How would you pick safety schools for HYP?

<p>Slipper- Vassar, Emory, Michigan aren't safeties for anyone - unless your parents donated millions to each of them.</p>

<p>not true....Michigan is a SAFETY for any kid with above a 1400+ SAT and decent grades if u apply EARLY before November, i have never seen one kid not get into michigan w. these credentials</p>

<p>My friend had 3.8 / 2170 - didn't get in. - May have been lack of interest.</p>

<p>Btw arcadia - that list doesn't have Emory whose acceptance rate is 31.5% this year.</p>

<p>Guys, what safeties would be good for me?</p>

<p>I live in NJ and would like to say EC/Midwest. Looking to study Physics/Math. 3.9w GPA, Top 10% of class. Very wide range of EC's, science being the strong point with awards and indepedent research with a college professor (hopefully this summer). SAT's will be like 2100. </p>

<p>Good safeties?</p>

<p>Honestly I too have never heard of anyone with over a 2100, 3.9+ get rejected from any of these schools. Your friend probably applied late in the process. They are safeties.</p>

<p>Fanangoya, apply to Michigan before November and it essentially serves as a safety.</p>

<p>A few suggestions re safeties:</p>

<p>Beware relying heavily on one out-of-state public school as a safety (things can get really weird).</p>

<p>Consider applying to excellent schools in which your intended major is not one of their specialties (e.g., history at Carnegie Mellon, chemistry at Georgetown).</p>

<p>The top women's colleges seem to be a lot easier to get into than comparable coed schools.</p>

<p>Some colleges are tougher to get into than their quality warrants (Boston College, Bates, USC, NYU, UCLA), while others are easier to get into than their quality warrants (Case Western Reserve, Wisconsin, Indiana, Colorado, Rochester, Chicago, Iowa, Grinnell). Obiously, the latter type would be better to use as safeties than the former.</p>

<p>Consider easier-to-get-into schools that have one feature that is amazingly attractive to you, such as Colorado, Utah, or Vermont if you love skiing; Fordham, Boston U, or DePaul if you love big cities; U of San Diego or U of Hawaii if you go nuts over beaches.</p>

<p>Echoing Slipper, every application is a possible life-changer, so don't waste even one on a place you wouldn't be really OK with.</p>

<p>Entertain the concept that it might be ok to go to a school that isn't absolutely the most competitive you could get into. It would seem that most of the people who graduate at the top of their classes at most colleges could have gotten into places which were "better."</p>

<p>Consider the excellent Canadian universities, which tend to be cheaper and easier to get into than comparable American universities.</p>

<p>Duke, Dartmouth, ND, Rice, Northwestern, Chicago, Williams, Amherst.</p>

<p>"(Case Western Reserve, Wisconsin, Indiana, Colorado, Rochester, Chicago, Iowa, Grinnell)."</p>

<p>i am sorry, doesn't one school here strike u as odd being here....CHICAGO</p>

<p>it is more selective than any other school on this list BY FAR....who ru kidding?</p>

<p>It's selective, but it's not too selective given it's quality. That was the poster's point.</p>

<p>This was my line up of schools:</p>

<p>High Reach:
- Harvard
- Yale
- Princeton
- Columbia</p>

<p>Moderate Reach:
-Dartmouth</p>

<p>Low Reach:
-Cornell
-Williams
-Amherst</p>

<p>Match-ish:
-NYU</p>

<p>Safeties:
- SUNY Binghamton
- SUNY Geneseo
- SUNY Stony Brook
- SUNY Stony Brook Honor's College</p>

<p>I got into all of the above schools except for Harvard, Yale, and Columbia.</p>

<p>I'll be going to Princeton in the fall. In choosing my safeties, I looked at the best and most fitting State Universities. I didn't pick any just for the sake of having an easy safety. Even my safeties are competitive within my state (NY). I made sure to look into each of them. I believe someone mentioned it before; that it's important to pay about as much attention to one's safety schools as one's reach schools.</p>

<p>Good luck to the OP and all collegebound CCers. :)</p>

<p>w.e. u ppl are really not thinking about things clearly</p>

<p>do u have any idea what selectivity really entails, it means, how hard it is to get accepted if you apply to a college</p>

