Just curious with your experience if you had a high performing kiddo (4.25 weight GPA, 33 ACT, 4 APs with 4/5 on tests, leadership on nationally ranked dance team, 100+ volunteer hours etc) who chose one of their safety schools over a target or reach. Paying for school is not a factor. Right now DD23 is looking to attend a school with 70% acceptance rate - do honors programs make it somewhat more equivalent from an educational standpoint with a higher ranked school?
My D’s friend made this choice. She’s had an amazing experience, is graduating in the spring, and already has a job offer. I don’t think she’d do anything differently. She had the easiest, least stressful senior year of anyone in the friend group.
Kudos to your daughter for finding her school!
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thanks - that makes me feel better. Shes still waiting on her reach and target school notifications but is really leaning towards this safety. I know college “is what you make of it” but I’m not completely convinced!
The selectivity of a school does not define the quality of education.
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Being the smartest kid (or at least, near the top of the class) is a huge advantage. If the school is academically strong you have nothing to worry about.
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My younger kid applied to three schools (her top three choices) that were viewed as safety schools by many folks. Her stats weren’t as high, but she was top 4% in her class, with a terrific GPA. She didn’t even take selectivity into consideration when she was looking at colleges. She was accepted to all three before Christmas.
She matriculated at a school that turned out to be number 2 in regional colleges in her region. She didn’t look at school rankings when making college choices.
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I’m attending my safety school, Grand Valley State, over University of Michigan. Part of it had to do with money, but the other part of it was I thought GVSU was a better fit than U of M and I felt wanted there. I feel like the school I am at now is more supportive and everyone for the most part has been more than willing to help. For reference, I had a 4.0 UW and a 1500 on the SAT.
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There is nothing inherently wrong with a safety as the top choice. If that is the case, it seems like a stress-free college application season: one application, admission, matriculation.
Just make sure that it actually is a safety so that there are no unpleasant surprises (rejection, or rejection from desired major).
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That’s what my high stats D22 chose to do. She got into several of her reaches (including 2 top 25 schools) but the school that checked all the boxes for her was a safety. She couldn’t be happier with her choice. She is thriving academically and socially. It’s a pretty nice feeling to still be at the top of your class even as a STEM major. She’s challenged and working harder than she did in high school but she has plenty of time for fun activities She
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Both my kids are at safeties.
A son turned down Purdue with merit for engineering for Alabama and daughter chose Charleston over schools like Florida, Georgia, Maryland, Washington & Lee.
It’s their experience that matter - not how high their pedigree is.
And hopefully you get some merit dollars since she’s an over performer.
Honors colleges are 100% for the kid - and yes, they can be great if the school has a impactful program and kids take advantage. At some schools, like my sons, many kids join for priority class registration but don’t take any classes and drop out senior year…so it’s up to the kid.
It’s important that your daughter is at the right school for her…not at the highest ranked school.
Good luck to her.
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My son chose a top 40 engineering school over two top 10 schools because of the campus, culture and student support. So far, he is doing very well and has come into his own. Fit beats prestige and USNWR rank.
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My take on this is that she has an extremely high probability of admission to her first choice. Isn’t that cause for celebration, not fretting?
Take the win.
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Our D21 had high stats and national accomplishments and is happily at what started as a safety. She fell in love with the programs and opportunities before hearing from some others on her list. She turned down top ranked options and has not looked back except to say thank goodness she did not make a different choice. She heard from one T15 while we were visiting where she ended up and we could have gone to visit on the way home - she did not care about that one anymore by then.
The honors programs, research opportunities offered, honors dorms or learn/live dorms, and other perks offered to top students all are helpful at some of the safeties. They can find some people with similar interests, too. As others have said in similar strands - there are going to be top students at all state flagships and other schools. She has been challenged in her courses and there are a good number of students who were also able to opt out of some of the entry level courses.
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I think - one has to realize that there are likely Ivy caliber kids at every state flagship in the country.
If you look at National Merit Finalists, you have Alabama at the top with UT Dallas a big player, with Airzona State, Purdue, and UMN also big players - right up there with the MITs, Duke, Yale, etc.
In other words, brilliant kids don’t simply go to high pedigree schools.
