Help me find match and safety schools!

<p>Rather than expect a list that details those strong points and “reputations”, I’d suggest you read the multitude of forums/ postings on each of these schools. So much has been covered already on CC; the info is there, you just have to narrow in on it.</p>

<p>Also, don’t simply use this site to guide you… please. Read the Fiske Guide, Princeton Review, and other sites like… (CC doesn’t seem to want me to put the name of another college guide site; they’ve “starred” it out! But it’s two words: first is “college”, second is a synonym for “stalker”!) </p>

<p>Also, you might want to read some of the many general books on college admissions, what the most selective schools are looking for in students, etc. You don’t want to obsess or micromanage, but it seems, based on your questions and comments, that you might not be up on many college admissions nuances. It’s not about putting up a list and asking, “Hey, how does this look?”</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

<p>@gondalineNJ
can you elaborate on what you mean by “be up” on college admissions nuances?</p>

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<p>The automatic-for-stats full rides are safeties if your stats qualify for them. The competitive ones cannot be considered safeties.</p>

<p>Your list in <a href=“Help me find match and safety schools! - #15 by kei04086 - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums”>Help me find match and safety schools! - #15 by kei04086 - College Search & Selection - College Confidential Forums; contains no obvious safeties, and some of the schools do not have chemical engineering.</p>

<p>If you can afford the additional application fees, it take no additional effort to shotgun applications to all UCs and CSUs that have your prospective majors that you are willing to attend. Since chemical engineering is more limiting than chemistry, here is the list:</p>

<p>UCs: Berkeley, Davis, Irvine, Los Angeles, Riverside, San Diego, Santa Barbara
CSUs: Pomona, Long Beach, San Jose</p>

<p>If your stats are high enough to give you a realistic chance at the super-selective schools, it is extremely unlikely that you will be rejected from all of the above.</p>

<p>But if you want a 100% certain safety, you can throw in the automatic full ride schools Howard, Louisiana Tech, and Prairie View A&M. Depending on what you and your parents can afford, some of the automatic full tuition schools may be in range as well.</p>

<p>Remember, an application list with no safeties is asking to be shut out in April. Then your default safety is to start at a community college to transfer to a state university later.</p>

<p>@ucbalumnus
I know UC’s are all one app, but do I have to pay the fee for every school I apply to?</p>

<p>Also, what do you think about the revised list?</p>

<p>Harvard
Princeton
Yale
Stanford
Columbia
MIT
Caltech
Williams
Amherst
CMU
Boston College
UC Berkeley
NYU
U of Rochester
Tufts
UCSD
UCSB
(I suppose I could just apply to all the UCs anyway)</p>

<p>How interested are you in chemical engineering? If it is a strong interest, drop Williams, Amherst, and Boston College. Also, you should probably drop Harvard unless you are interested in a more interdisciplinary engineering major over a typical chemical engineering focus.</p>

<p>You have no obvious safeties. One mid-range-selectivity UC is risky to use as a safety due to the uncertainties of holistic admissions, but having several of them make the risk of rejection at all extremely small. Yes, you do have to pay a fee for each additional application, but your huge list indicates that you are willing to pay lots of application fees anyway. Or add an automatic large scholarship school whose remaining cost you can afford as a safety.</p>

<p>@ucbalumnus
I wanted to apply to a couple of LACs just to have the option later if I do decide to change my mind. I’m really split between chem eng and just chemistry into med school, and I wanted schools that would give me the option to try both, hence Harvard. </p>

<p>Perhaps I have this whole college process misunderstood, but really how likely is it for someone to be shut out? If I was only applying to my 9 “reaches” a shut out would be understandable but when I have 8 additional schools that are around the 30-40% acceptance rate, is it really necessary to add lower caliber schools like CSUs and the lower UC’s? I know that I don’t have really obvious safeties but even then how likely is it that I’d be rejected from BC UCB NYU UofRochester AND UCSD/UCSB when my goals are schools like Harvard and Princeton? After all, my stats are significantly higher than the medians of the listed “match” schools. Maybe I’m overestimating my own app or underestimating the schools, though I’m not sure which</p>

<p>You may want to read this thread of a student who got shut out due to having no safeties:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/47867-we-re-picking-up-the-pieces-but-what-went-wrong.html”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/47867-we-re-picking-up-the-pieces-but-what-went-wrong.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>The student later took a gap year and reapplied to a mostly different set of colleges the following year. The second set also had no safeties (apparently didn’t learn his lesson), but he got lucky and was admitted to most of them:
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/192395-no-acceptances-one-kid-s-story-a-year-later-p1.html”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/192395-no-acceptances-one-kid-s-story-a-year-later-p1.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Yes but he applied to 8, 7 of which were reaches. My list contains 19 and only 9 of them can realistically be called reaches in my opinion. I’d understand if I was rejected at Berkeley or NYU or whatever separately but rejection from all 10? Correct me if I’m wrong but that just seems too improbable. I’m in top 5% of my class which regularly sends kids to Harvard Stanford etc. I just can’t fathom being shut out</p>

