<p>My son applied to 3 places & 2 of them were safeties. He got a nice offer from his top choice school so didn’t need a financial safety, but he would have gone to one of them if he had to. </p>
<p>And I did feel bad that he was accepted to & then turned down both–he only applied b/c his counselor said he should apply to THREE schools.</p>
<p>im an international and i got into a safety but this financial thing is killing me
although they gave me 17k merit aid i still have to pay another 23k and i don’t think 23k is worth it to go to a safety for me</p>
<p>im waiting for my other 6 match/reach schools though
hopefully they hvae better aid offers…</p>
<p>It’s tough when you don’t have a reasonably priced “in-state” school to fall back on.</p>
<p>Are there no schools for you in Australia?</p>
<p>silly question…if he didn’t get into his top picks.</p>
<p>I do feel slightly bad for applying to my safety because the only reason I would go there is if I got rejected from every other school I’m applying to (or couldn’t afford those…), but at the same time, I’m applying for scholarships at my safety and if it came down to a free ride there VS. lots of debt from a top 20 school… it might be a tough choice.</p>
<p>Well, congrats to all of you who were mature enough to take the advice to make sure there’s a safety in the mix. It’s like the old song about the girls (and guys) getting prettier at closing time. :D</p>
<p>Oh yes-- I had a 99% chance of getting into a school (based on my numbers), so it became my backup safety school. In August when I applied, never in a million years did I think I would go there.</p>
<p>Then the following March, I found out I had a scholarship there. Even though I had other choices that were more prestigious (Berkeley & UCLA), I went there instead (one of the other UC schools). Academically, I did very well there & got into a top medical school right after. This may or may not relate to you, depending on if you have another step to go (ie. grad school). But it was harder for my friends who went to Berkeley & UCLA to get the top grades in their classes, and some who wanted to go into medicine could not because of this.</p>
<p>I never thought of these benefits of safety school beforehand, so here is my plug… life at a safety school really can work out & can have advantages, too… !</p>
<p>You don’t really have to feel sorry for these schools-- they will have students like you & me… perhaps overqualified but they try to attract us anyways. Rest assured that there will be students like me who will bite & take them up on it!.. It will turn out all right for everyone in the end, I truly believe!</p>
<p>^^^ my brother can tell exactly the same story…this is very, very true. </p>
<p>In fact, you see this at the high school level as well. I attended Stuyvesant, and alongside my peers I looked pretty mediocre. And, guess what? The college that accepted me was pretty mediocre too. I went off track because of this, but I also could have done very well if I hadn’t been so stunned, and pretty much just went through the motions in college. 
Don’t let this happen to you. Love your safety! Follow example set by Nightingale if you end up at one!</p>
<p>This is interesting. There’s another thread on CC about getting into one’s dream school being an anti-climax. Here’s what i wrote there:</p>
<p>My son is now a freshman at a school which, at this time last year, was one of his safety schools.</p>
<p>It was a big disappointment when he was deferred and ultimately rejected by his top choice school. But the upside of it was that it kind of freed him from the pressure of having to find and then attend the <em>best</em> school possible.</p>
<p>With a fresh outlook, he reexamined the schools that did accept him (two “good fits” and a “safety”). He looked at more than just academic rankings and name recognition and considered the whole environment; climate, surrounding geographic area, nearby town(s), etc. He ended up choosing the school that seemed to be the best fit for the whole person that he is; academically, socially, extracurricular-ly. The school he ended up choosing was <em>not</em> the one with the highest academic ranking.</p>
<p>Now he could not be happier. He feels as if fate intervened, ensuring that he went to the perfect school for him, despite what he <em>thought</em> he wanted.</p>
<p>If I were to characterize his views on college selection now vs. at this time last year I’d say that - within the universe of schools he applied to, which encompassed a reach/fit/safety range appropriate for him - the relative importance between academics and everything else has flipped. Where last year it was something like 70 percent academic and 30 percent everything else, now I’d say it’s the other way around. He says, “college is, of course, an academic experience, but it is also <em>so much</em> more that just that.”</p>
