How to Identify Safety Schools in College Admissions

"COLLEGE ADMISSIONS IS A process often fraught with uncertainty. And while there are no guarantees, there is a common practice of applying to multiple colleges, including those that a student expects to be safe bets. Typically known as safety schools, these are colleges where admission is more likely because of a student’s academic profile.

‘A safety school is one that a student is almost certain to get into,’ Mandee Heller Adler, founder and president of Florida-based International College Counselors, wrote in an email.

Rachel York, a premier college admissions counselor at IvyWise, a New York-based college admissions counseling firm, wrote in an email that a safety 'or ‘likely’ school is one where your numbers fall toward the top or even above the middle 50% of admitted students. Additionally, the selectivity of a school is an important factor. If it has a high acceptance rate (60%) and your numbers are above average, this would be a solid likely school." …

https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-to-identify-safety-schools-in-college-admissions

The linked page leaves out that the “safety” must be affordable.

For admission only, a “safety” would be defined as assured admission (e.g. with published automatic admission criteria that the student meets). To be an actual “safety”, it must also be assured to be affordable at list price, with automatic merit scholarships that the student meets the criteria for, or by reliable need-based financial aid.

For “almost certain” colleges, “likely” is a better term than “safety”.

If a competitive merit scholarship is needed for affordability, the “safety”/“likely”/“match”/“reach” assessment must be based on the scholarship, not admission. Most competitive merit scholarships are “reach” because there is little transparency about how difficult they are to get.

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