<p>a student with good grades, a 1350 SAT average, solid ECs, most likely ain't getting into Chicago, when this person will probably get into Vanderbilt, NYU, Emory, etc...</p>

<p>Chicago, has some of the highest academic standards, its SAT range matches almost every single ivy league</p>

<p>1350-1530, i think that's pretty selective, idk about u, and i dont even go to chicago, i got admitted as a freshman and a transfer, so there is no bias from me</p>

<p>columbia, is 1330-1530
upenn, 1340-1520
cornell, 1290-1480
dartmouth, 1360-1550
brown: 1330-1530</p>

<p>Chicago: 1350-1530
Northwestern: 1320-1500
Gtown: 1290-1490
Duke: 1360-1550</p>

<p>therefore, i think CHICAGO is very selective, idk about u</p>

<p>perhaps some UCs</p>

<p>No one is debating whether or not Chicago is selective. It is a very selective university. However, it's peer assessment ranks 6th in the country, and it's admissions aren't the 6th most difficult in the country. US News ranks it 21st in admissions selectivity. That was the point made.</p>

<p>Colgate, Middlebury, Bowdoin, Wesleyan, Hamilton, Tufts, Colby, Washington & Lee. Very good schools, but tier 2 in comparison to HYP. Someone who applies to these eight schools with 1450 SAT, Top 5% of class should have an 85% chance of at least getting into one of them.</p>

<p>A2: Thanks for twice explaining my point re U of Chicago. That differential between peer assessment rank and selectivity rank would seem to be a very handy tool in picking safeties.</p>

<p>I saw an article yesterday saying that the most important skill in college success is being able to read complex texts well--grasping subtle differences in complicated ideas. It would seem that your are good at that, A2, whereas the ones who thought I was saying Chicago was easy to get into might have some trouble once they get past "See Jane run."</p>

<p>Yeah, it seems bball has missed TourGuide's point here..</p>

<p>He/She didn't argue that Chicago wasn't selective.</p>

<p>the nescac schools (but not including williams and amherst, which are as selective as the ivies)- usually used as matches/safeties for the ivies:
tufts, wesleyan, middlebury, bowdoin, bates, colby, conn college, hamilton, trinity</p>

<p>I’m responding to an old post but what I have to say is timeless and can be applied to anyone. Of the ten most prestigious schools in the country (Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, Yale, Columbia, CalTech, MIT, Amherst, Williams, Swarthmore), Harvard was your choice. Pick your second through seventh choices using the same criteria but among progressively less competitive schools. It sounds like you didn’t want a technical university or a liberal arts college. Ask yourself why you wanted Harvard over Princeton and Stanford. Use those same criteria to pick your next tier schools. You might be sad about not getting into your first choice. But you won’t be sad about how you selected the rest of the schools you applied to. In my case, Amherst was my first choice. I did not even apply to Williams or Swarthmore. Wesleyan and Haverford were next for me. I liked Haverford a little bit better than Wesleyan but its higher ranking put Wesleyan over Haverford. Connecticut College was my safety. I applied to Brown because I had some legacy there and it was a lot like a liberal arts college. Because of its prestige I would have taken Brown over Wesleyan. Amherst accepted me early decision so it all worked out. Reading these posts, I wonder if not applying to Williams or Swarthmore worked in my favor at Amherst. It was a super long-shot!</p>

<p>I’ve been through a search with two kids and in both cases their searches evolved so they did not use the reach, match, safety approach. After each kid had visited a bunch of schools they developed a list of attributes for the schools in which they were interesting … IGNORING the selectivity of the school … majors offered, size, geography, city/college town/rural, importance of greek life, ECs offered, etc, For both my kids focusing on what they were interested in a school naturally created a list of 10-15 schools across a variety of selectivity ranges. In other words their lists naturally had reaches, matches, and safeties on it. The other thing I likes about this approach is it tended to minimize the importance of the rankling of a school in how it was being considered … in the end my two oldest did not elect to pursue the highest ranked schools on their lists … they picked what they perceived to be the best fit and in both cases I believe they picked the best school for them.</p>