<p>While home on winter break he saw a girl sitting in the aisle of a bookstore looking at college guide books. He thought about approaching her, and telling her not to get so hung up on academic rankings and instead ask herself, “If I could live anywhere in the country that I wanted to for the next four years, where would I go?” and then apply to appropriate schools in those places. He reiterated how lucky he feels to have ended up where he is.</p>
<p>I’d rather not say which schools he applied to and where he ended up, because the reach/fit/safety range that was right for him may be entirely different from what is right for whichever student might read this, and it might detract from the larger point which is: Look for the school(s) that fit the <em>whole</em> you, not just the part of you that is concerned with academics.</p>
<p>I know, believe me, that this can be much easier said than done. There can be tremendous pressure to reach as high as possible on the college pecking order. It’s not unlike other pressures society places on kids to be the smartest or the prettiest or the fastest or, whatever. I mean, there’s even indirect pressure right here on CC: just look at the stats on many of the “Chance Me” threads, with all their SATs in the 700’s and GPAs in the high 3’s and even 4.0s.</p>
<p>I don’t mean to get all philosophical, but seriously, I’d say chances are that the happier you are <em>at</em> school, the better you’ll do <em>in</em> school. And with that in mind, remember that your objective is not to <em>get in</em> to college, your objective is to <em>graduate from</em> college.</p>
<p>^^hah…I just responded to you in other thread - this is absolutely spot on.</p>
<p>the point of a safety is that if something happens and u dont get in where you want to go u go there. I am a senior applying to college now and had 2 safety’s which both accepted me. I am now definitly going to college when some friends of mine were denied from their number one choice college and are freaking out. I see safety’s as a plan B for me, but i know that if for some reason i am going to one of those i will be good</p>
<p>it all changes once they offer you money whereas your top leaves you to flail in your own financial misery.</p>
<p>Wait, so Tutfts syndrome happens at Tufts, but anywhere else?</p>
<p>My safety is Harvard…</p>
<p>My D was accepted to her 2 safety schools. 1 is still in the running, but the second has lost it’s luster so she responded with a no thank you.</p>
<p>I’m attending a school that was a safety for me, and I couldn’t be happier.</p>
<p>People on CC put too much emphasis on name-brand schools. I refused to spend $40k a year on undergrad when I know I have to go to grad school.</p>
<p>mommusic - i couldve gotten in easy at Australian schools with my state marks (top 2%) in the majori wanted to. but the idea of studyin somewhere else other than Australia and experiencing the new environment/culture etc influenced me to apply to US only. And i didn’t want a fall back somewhere else either in Korea (my citizenship) or Australia (place i studied during high school)</p>
<p>anyway now i just wish i was an american citizen because that will make it so much easier to get into better unis or unis and pay less.
but i do like my safety just dont think its worth paying that much</p>
<p>I just got accepted to my safety today. :)</p>
<p>It feels good to have that piece of mind. But I don’t feel bad, cuz I know that if I can’t take any of my more preffered options, I’ll just take my safety.</p>
<p>Ok, so I’ve been roaming these boards for approximately a 1.5 years now and I will attempt to simply share my story.</p>
<p>The first school I got into was my “safety” school. I applied for the honors program, but they first accept you to the university before they consider you for the honors program. I got into my safety school around February. </p>
<p>Later, I received acceptances to multiple great schools (but not HYPS) and I was initially bummed out. But I did end up being accepted to my state college’s honors program, and I ended up receiving a full scholarship for everything (housing, tuition, fees, meals). </p>
<p>And where do I go now? To my state school, where I’m quite happy. And this time last year, I thought that my current school would be the last one I would attend.</p>
<p>So…always remember to be humble, appreciate your acceptances, and keep your options open. (This is a general lesson for everyone reading this thread, not necessarily the OP) You never know WHERE you will end up.</p>
<p>What’s with the elitist attitude? It’s sickening.</p>