<p>Any good websites, books, etc? I can find info on my dream schools easily enough, but how do I get exposed to those safety-type schools that I would really not mind attending? I have "colleges that change lives" which tends to be on the safety-ish side.</p>
<p>Pick up Pope's other book "Beyond the Ivy League" or something. Has many more schools listed, though not as much information on any of them. Another good resource is the list of under-appreciated schools that Jay Matthews put together a few years ago and published in his book Harvard Schmarvard. Have you tried any of the on-line "college finders" like Counselor-o-Matic at Princeton Review? It should give you a list that might be a good start for further research.</p>
<p>Here's a very easy way: Pay the nominal fee for USNews.com's Premium access to the college rankings (about the cost of a book), get the table of Top Universities (or LACs, if you so prefer) and click on SAT scores to sort the table by the SAT scores. Then go down the list and find ones where your scores are higher than their top range of the middle 25%-75%. Then start down from that point and find something that appeals to you. (Hey, it's a start).</p>
<p>Also you could sort the list by the percentage of applicants accepted. Find where the school accepts 70% or more and then look at the ones after that.</p>
<p>But you have to remember that "Safety" might also mean a financial safety as well, a school that is good with merit or need-based scholarships, or one that has lower costs (like the state school).</p>
<p>Good luck.</p>
<p>Digmedia says all that needs to be said and is dead on the money. This was exactly what my son did. He would have been a competative applicant to any college other than those in the ultra elite(HYPS etc). He merely slid down the food chain a bit, applying to the likes of Oberlin, Case, Rensselaer. He was accepted to all the colleges he applied to and was offered merit aid in excess of $376k. In addition the entire process was totally stress free.</p>
<p>I'd add one important suggestion: I believe it is important to do more than just find schools where your stats give you a good chance of acceptance. Your safety schools should be as close as possible to your reach schools in terms of fit, feel, and other characteristics. Too many kids do things like tack on a large public university as their safety when all of their reach/match schools are liberal arts colleges. If their reaches and matches fall through, they end up unhappy with the remaining choice because it is not what they had been picturing for themselves.</p>
<p>So, figure out what it is about the reach and match schools on your list that appeal to you. Then use Digmedia's technique to pinpoint schools where your stats make your chances a good bet. And, then, finally, and most importantly, do your research to pick schools from that list that match your reaches and match schools as closely as possible in everything except selectivity.</p>
<p>Ideally, however, I believe everyone should START with safeties and work their way up. A bottom up approach is better than a top down approach. It's much easier to find and fall in love with the schools everyone has heard about; finding those gems that are good bets but still meet your needs and desires is harder.</p>
<p>I had an interesting experience the other night at the Harvard/Penn/Georgetown/Duke road show. A woman and her son were seated next to me and we chatted. She was stressed beyond belief because her son has had his heart set on Duke since the 5th grade and won't even consider anything else. She knows it is a bad approach, but she isn't on CC and I had a little trouble explaining the concept of safeties and matches etc. during the few minutes we had to talk. Except for Duke, the boy doesn't want southern schools. I made a few suggestions, but I could tell that it is going to be a stress-filled process for this family.</p>
<p>Hopefully you told her about CC!! This has been a great support system for everyone!!</p>
<p>Another way to identify safeties is to ask the guidance counselor where kids with your profile from your high school have had success getting in.</p>
<p>oldman, the CC at my child's school was very helpful in this regard. He prepared a list of colleges to which students had been accepted for the past 5 years categorized by GPA and passed them out to the parents. No individual student was identified, but lists of colleges students who had a A to A- average, B+ to B average, etc were very helpful. Obviously, GPA is not the only determinant of acceptance, but the general groups were helpful in deciding which schools might be reaches, safeties, and matches.</p>
<p>Yes, oldman and echo - our PHS and others (many?) I've heard of keep "books" of individual stats with no names id'd (GPA, SAT) and where they have applied and the outcome - accept, reject, WL. Some parents were as addicted to those books as I am to cc. ;)</p>
<p>The high school books are only useful if you're interested in the colleges that other kids from your school have gone to. If you're a rebel like my daughter who insists on going somewhere where no one from her school has ever been, it's a whole different ball game. :)</p>
<p>A slight variant on digmedia's approach. If you know what you want to study (computer science, english literature, business, whatever), then you can look at schools that have SAT substantially scores below yours (as described above) but that also have an outstanding department in your area of study. This is like getting a steak dinner at McDonalds prices!</p>
<p>One other warning if your class rank is not what it could be, also check the % in the top ten or 25 percent on the USNWR online version - some schools are more picky about grades than others!</p>
<p>How do you know if a school has a good English department? Or any department for that matter? Hearsay?</p>
<p>The US News and World Report rankings ares good for getting names of schools to investigate. I'm not sure that they are good for anything else. The national universities are at:</p>
<p>and the LAC's are at:</p>
<p>Jedipsohn - the "basic" departments at most schools, even most of the not so highly ranked schools, are academically sound. English, in particular, will be good to very good at many schools. If you are interested in something more specialized, creative writing or journalism, for example, there are certain schools that are better known for those specialties (try searching the forums for some threads on those).
If you have special requirements - say you are highly advanced in math or computer science - you may want to look at the course offerings in your field of interest.
Checking profs' biographies for their research interests, or looking at the departmental websites for posters or abstracts of research done by students can give you a feel for what is going on in science.
This is harder to find, but the number of seniors graduating with a particular major tells you what is popular, how many people are pre-prof, etc.</p>
<p>Finally there are some books that can give you an idea - Fiske Guide and the ISI book "Choosing the Right College". As is always said when the ISI book is mentioned, it has a strong conservative bias, and a personal crusade by the authors against political correctness and for core curriculum. They do include a very persuasive essay about how abandoning core requirements has destroyed the essence of a liberal arts education - thought provoking reading if you can outlast the dense prose.
The most useful part of the ISI book is a listing of strong departments and profs in each department (although it is beginning to be a little out of date). At practically every school we visited, when tour guides, etc, were asked to list their favorite classes or profs - the names mentioned in the ISI book came up over and over, it was actually a little scary. Try to find a copy and read about your schools after you have a tentative list.</p>