. McGill is highly esteemed globally and is probably auto-admit for you.
“I’m just trying to go to the highest ranked university possible that fits my criteria.”
My first reaction is that this is ridiculous. Rankings pretty much don’t matter at all. Some very good universities have pretty ordinary programs in some common majors. Rankings are highly subjective and vary considerably from one ranking to another. Once you graduate college and start looking a job, employers are going to care about what you can do for them, not where you came from. Also, coworkers will similarly care about what you can do and how well you work with others. If you go into work with an attitude of “I am from Harvard and am more important that you” then you will be out on the street rather quickly.
My second reaction is that the highest ranked universities in the US have admissions criteria that are highly subjective and difficult for normal humans to predict. As such, the highest ranked “safety” that you know for sure that you will get into is probably not in the US.
Lehigh will never accept high stats students who show little interest- they make that very clear. If the OP visits, attends local events if available, etc… I think he/she has a good chance of acceptance- although I would not call it a safety.
There was a parent here on CC who said that Cornell was his daughter’s safety school. And she was accepted so it had to be a safety for her. When I suggested that his daughter was lucky he became very indignant. SMH!! I don’t think it was @Chembiodad.
OP - a safety may be easy to find, one that you’re happy with may not be. My son had tippy too stats and good ECs - not national level though. We were very conservative with his list because I didn’t want him to be one of those kids with no options. But based on his actual results, we were more conservative than necessary. For example, Michigan - most people say it’s not safe for anyone. So he applied to some lower ranked schools too. He ended up with a huge merit ( not need based) scholarship at MI which was a shock to us. So anyway, be conservative but you don’t necessarily need your safeties to have 50% acceptance either.
Thanks @Musicmom2015!
OP, I would like to challenge you to think about your statement that you are trying to go to the highest ranked school as is possible. I’m not saying that is the “wrong” goal, but college is a big decision and that approach is something to consider carefully.
Prestige is a valid factor. If I were accepted to two schools that were essentially identical for me in every respect and one was ranked #10-15 in the most widely used rankings and the other #110-115, well, the ranking and prestige of the former would probably tip the scale.
But what if someone who loved urban schools and aspired to study biology (pre-med) at Penn or Columbia or Chicago decided to apply to those and all the Ivies and Williams (#1 LAC) because of their prestige. Say, of these, they only got into Williams, a great school but very small in a small town that is not close to anything urban. It is exactly the opposite of the experience they want. It promises to be a small-town hell for them. (Or we could use Dartmouth for this example.) Say they also got into Case Western or UW-Seattle. Both are terrific schools and offer the urban experience the student is looking for. Case has a teaching hospital essentially on campus. UW has a great medical school too. Would it make sense to choose Williams (or Dartmouth) simply because they are ranked higher.
Or you could flip that example. Or what if someone really wanted to avoid Greek life, and their most highly ranked option was the most Greek school in the country? What if someone had grown up in SoCal, hated cold and ice, and wanted warm weather and their options were Dartmouth, UCLA, William and Mary, and Wake Forest, with equal cost? Would the difference in what they learned in their classes be so different to live for four years in a place where they would be trudging through cold and ice most of the school year? (Would there even be in any difference?)
My own opinion is that “prestige” is dramatically overweighted by many students. Of course, if one is admired to #5 in some ranking and #505, well, that’s a pretty big gap. In most cases, the gap is really small. There are something like a couple of thousand schools that offer everything that people usually think of in terms of school. Given that, is the difference between #20 and #30 that great? And, most importantly, these rankings are based on very limited criteria, that may well have nothing to do with your interests.
I’m sure students often choose schools based on rankings when if they looked closely the faculty in their major were less impressive, less interested in teaching, less accessible than at schools where they are turning up their noses.
A student at one of my kids’ school applied to about 10 schools. They said they were just waiting to find out the highest ranked one that accepted them and they were going there. I felt like they were giving control over their life to someone else (those doing the rankings) and selling themselves short. And they were very bright and talented, no need to sell themselves short.
