My friend’s son has almost a full ride to the U of Miami (fla) honors college. He took this offer rather than attend a higher ranked school and has no regrets.
Again… there are many variables including the individual student and the schools in question.
I actually think the student who will take advantage of every opportunity is a better candidate for a safety. There are a lot of opportunities for top students at most schools if they are aggressive about seeking them out.
I find it interesting that the prevailing wisdom on this board is that people don’t actually know why certain applicants were chosen over others. Students don’t even see their own LOR’s, and generally don’t see their peers’ essays or entire applications, and therefore CCers assert that they cannot assess the fairness of admissions decisions. Posters on another active thread are claiming that most people don’t understand how very competitive is elite admissions, and furthermore may not accurately assess their own child’s relative brilliance.
But here on this thread some are postulating that they CAN tell in advance what kind of fish their student will be and what kind of sea a college offers. I am not so sure that’s as easy as one might think. For example, a kid’s future cohorts in a particular major can vary in number, brilliance and diligence from year to year, despite a generally stable elite pool of accepted students for the college as a whole. And smarts and high school performance don’t always tell the whole tale. I had expected one of mine to be in the bottom third of her college, but in reality she is shining brighter than that–perhaps due to a stronger work ethic and less wealth and privilege to lull her into complacency than the current peers in her major.
Opportunities presented at different schools are not the same. Students at some schools don’t even know about opportunities because schools are too large, too small or don’t have resources to provide students with information. Some employers only recruit at specific schools.
What determines big or small fish ? Academic? Internships? Graduate school opportunities?
We’re in Texas and my son is auto admit everywhere. His stats and STEM background are also impressive enough that he is as close as one can get to a shoo-in for his major at UT Austin (computer science). He could have reasonably applied to reaches like Caltech, MIT, or CMU, and for him Georgia Tech might have been considered a high match although definitely not a guaranteed admission.
Instead, he found a great fit at UT Dallas and decided not to apply anywhere else. He’ll have a nearly full-ride scholarship and probably two honors programs; one general honors and one specifically for computer science, both with perks and support. He can’t wait to start college,
We don’t know what the reach and safety schools are… and we don’t know much about the student.
My two cents: Going to a safety–both academic and financial-wise, instead of a “reach” school does not mean that the academic rigor and intensity will be any less, and is no guarantee that the student will excel at the top of the class academically just because he or she went to a safety school. For example, my son is at Ohio State in the business school and honors program–an academic and financial safety given his stats were just at the upper quarter of the freshman class. His reach school was Michigan (which he got into but was a financial reach we could not overcome). The academic rigor at Ohio State is strong, the quality of students is strong,and the competition is strong, even if the admissons selectivity is not as difficult as Michigan and other top flagships like Berkeley, UVA and UNC. I imagine the same can be said of other state flagships like Rutgers, Maryland, Penn State and Pittsburgh. Also these state flagships tend to grade tougher than private reaches might. If you took the top 25% of the 7,000 freshman enrollees (stat-wise) at Ohio State, that would be 1750 kids who have Ivy-league stats --equal to the size of almost entire freshman class of several top 20 private LACs.
I doubt you will get the variety of answers you need to get a full perspective on this question being that most of those that pick safeties, aside from seeing it as a good fit for their student, are doing it for financial reasons. You will just get a justification of why they are ok. But if people haven’t gone to a reach, they are missing that perspective and can’t really answer your question. How do you know what you are missing if you haven’t been there?
I agree with @blueskies2day. Students that chose the safety don’t know if they would’ve been equally happy at the reach. Students that chose the reach don’t know if they would’ve been equally happy at the safety.
That said, my daughter is super happy at her safety with a large Honors contingent. No regrets.
Back in the days when we carved our college applications in cuneiform on stone tablets, I applied to 4 colleges. 1 safety, 2 matches, and a reach. I was rejected at both my matches, got in to the safety and to a reach. I attended the reach but had to leave end of sophomore year. The pace was rough but might have been manageable if not for roommate issues, plus boy trouble. I ended up at the safety and had a much more satisfying collegiate career once I put the old crowd behind me.
I often wonder how my life would have been different if I had just gone to the safety and not gotten involved with that jerk in the first place. But you can never know. Some things in life you file in the memory bank as a lesson learned.
Basically, safety school with honor program is the best option for the smart kids. Opportunities and self-esteem are the keys for the success and finish the undergraduate in 4 years.
