<p>As an international student, I was wondering how American students find their safety, match and reach schools. Obviously though as an international student standards are different etc, but I just wanted a method to find some safety schools.
Cheers</p>
<p>This is how I do it:</p>
<p>Safety: your stats (gpa, sat, act, class rank) are above the middle 50% at the college</p>
<p>Match: your stats are within the middle 50%</p>
<p>Reach: your stats are below the middle 50%</p>
<p>Of course it varies on where in the middle 50% your stats lie.</p>
<p>Idk if I agree…my numerical stats are above the middle 50% at Duke and I certainly don’t consider it a safety. Personally, I go more by acceptance rate. >40% is a safety for me…</p>
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<p>Well there’s some risk involved, but if you’re stats are above, why wouldn’t you feel as if you could get it?</p>
<p>Julia there are two types of schools–schools that are looking for reasons to kick you out, and schools which are looking for reasons to accept you. Your metric would appear naive for many of the top schools, which fall in the former category.</p>
<p>One’s stats might be above the 50th percentile of Ivy League schools, but no way in hell is it their safety!</p>
<p>Because highly selective schools like Duke look at things besides the numbers. </p>
<p>For less selective schools, IMO your method is probably pretty accurate. </p>
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<p>I think the stats idea applies to most colleges except for the top 20.
No top 20 college can be a safety.</p>
<p>^Exactly what I was saying. I believe my act score is one point above the 75th percentile mark at Cornell…but it sure isn’t my safety!</p>
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<p>Yes I’m sure top schools, everyone who applies is within a smaller range for stats, so it’s harder to gauge where you fall. It’s just a way I, as well as my high school, judges your chances at schools with a broader range of applicants, which most schools are.</p>
<p>I figure that if your scores are above the 75% mark, and the school accepts more than 40% of its applicants, it’s a safety. (That is, you are nearly certain to be accepted.) </p>
<p>If you’re above the 50% and the school admits 40% or more, it’s a match. With a good application, essays, EC’s, recs, you’re likely to get in.</p>
<p>Otherwise, it’s a reach-- definitely worth applying if you see yourself there, if there are programs you’d love to be a part of, etc. And you might well get in. But there’s no guarantee and you want to be sure you have other possibilities.</p>
<p>If the school’s admissions are purely stats based, and they publish the stats needed or which applied to recent admissions classes (e.g. [SJSU</a> Admission](<a href=“http://info.sjsu.edu/web-dbgen/narr/admission/rec-1199.html]SJSU”>http://info.sjsu.edu/web-dbgen/narr/admission/rec-1199.html) , <a href=“http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out_of_state.html[/url]”>http://scholarships.ua.edu/types/out_of_state.html</a> ), and you are comfortably above the stated thresholds (allowing for raised standards that may occur due to increased application volume), then it is an admissions safety.</p>
<p>However, don’t forget that a safety must also be safe from a cost point of view and must otherwise be a school you are willing to go to (has the major(s) you are interested in, etc.).</p>
<p>^^^ I agree. I’m very conservative, and I advocate trying to find a safety where your stats effectively guarantee admission. Generally, this is a public school.</p>
<p>The ultimate safety as a freshman may be an open admission community college. However, then you would have to apply to transfer to a four year to complete a bachelor’s degree.</p>
<p>Safety schools are admission rate >60% - Stats above 50% percentile</p>
<p>Reach - <30% -50% or below</p>
<p>A safety school is…</p>
<p>1) a school that you like and has your major</p>
<p>2) a school that you’re certain that you’ll be accepted to</p>
<p>3) a school that you know FOR SURE that you have all costs covered through ASSURED grants/scholarships, small loans, and family funds… If you’re not sure that you can afford it , then HOW can it be a safety???</p>
<p>"However, don’t forget that a safety must also be safe from a cost point of view and must otherwise be a school you are willing to go to (has the major(s) you are interested in, etc.). "</p>
<p>This is an important point: the safeties should be schools where you want to go and think that you might be happy. I have seen people who pick a safety, get rejected from their matches and then realise that they don’t really want to go to the safeties. For example, I know someone who wanted to go to Georgetown so applied to GWU and American as safeties. When Georgetown turned him down, he decided that he really did not like GW or AU (other than the fact that they were also in DC) and ended up having to take a gap year and starting over. (There’s nothing wrong with GW or AU, he just did not want to attend either). Good luck, Jackuk</p>