Of course, the decision is yours. Just asking you consider it over the next few months. Good luck!
Good point about prestige, @TTG . Choosing a college based on one newspaper’s flawed ranking is so short sighted. Forbes has their own rankings. WSJ has its own ranking. Times Higher Ed. supplement has its own global rankings, which IMO are superior to all others but do not include small colleges. In fact, OP needs to apply to Oxford and CalTech, which are 1 and 2 this year in THE global rankings, ahead of Stanford, MIT and Harvard, at a lowly 6. Yale is a disgraceful 12.
I think it is safe to assume that there is precious little difference between Princeton and John’s Hopkins in terms of academic rigor and all those other factors that make a college outstanding. Yet for some reason, Princeton is deemed the better school by many people, because of its athletic conference. Dumb.
Hey everyone, I didn’t really mean what you percieved my statement as. I was just trying to make a broad statement that I would rather go to a school like villanova, which I think is doable, over a school like u Mississippi. Obviously if we’re talking about rank 30 vs 35 if look at the overall school and not the ranking, but 30 vs. 195, there is probably a good reason why one is ranked higher.
Specific suggestions for the OP:
George Washington
Fordham
Syracuse
UMd-College Park
University of Pittsburgh
Colorado-Boulder
University of Denver
These are not rolling admissions colleges that accept the majority of applicants. But if that’s what one means by a safety (even for a top student), many such schools still would be accepting applications well after ED/EA decisions come in (or even after RD decisions.)
Your own in-state public options may include schools that are a little less selective than these, and perhaps just as attractive to you (especially considering the price.)
Villanova is probably a good safety for you. Be sure to show interest.
My comments were not directed to you, OP, they are comments about people in general and their obsession with prestige.
Since you like Villanova I might also apply EA to Fordham (unless you are precluded from doing so because of another application) so you have one acceptance in hand by December. You might qualify for the honors program at Fordham.
Yes, I believe someone with a 35 single siting ACT, a 4.0 UW GPA and a decent mix of EC’s has a high probability of getting Lehigh. Unfortunately, I think far too many parent posters exaggerate scores and then complain about not getting into XYZ school - we know the reality is only 13,000 students in the US scored a 35 or higher single sitting ACT, and only 32.000 students scored a 34 or higher single sitting ACT. And yes, while admissions is more than scores, they matter a lot.
OP, the results I noted in posting #7 were based on a simple rule for submission - if well above the top-25% it had a high probability (we never used the word “safety” as I don’t think it’s a relevant term), if slightly above the top-25% it had a good probability, and if at the top-25% it had a low probability. These probabilities also took into consideration not having any hooks, being female applicants and coming from the Mid-Atlantic.
Not certain if all high schools only record the composite scores in Naviance, but at my DD’s HS prior to graduation they required all students to enter accurate data and wouldn’t you know the self professed 33’s became 31’s, 31’s became 29’s, etc.
OP if you like Villanove ( forgot about that one!) then I think it’s a great suggestion. As is Fordham. In our northeast HS, students with a 29 and a weighted 4.0 are usually waitlisted to Lehigh. Your stats are much higher and that is why I think you will absolutely get in … if you show a lot of interest… however… I would never call it a safety because Lehigh does not want to be viewed as a safety. I agree with @Chembiodad in that I don’t like the word “safety” and prefer " high/low probability."
Wisconsin, Boston College, Lafayette, Union College (NY), Tulane, Florida, Northeastern, Wake Forest, SMU, Miami (Ohio AND Florida), Holy Cross, George Washington, Maryland.
@Chembiodad regarding post #61, do you consider your athlete D to have had a hook?
@Chembiodad are you suggesting that I didn’t actually get a 35? I actually did.
@wisteria100, yes, one could argue DD1 had a “tip” hook for the lower ranked schools.
@Chembiodad ^^ But why would it only be a hook at some schools and not others?