<p>Well, you asked for safeties in your thread title, right?</p>

<p>Of course, if attending UCD, UCI, UCR, CPP, CSULB, SJSU, Howard, Louisiana Tech, or Prairie View A&M is less desirable than starting at your local community college, then perhaps it is fine to leave all of these schools off your application list. But don’t come back here in April 2015 asking if there is any way to attend any of these schools because you got shut out and do not want to start at your local community college.</p>

<p>No, it’s not likely you’ll get shut out. But it’s possible. The point of having a safety or two is that you KNOW you have a school you can definitely get into and definitely afford (and ideally also like). Worst case, you have one of those options and choose not to use it. Depending on the # of kids in your family with a $35K income you might be eligible for fee waivers, even.</p>

<p>Most of your reaches are partnered with Questbridge, although Harvard isn’t one of them (oddly enough). Unless you’re dead set on Harvard, you should definitely apply through Questbridge. That way, you can basically apply ED to your top eight choices after Harvard for free without having to search for fee waivers. </p>

<p>But in case that doesn’t work out, here’s a comprehensive list of colleges that promise to meet 100% of a student’s financial need: <a href=“List of Colleges That Meet 100% of Financial Need”>http://www.thecollegesolution.com/list-of-colleges-that-meet-100-of-financial-need/&lt;/a&gt;. Many of them will be matches/low reaches for you, a few might even be safeties, and you shouldn’t have to worry about cost for any of them. </p>

<p>I think that for this student, UCSB <em>is</em> a safety.
If shut out, this is a student who can take a gap year competing in international science competitions and re-apply.</p>

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Incorrect. Your chance of being accepted to one is independent of your chances of being accepted to any of the others.</p>

<p>Safety needs to be affordable. You mention your parents’ income, but what about assets? Are there any assets that will counted against you? Do they have a savings? Do they have a lot of equity in their home? Do they own a business? Self employed income is often judged more harshly. </p>

<p>I’m worried about you coming all the way to the East Coast while your parents’ income is so low. Don’t forget to include travel costs when calculating how much money you’ll need. I know you said you have family here, but sometimes extended family is no substitute for mom and dad (and brothers and sisters) and you may find yourself wanting to go home more often than just Winter break and after finals.</p>

<p>Personally, I would put several more close to home schools that will likely give you lots of merit and financial aid. Are there any schools that give stipends based on ACT to highly qualified students?</p>

<p>@sally305 yes but if I have a 10% chance at each school my chances of being accepted to one after 9 apps is significantly higher than just 1 app</p>

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<p>Here is a chance to apply what you are learning in AP statistics. If we assume (incorrectly) that each application to a reach school is an independent random event, what is the chance of being admitted to at least one of 9 reach schools? (highlight the area below for the answer)</p>

<p>Even if each application to a reach school is an independent random event with probability 0.1 (10%) of admission, that means that the probability of admission into none of them is still 0.9^9 = 0.387 (38.7%), meaning that the probability of admission into at least one of them is 0.613 (61.3%). But that still leaves a shut out percentage of 38.7% even with the optimistic assumption of each application being an independent random event with probability 0.1 (10%) of success.</p>

<p>But college admission processes are neither independent nor random, so it is more likely that you either get a lot of admissions or none from the reach-for-everyone schools. That means that the overall chance of getting at least one is lower.</p>

<p>I was going off the assumption that the chances are independent and random. Of course I know they’re not but at that point there’s no point in any of this chanceing and guessing. It’s possible however that applying to many may allow me to get one school that happens to prefer me over others. Applying to many may not increase my chances but it surely doesn’t decrease my chances unless the colleges have a way of finding out what others schools I applied to which as far as I know they do not.</p>

<p>Of course if I can get multiple that’s even better haha</p>

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<p>If you submit a FAFSA form listing multiple colleges, they know what colleges you list on the FAFSA form. Some colleges have also observed that there is correlation between order of listing and student preference, which can matter at schools which consider “level of applicant’s interest”.</p>

<p>I’m puzzled, if you are looking at chemical engineering, why you would want a school which doesn’t offer that major? Can you major in Chem E at places like Amherst? Why commit yourself to grad school when you could do it in undergrad?</p>

<p>Also, surely you can find a safety that has rolling or early admissions, so that you can get an admit before Jan 1. All you really need is one. Are you NMSF–that opens up some easy full ride admits.</p>