<p>We have lost most of our summer to college trips and interviews for my d's match and reach schools but haven't visited or interviewed at any safeties in part because she is pretty unenthusiastic about them. 2 are state u's with no interview but I don't know if having visited makes a difference (One is UVM - maybe not a safety). The rest are LAC's that have an interview option but time and distance make it tough to visit.
OK the question is if she is very qualified for these schools does she need a visit/interview to keep herself high in the admit pool or is being well above the SAT and GPA average enough? IOW does not showing enough interest make her safeties less safe?</p>
<p>I don’t think that not visiting a state school would affect her admissions chances. That would probably only matter at a safety liberal arts school which would probably track interest, see that she hadn’t visited and was overqualified, and waitlist her. It makes me nervous to hear that she is so unenthusiastic about and hasn’t visited her safeties. The purpose of a safety is to have a college that you are pretty much certain you will get into and would be happy to attend if you got in nowhere else. What if she only gets into her safeties and ends up hating them? That should be taken into consideration.</p>
<p>I’ve never heard of a state university including demonstrated interest as an admissions factor, so I don’t think not visiting will hurt your D.</p>
<p>I think you should be concerned, however, about her lack of interest in her safeties. A safety needs to be a school where you’re sure your child will be accepted, you can afford, and your child would be happy and fulfilled if they had to attend the safety. How can one know if that’s the case if your D isn’t interested enough to visit the school?</p>
<p>One should build their admissions list from the bottom up by first finding a safety that one loves and can afford. Afterward, one can find match and reach schools. Doing things the opposite way can lead to heartbreak if one doesn’t get into or can’t afford match/reach schools.</p>
<p>I didn’t bother visiting any of my safety schools until after I was accepted and got to review my aid / scholarship packages. We were able to eliminate two of them all together because of their packages and saved the $ and time of making two more visits. But when I finally visited the college I wound up attending I absolutely loved it, and didn’t bother going on the wait-list for any of my reaches. If the money / distance to visit the safeties isn’t a huge consideration, I’d say make the visits asap (interviewing isn’t necessary)…maybe your daughter will fall in love with one of them.</p>
<p>BronxBomber7,
You were very fortunate to end up loving a safety that you hadn’t visited before admission.</p>
<p>Every spring, there are sad posts from students who only got into safeties that they hate. I think it’s a big mistake to choose as a safety a school that one hasn’t visited. I know students who upon visiting even carefully selected reach and match schools learned that they hated the schools. There are some things that one can only learn by visiting a campus. Visiting is even more important with safeties because probably the majority of students put less thought into choosing than they do their reach and match schools.</p>
<p>We will be visiting one soon but the other is about a 6 + hour drive and so far there is only one more on the list. The problem is she goes to a pretty intense high school and really wants a school where kids are serious about their academics - the one safety school we saw so far she sat in on a class and liked the teacher but felt kids weren’t involved - I know this was only one class which we told her as well. I am also concerned about it but will push to go to a few more!
I think it really is a tough issue - is going to college for the sake of going to college but somewhere you don’t feel challenged worth it, she is young and could take a gap year and try again after doing some real life stuff if worst came to worst.</p>
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<p>Just as hard as you work on your reach applications.</p>
<p>Seriously. </p>
<p>The state universities might not require an interview, or care about demonstrated interest, but if you send an application riddled with typos, or lackluster essays, they’ll pick up on that and the “safety” may not be so safe after all.</p>
<p>The private schools might not require an interview, and it may not be possible to spend the time/money to visit them all, but if you do last minute, half-hearted applications and essays for them, they’ll pick up on that, and the “safety” may not be so safe after all. By the same token, maybe you can’t do an on-campus interview, but many LACs do local interviews, others will interview you over the phone if you ask. </p>
<p>And, finally, keep this in mind: if your daughter absolutely would NOT attend her safeties, then they are not truly safety schools after all. Yes, you can think “gap year” if she doesn’t get into her top choices — but then why bother applying to these safety schools she’s not interested in in the first place? Maybe, she needs to keep looking.</p>
<p>(If you do visit the safeties, if at all possible have her sit in on some classes, and spend time talking to students while she’s there. She may be pleasantly surprised. Or perhaps she will decide that these aren’t worth the effort. But, there’s no point in applying to ANY school if you’re not going to put in effort to the process.)</p>
<p>Good luck to your daughter!</p>
<p>i personally am not planning to work on safety apps as much as the others, and i dont think not visiting them will hurt my (or your daughter’s) chances of getting in – ive looked into this enough to be comfortable with that, and if im wrong then…well i dont even want to think about that!</p>
<p>She will put the same effort into the apps it’s just the time and effort to visit/interview. I’ll definitely have her look into alum interviews locally. I also wonder though if you look overqualified if they discount your seriousness anyway.
