Help! I Need Some Last-Minute Safeties!

Colleges & Universities A-Z Yale University
1

<p>I was deferred from Yale, and I wanted to hear from my fellow Yale applicants about safety schools...since I basically don't have any, except the UC schools. Here's my college list, to give you an idea of the kind of school that I'm looking for (I've toured all of these schools and really enjoyed them):</p>

<p>Tufts
Princeton
Brown
Williams
Swarthmore
Georgetown
Vassar
UCLA, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego</p>

<p>Here are my stats:</p>

<p>Intended Major: English/Theater</p>

<p>Objective:
SAT I (breakdown): Critical Reading (740), Math (800), Writing (760), Total: 2300
SAT II: Literature (800), World History (770), Math II (720)
Unweighted GPA (out of 4.0): 3.9 (Weighted = 4.3)
Rank (percentile if rank is unavailable): Top 5%
AP (place score in parenthesis): World History (5), U.S. History (5), Calculus BC (5/AB Subscore 5), English Language (5)
Senior Year Course Load: Advanced Vocal Ensemble, AP Psychology, AP English Literature, AP Physics, AP Statistics, Intermediate Dance, Online Economics</p>

<p>Major Awards (USAMO, Intel etc.): National Merit Semi-Finalist, Honor Roll (all four years), AP Scholar With Honor, E.I. Moore Award (faculty-wide vote for favorite student of the grade level), Leader of council that received "Best Youth Group in Orange County" award, MACYs Outstanding Achievement in Musical Theater</p>

<p>Extracurriculars: Human Relations Council (Co-President), Animal Rights Club (Co-President), Student Leadership Team (Representative), National Honors Society (Project Leader), Theater (roles in four mainstage shows and three student productions), Drama Council (Vice-President of Publicity), Madrigals Vocal Ensemble (Tenor Section Leader), Orange County Cappies
Job/Work Experience: None
Volunteer/Community service: I listed several several service learning and leadership-building seminars that I attended and hosted, and the principle groups that I lead are community service-based</p>

2

<p>Have you thought about Wesleyan? Not a “safety,” but you have a good shot.</p>

3

<p>you seem like a pretty strong candidate for the schools you listed.</p>

<p>if you’re instate, i’d say you’re set with the UCs. cuz berkeley really isn’t all that bad of a place to spend four years. maybe consider some midtier LACs (lafayette, haverford etc.)</p>

4

<p>If you are a male, schools like Bates, Bowdoin and Colby while not typically considered safety schools, could be a good choice. They have very skewed female to male ratios and are always looking for high profile male candidates. Additionally I would not call UNC or UVA a safety either but again if you are a male, your credentials would make you very competitive at both schools.</p>

<p>As far as trues safeties, Tulane would be a very safe bet and could come with significant merit money as well.</p>

5

<p>Tufts and Vassar are what I would consider “safety” schools for you out of the non-UC bunch. Maybe Georgetown, too, if you play your cards right. </p>

<p>You should have a really good shot at the others, aside from Princeton, which no one has a really good shot at (although we’re all certainly qualified…). Williams is the only one that I’d expect you to have a fairly difficult time with, only because their admissions process is so difficult. </p>

<p>In conclusion, you should probably get into 3 or 4 of the other places and probably all the UC schools (though I’m pretty unfamiliar with them), which would be great, because those are some terrific places.</p>

6

<p>I see things a little more conservatively and have concerns that any school with admissions rates under 35% could be called “safe”. Although your odds at Vassar, Tufts, and Haverford are very good and at Georgetown good, I couldn’t call them “safe”. Tulane would be an easier get and probably moves into the a “sure bet” range.</p>

<p>You didn’t mention what you would be looking for in a safe bet. I assume you would prefer to go to a UC over another state flagship with relatively open OOS admissions like UW-Madison or U of MI, so I’ll rule those out. But is size an issue? Geography? Urbanness? Affordability? Without more direction, I’ll just throw some out there that you might not have thought about.</p>

<p>Here are a few quality LAC’s to consider that would probably be “safe” for you:</p>

<p>U of Puget Sound
Lewis and Clark
Occidental
St. Olaf (good for music, if interested in continuing)
Lawrence (another good for music)
Trinity U</p>

<p>maybe Whitman, too, but I think that shades towards “low match”.</p>

<p>Some larger schools that would probably be “safe”</p>

<p>Boston U
American U
Syracuse</p>

<p>and possibly U of Rochester, George Washington U, and U of Miami too, although again they could be more of a “low match”</p>

7

<ol>
<li><p>You really don’t need any more safeties. UCSD has to be a safety for you, and I will be shocked if you don’t get accepted at at least a couple of the non-UC schools.</p></li>
<li><p>But Tufts and Vassar are not safeties for anyone. Well, Vassar may be close to that for a guy from California with your numbers and interests.</p></li>
<li><p>It’s hard to tell what you want. More arty LACs? Bard. Good academics, fabulous music and theater, a little closer to NYC than Vassar, one step down on the selectometer. Sarah Lawrence, too. Both of those would probably be safeties for you. There are lots of others, too. How about Hampshire? Five-college consortium, custom curriculum for each student (using all five colleges), cute college-town area, also a safety for you. You can play the field, theater-wise there. Oberlin, the Wesleyan of the Midwest.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Going completely a different direction: Michigan. Great English, and great musical theater program you won’t get into but means that lots of semi-pro kids are there to hang with. Numbers-dominated admissions; if you had applied in October, you would have been accepted already. NYU, for crying out loud! You probably won’t get into Tisch, but just being there is worth a Theater degree. Northwestern, Carnegie-Mellon: neither one a safety, but both easier for you to get into than half the colleges on your list, both with excellent English and serious Theater going on.</p>

8

<p>I think you should at least be admitted to one or two on your list. However, rather than add “safeties,” I would add 3 more “medium-to-high” difficulty colleges to maximize your chances (e.g. Carleton College, Bucknell, and Claremont McKenna). I think adding “less selective” schools as safeties is generally a bad idea when you have good stats because you may end up at a place you really didn’t want to go; I’d rather suggest applying to a few more schools.</p>

<p>FYI, Animal Rights Club (Co-President) sounds sketch. I hate to be a jerk, but I think admissions officers are turned off when they see that club in particular on a college app. If I were you I would put it low on your list of activities so that your application doesn’t seem like “fluff.”</p>

9

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<p>With all due respect, this is a perilous practice. First, a properly selected “safety” should be a place you would be happy to attend (if it isn’t, an applicant is practicing a kind of self-deception I have heard referred to as “safety fraud”) as well as a place that is certain to admit you. Second, adding more selective schools does not really mitigate the risk that one might end up with no school. Although we like to say so, applications to selective schools are not really “rolls of the dice” in that admission results are not independent variables. What might get you rejected at one such school will have a greater-than-chance tendency to get you rejected at another. For example, if there is some flaw in your application, invisible on the statistical level and therefore to us here, there is a not-neglible risk that you will be shut out of all selective schools. This is the risk a good “sure-bet” school is intended to counter.</p>