<p>So, I decided I won't get a safety, since it would feel like compromising...i think that I would hate myself if I ended up going to a safety school, and i'd rather wait another year and reapply to colleges rather than do safety. Are there any others out there?</p>
<p>I would advise at least one, despite your pride. I ended up ONLY getting into my safeties, plus a reach, and I think a middle. I opted for my reach school, but it was also the last decision to come in the mail for me, so I was really stressed about not getting in where I actually wanted to go until it came.</p>
<p>On the off-chance that something similar happens to you, I would advise having at least one backup so that you don't go as nuts. Put a lot of thought into picking it too. Again, in a worst-case scenario, you'd end somewhere that you have at least a mild interest in.</p>
<p>However, I'll hope for the best for you! Good luck with your admission to your dream school.</p>
<p>Surely there must be a safety school that you would like to attend. Apply to it. You can always decide to wait a year to go to a different school. You can also transfer. It sounds like either you are too lazy to apply to a safety school or that you believe that you will get into one of the schools that you are not calling a safety school for some reason.</p>
<p>i find it hard to believe that out of the thousands of schools out there, you can't find one that you like where by virture of your stats it would be a safe bet for you...</p>
<p>Apply to a safety school! Find one that's got free application if you don't want to spend the money. At least have something as a just in case. You might be surprised at how life turns out!</p>
<p>Of course I am not too confident to believe that I will get into any of the schools I'm applying to - nobody is so deluded. But I will not waste 75 dollars on an application I know i would not be going to either way. And no, i haven't found any safety school that has something that strikes me, and I do not plan to waste money and time finding one. Transferring (which I have contemplated) is also harder to be done, since transfer acceptance rates are lower. On the whole, i'd rather allocate the extra money that would be given to a year at a safety school somewhere else. I could work, do an internship, retake my SATs, send my actual IB scores instead of just predicted ones.
And if it all comes to that, since I am an international I can always attend Greek public university.. (as a last of the last resort)</p>
<p>Edit: I decided to attend US universities for a better education, and a safety would not differ in education from my own country - one more reason not to apply.</p>
<p>just apply to a school where an online application is free...</p>
<p>My definition of a safety college is a college or university that</p>
<p>1) is pretty much certain to admit the applicant, based on its known behavior in acting on admission applications,</p>
<p>2) has a strong program in an area the applicant is interested in,</p>
<p>3) is affordable based on its known behavior in acting on financial aid applications,</p>
<p>and</p>
<p>4) is likeable to the applicant. </p>
<p>Point 1 means look for a sure bet for admission. Point 3 means it isn't really a safety for you if you can't afford to go there. </p>
<p>By this definition, everyone should have a safety college. Of course some people can regard more selective colleges as "safety" colleges than other applicants, but every applicant should apply to a sure bet, and make sure to build the application list from the good, affordable, sure-bet college on up. My agenda on CC, as it has been since October 2004 when I first posted this definition of a safety college, is to make sure applicants aren't too nervous while they are applying, but DEFINITELY that they aren't disappointed when admissions results are announced. </p>
<p>Good luck to the OP and to everyone else applying this year.</p>
<p>I explained above - it's not just the money, though it is a part of it. Say I get into only my safety school - so what? I got into a school that I know I don't want to attend. If i could, i would ask all these kids who got into a safety school and decided to move on, if they could do it again, what would they do? Maybe that would clarify the situation, but the very definition of a safety school is compromising for something not as good as your top choice. And in Greece, public education is free, so why pay 10.000 or 20.000 bucks in the US for sth free.. ( if it comes to that )</p>
<p>to tokenadult: all, really ALL, safety schools for internationals are not need-blind, so my admission would not be accompanied by a good finaid package - i've done the math. Some safety school definitions apply only to US students.. ( if sb can find one that is not need-blind for internationals, and is really a safety, i'd be glad to have a look at it )</p>
<p>So I'm one of those horror stories your guidance counselor will tell you about: I applied to 20 schools last year. I was overconfident in my chances for my reaches (six Ivies, two British universities, and some other top-tiers), and I was blinded by my love for one Ivy in particular, so the rest of my applications suffered.</p>
<p>I wound up being rejected by 12 schools and accepted to eight. One, which was my lower-tier "dream", didn't give me nearly enough financial aid. Another school, one of the most respected in the world, wouldn't help me financially because I wasn't a resident. That left me with six schools I had never dreamt of attending. I couldn't find redeemable aspects about ANY of them, and in the end, I wound up at the school that had ranked fifteenth on my list. </p>
<p>I could tell you about the tantrums I had thrown when I realized I'd be attending this school, or how move-in weekend was horrific when I realized there would be no way out. My mom's last words to me before leaving for the airport were to stay open-minded.</p>
<p>So, two months and eleven days after move-in, I can safely and whole-heartedly say that I love - better yet, passionately adore - the school I wound up at. I can tell you how I have never imagined myself there, how I was a depressed wreck during the mid-summer orientation, and how I was a nasty b*tch to everyone for the first few days... But I absolutely love my school beyond all reason and can't imagine myself anywhere else. In fact, I even visited my best friend at that one dream Ivy two weeks ago, and I couldn't picture myself there anymore. I had no desire to be there, or even in that city, after starting at my own university, one that everyone who knows me had clearly pegged as my "safety of all safeties."</p>
<p>Moral of my long story? Stay open-minded. Pick some schools that may not be the most appealing right now, but be realistic- for every student my dream school accepted, nine were rejected. All the wishing and hoping and sending of supplementary recommendations didn't get me into the 10% I would've killed to be in seven months ago.</p>
<p>^what was your lower tier "dream school" and the other "one of hte most respected" school in the world that you got into?</p>
<p>NYU is the first and UCLA is the second.</p>
<p>you're obviously not doing a good job searching for colleges, and you seem to think that you KNOW there are no safety schools out there for you.</p>
<p>My advice is to stop being so stubborn and actually do do a decent search for a safety school.</p>
<p>It seems to me that you do have a safety school: the university in Greece. So would you rather be a student there than at what you perceive as a lower level school in the US? If so, then there's no need to apply to a US safety.</p>
<p>Still, i'd rather do another year of applications, SATs, work and stuff along the lines of that than go to the university in Greece...if it can make a difference between acceptance and rejection, then why not doing an extra year?</p>
<p>It sounds like you have made your mind. Best of luck. Why did you bother posting?</p>
<p>Sometimes what looks like a "safety" school is actually a really sweet place to be and often quite intellectual if you pick the right one. </p>
<p>St. John's College accepts more than 75% of its applicants, but it has often been noted as one of the most intelelctually stimulating colleges in America.</p>
<p>Look for what you want in a university. Get a big list. Then figure out reaches, matches, safeties. Pick a few that you like from each one.</p>
<p>And quite frankly, the University of Greece sounds pretty darn awesome to me. Then again I've never been to Greece, but it seems pretty sweet. Definitely warmer than Buffalo!</p>
<p>I'm a US student and considering going to University of Athens in Greece...so if you don't get accepted anywhere and I don't get accepted anywhere here...I may see you there, lol.</p>
<p>As I learned from AP Economics: </p>
<p>The opportunity cost of waiting a year to get into a school you want to go to is greater than the explicit cost of spending time now to find a safety school that suits your interests. Plus its application fee.</p>
<p>And so, debateaddict, if you have no safety and then reapply the next year to a similar set of schools as you try the first year.... why do you think you will have increased chances of acceptance the second time around?</p>