It’s so hard to know what a safety is at this point. % years ago I think many of the school she’s looking at would range between safety and match but the pool is so big at the moment.</p>
<p>With the exception of standards for recruited athletes, public universities choose students virtually 100% based on: whether they’ve met the course requirements and their gpa, scores, and state of residence, with in-state residency being what leads most easily to acceptance. Public universities don’t reject in state students for seeming to be overqualified. Interviews also aren’t important to public universities.</p>
<p>Strongly suggest that your D visit her safeties before applying. Interviewing with alums won’t be that useful in your D’s determining whether the schools are good fits for her. Visiting the campus herself would help her figure out whether she’d be happy there.</p>
<p>“With the exception of standards for recruited athletes, public universities choose students virtually 100% based on: whether they’ve met the course requirements and their gpa, scores, and state of residence, with in-state residency being what leads most easily to acceptance.”</p>
<p>That’s not necessarily true for our state university (U of Illinois).</p>
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<p>That’s not necessarily true for our state university (U of Illinois).<<</p>
<p>Also not true for our flagship state U (University of California). Nor for U of Michigan.</p>
<p>I’m applying to a few safeties but there’s no way I’m going to visit them until I’m accepted to them already. I’d rather visit my dream schools than wasting time and money in such a way. Anything more than a 4 hour drive is considered impossible to visit by my parent’s work schedules and income. (Plane tickets are only for you people who make like $200,000+ a year…I still don’t get how people can afford plane tickets for college visits…wow)</p>
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<p>Very true. One of my friends at Georgia Tech was rejected from Penn State, his safety, because he copy and pasted the wrong essay for PSU’s application.</p>
<p>I’m just going to say it’s highly unlikely we’ll visit any schools. Finances don’t allow. And to my way of thinking, whether or not you’ll be “happy” at a given school is largely a matter of attitude. Happiness comes from within to a great extent and can prevail given the most dreadful set of external circumstances and likewise be impossible to attain given the most advantageous. I’m not saying happy circumstances don’t make it easier to be happy, but they’re certainly no guarantee.</p>
<p>So my point is, if your D already has a lackluster attitude about her safety schools, you definitely need to keep looking.</p>
<p>We are definitely going to make it to a couple more safeties and maybe look for one with EA. I also am starting to worry about the overall size of the list and definitely want her to wean on the top not the bottom!</p>
<p>I think that visiting can increase your chances of getting in at some places, but not visiting does not decrease the chances of getting in. Especially in this day and age universities are attempting to recruit more low-income students for whom visiting can be impossible. Few students have the money to fly all over the country to visit even their dream schools.</p>
<p>I generally suggest not visiting to colleges until one is accepted – what’s the purpose of visiting a school before you know whether you’re in or not? You fall in love with a great school and then you get rejected. Not productive and potentially a waste of money.</p>
<p>I suggest that your D scour some books or directories with more colleges and find some more safeties! Especially safeties that she will love. I went to a safety – it was my first choice school. I won a full scholarship there and I absolutely loved it, and am proud to put it on my resume :D</p>
<p>I feel like its way more important to visit safeties than reach/dream school. For me personally, my top school is Harvard. (Welcome to the club, I know.) However, aside from my interview, I feel that visiting is not that important because I know I love it. I’ve seen pictures, read from current students, been to Boston, etc. However, I’m having trouble wth safeties, and I need to find one I’d love to go to as much as I love Harvard. (I hope this make sense.) </p>
<p>So anyway, I think we owe it to “safety” schools to show the same amount of professional applications that we give to our dream schools.</p>
<p>Yep, and possibly more, since you have much greater chances of getting into the safeties than the reaches.</p>
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<p>I strongly disagree. To me the most important criterion in a school is “fit”—it it right for the particular student? For most students there will be schools that are good “fits” at the reach, match, and safety levels.</p>
<p>Yes, visiting can be costly, but it can also be highly informative. Not everyone can afford to do it, and even those who can may not be able to visit all the schools they plan to apply to. But there are opportunity costs to applying, too. Realistically, there are only so many applications you can do well. So what’s the point of burning one of those precious applications on a school that looks good on paper, but once you visit later you find you just aren’t interested in? Visiting a few schools before you apply can help narrow your list to a couple or three reaches, a couple or three matches, and one or two safeties that are good “fits”—schools you’re quite confident you’ll be happy to enroll in if accepted, rather than wasting your time on shot-in-the-dark applications to places you only know on paper and may not really like at all.</p>