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You all make excellent points. I guess it’s easy to get caught up in the competitiveness of it all especially when you’ve watched your kid challenge themselves and put in the work, day in and day out. But you’re right, if she winds up at her #1 choice with merit and other benefits, its definitely a win and that IS the result of all of her effort paying off.
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I agree with other answers. I have worked with exceptional coworkers who had attended a university that was most likely a safety for them. I have seen students attend a university that was a safety and do very well, learn a lot, and be very successful with whatever they did next.
One thing that I have seen a few times when very strong students attend a university that is essentially a safety: Sometimes they stand out as one of the top students. In some cases they get to know their professors and get very good research or internship or coop options.
I do not see a problem here.
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You say money isn’t an issue for paying for undergrad so I will leave that element out.
I think you also have to consider, what are her career goals? If she plans on going to medical school, for example, minimizing debt and maximizing GPA makes sense. Probably also business school.
Law school is slightly different. The debt calculus is there but prestige may matter more if she is looking to eventually go to a top law school and then to a well-know law firm.
If she wants to be a teacher, staying in state isn’t necessary but might make things simpler. And definitely no reason to take on tons of debt.
If she wants to pursue a PhD, then the quality of undergraduate research opportunities and faculty mentorship is more important than rankings.
Also, her personality. Does she fit in everywhere? Want a big school spirit? Or is she a kid who needs more support? Or struggled to find kindred spirits?
If money is not the primary concern, the. These issues factor in.
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Congratulations to your kid on doing extremely well in high school!
It sounds like a great situation. Smart, high achieving kids tend to succeed anywhere, and she is absolutely certain to be accepted to her first choice.
Read through a few dozen of the posts here by parents and kids who are losing sleep, appetite, and hair over worrying “will I/my kid be rejected from all seven Ivies and them my/my kid’s life will be destroyed!!”. Read another few dozen about kids who were rejected from all of their “reaches”, as well as all of their “targets”, or at least what they thought were targets, and how miserable they were.
Thanks your brilliant kid, you and she will have a very different experience. She will likely apply EA, and spend her last semester enjoying the best parts of Senior year, her last few months as a kid, and her life in general. No sleepless nights worrying about admissions, no dozens of threads on CC, asking “Do I have a chance at X college?”, no devastating rejections from “dream schools” with acceptance rates od <5%.
Sounds like a win, and a big one at that.
The fact that this college is your D23’s first choice gives it a rank of #1.
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I was an NMF who only applied to my state flagship, which was an auto-admit for me. I didn’t even have to write an essay. I had an absolute blast. I was in with all the cut-throat premeds (I was never a premed) and enjoyed the challenge of my courses. I had to work really hard but managed to be near the top of all my classes. I am an introvert so I loved being an anonymous face in a sea of faces. The satisfaction of quiet achievement was the perfect fit for me.
I was also in a small undergraduate research program cohort and I worked in a lab the whole time. That was the real highlight for me. Some of my fellow students could have gone to much more prestigious schools but were super happy there as well. I made lifelong friends in that program and they’ve all gone on to be doctors or similar.
I have just never been interested in grabbing the brass ring at any stage of my education and career, yet I have been successful. I am happiest when I’m operating a couple of notches “below my potential”. I put that in quotes because I think it’s kind of gross to frame it that way. I’m sure it’s no coincidence that my mom pushed me past the point of breaking in high school, often using that phrase. My son is the same as me with his views on fancy colleges, though he’s never been pushed, so it might come down to personality.
After working professionally with folks from elite schools, I have no regrets over not aiming higher for my schooling. In my field, they’re nothing special.
Sounds like your daughter has a good idea of what she wants, and it’s a win-win! Glad you’re supporting her!
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A big part of college is who your classmates are, the friends that you make there, the intellectual exchange with your fellow students. If your child is seeking the intellectual stimulation of fellow classmates who are her intellectual peers, she is more likely to find that at a more selective school. Honors programs can be very nice, but they don’t necessarily result in the peer group that one would be more likely to find at a highly selective school.
Another issue is whether name/prestige is relevant for the field that she intends to go into. For most fields, flagship state U’s, or even state colleges, or less-selective private schools are just fine. But if a person wants certain fields, they may find themselves being passed over if they weren’t graduated from a prestigious school.
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