We have some really happy kids in our honors program (at a Cal State University campus). They have found great internships, have close relationships with faculty, and aren’t paying much at all. I’m not sure they would have had all of these opportunities at a R1 school.
We’re in the same boat as @traveler98. My NMF-level kid will be attending U of New Mexico on a full ride scholarship. Once he knew he’d make NMF, he took himself off the stress merry-go-round, only did the ECs he truly loved, didn’t retake his 1490 SAT, took classes because he wanted to, not because he had to take it because it was weighted, etc. That left him with a stats profile that would have been good enough for something like admission plus merit at Tulane, but probably not enough for Ivies.
UNM has an excellent honors program, it has his somewhat unusual major and it has a well-regarded hidden gem of a medical school. In addition, he loved the school. It was far and away his favorite once we started our visits. For us, that’s a perfect package.
But that’s not what you asked…
I did my undergrad at Super Podunk Directional. I was a driven student who did research as an undergrad back when it was unheard of, developed strong relationships with mentors, had peers at my same intellectual level, etc. I was admitted to the #2 grad school in my discipline. The #1 would have been U Chicago, but I didn’t apply because winter. When I got to my grad school, 90% of my cohort were from Ivies and top LACs. I felt seriously outclassed - for all of two weeks.
Turns out I was just as well prepared as any of them, and better than many. Preparation-wise, I’d say I was in the top 25%.
Fit, programs, honors college - if those are good at the safety, go and don’t look back.
Yeah, there are probably exceptions. If your kid is gunning for Wall Street, go for the brand name - but that’s not most kids.
If you can afford the reach school without blinking, more power to you. Choose whatever looks best and enjoy. But don’t be afraid of a safety just because it’s lower ranked on USNWR.
I don’t believe that there is a one-size-fits-all answer. I read the Gladwell essay, and his position has a lot of merit. If you’re shooting for med school, dental school, vet school, or a T14 law school, you have to watch your GPA like a hawk. What makes you think you’re smarter than all those other kids with the same or better stats? You can say that you’re just going to outwork them, but that’s what they are saying about you, too.I strongly suspect that there are people getting weeded-out of premed at places like Wash U. and Carnegie Mellon who would have made it at colleges with easier curves.
(Note that not all highly-selective colleges grade on tough curves, and not all less-selective colleges have easy curves; that’s another issue.)
On the other hand, if you want to get a Wall Street job, you’d better go to one of the relatively few colleges from which Wall Street firms recruit. Same for an Accounting major who wants a shot at a Big Four firm.
To answer the question about not knowing what they are missing, while it might have been decades ago, I went the elite route, so I was able to do the comparison for my D and know that she isn’t missing out. She will be aiming for the elite grad school, however, as that will matter in her fields of interest. For now, she’s enjoying a great education at a fun school with amazing opportunities and no debt.
But as with all things, to each his own. There are no wrong answers here.
I think of Robert frosts poem, the road not taken.
Two in state schools would have been free for my son, but he got into 2 of his reaches. Did he make the right choice? He doesn’t know. I’m sure his experiences helped him with internships and grad school admissions. And his grad school helps with other internships. I just don’t know
My D got accepted by Northwestern and choose to attend the engineering school in-state flagship which is a low match for her. Nevertheless, the rankings of the two engineering schools are actually comparable so we have nothing to lose. One big advantage of the in-state school was the scholarship that make it debt free for her after 4 years of college. Even NU meet the need and the EFC is comparable, the loan would accumulate to ~$20k in 4 years. After the first year, she received more and more departmental scholarships each year making it basically tuition free. In the last 2 years, there were even surplus that refunded to her.
Bruni had the benefit of being groomed at the posh boarding school Loomis Chaffee. And he was a full ride Morehead Scholar, so he attended UNC for free.
Both Bruni and Gladwell had books to sell. Which has greater mass appeal: another book about the less than 1% of unhooked overachievers who even have a chance of getting into an elite college or a book about why normal colleges are great?
Gladwell is just an anecdote writer. Just saying… I never take anything he has to say as particularly valid. I do agree in general that “where you go is not who you are”.
@writermom2018 not saying Bruni isn’t privileged but the book does a good job of talking about the choices. And it’s a quick read. He does talk about why many colleges are great and that you need to think about what you want to achieve. It’s also about the undergrad experience you seek.