<p>Why thank you qwilde. Being able to understand that not everyone's experiences match your own suits you quite well too.</p>
<p>Knox would be a good safety. Solid school with a good reputation for financial/merit aid. </p>
<p>Antioch, Cornell College, Lawrence U, and Kalamazoo would also be good safeties/safe matches in addition to the great suggestions by Erin's Dad and TourGuide. They're academically strong schools with superb placement records. </p>
<p>Please note that Who's Who is not considered an award- don't put it on your applications.</p>
<p>You are entirely welcome. It does, doesn't it?</p>
<p>a 3.4, in-state or not, will not make UVA a safety...even with 1500+ SAT...a 3.6 and a 1500+ pushes UVA into a slightly safety zone
especially when you're 25/90 (28%)..if you were in the top 10%, you'd have a much better shot with a 3.4</p>
<p>Harvard seems to be a safety for most of you.</p>
<p>Not quite true, The David: <a href="http://www.safetyschool.org%5B/url%5D">www.safetyschool.org</a> & <a href="http://www.crappyschool.com%5B/url%5D">www.crappyschool.com</a></p>
<p>Hahahaha that's hilarious :D</p>
<p>warblersrule86 has done you a great favor :).</p>
<p>Thanks a lot. Any other suggestions would be nice.. Keep in mind the financial aid thing, I have 0$ saved up and we're pretty low income. Thanks!</p>
<p>Why would you have $0 saved? To be given financial aid, you will still be expected to provide some of your own contribution. It's not a gift unless you get a full merit scholarship.</p>
<p>It may seem pretentious to call prestigious universities a safety but banana has a point. I know of a friend who used UCLA and UC Berkeley as a safety, and that was perfectly fine. She goes to Harvard now. Another friend applied to only Stanford and Caltech. He was rejected at Stanford and in at Caltech. Not that I'm saying Stanford or Caltech are safeties for anyone but...those lower tier safety schools are safeties for many people (i.e. UCs for top students in California; I see it all the time).</p>
<p>having assured admittance to a school through connections is not the same as calling it a "safety"</p>
<p>calling it a safety would mean that your qualifications are good enough that, by objective evaluation, you would have as reasonably close to a sure chance of admission as you can expect to get</p>
<p>that's different than president bush calling yale his "safety" because he knows he's going to get in due to... you know... however he got in</p>
<p>obviously your stats are very good, but for you to think that cornell, uva, or cmu were your "safeties" is... an overly optimistic misconception on your part.</p>
<p>i'm sure you had a good chance of admission, but that's not really the same as "safety"</p>
<p>i know kids from st. pauls, hotchkiss, deerfield, st. george's with SAT scores comparable to yours and similarly good grades who were rejected at schools less selective than the ones you mentioned as safeties, just because at that level of selectivity, none of the schools are really safeties unless you are extraordinarily exemplary.</p>
<p>1500+ SATs and a "high GPA" obviously puts you in a "good shot" category, but not safety</p>
<p>i don't know why i even just had this argument, seems pointless and off-topic but i thought maybe you should at least be presented with the facts so later if you still are mistaken it won't be because you were misinformed</p>
<p>Oh geez. I appreciate your trying to enlighten poor little misinformed me, but you really don't have a clue. My school was a feeder for UVA as well as other universities, including the one I ended up attending (Duke). If you look at the list of acceptances/rejections for students in previous classes (including mine), you'll see a continuous list of "accepted, accepted, accepted," for GPAs well below mine for each of the schools I and many others called safeties. There was no way anyone over a certain GPA/SAT/EC cutoff would be rejected. If that isn't the definition of safety, then I don't know what is.</p>
<p>Now would that be the same had I attended another school? No. But attending an uber-competitive high school that is highly respected by universities around the country is in no way an admissions "cheat" in the same vein as Dubya getting into Yale. As vicissitudes mentioned it is not odd for top students to call their flagship public schools safeties, even in states with very prestigious public U's like California.</p>
<p>to the person who said...why do you have $0 saved up?</p>
<p>do you not realize that some people need to use their money to pay their bills and provide food, etc. it's not like people have a few thousand lying around and they're like, "Hey, I think I'd rather spend this on some stuff instead of going to college." Sometimes there's no money to be saved.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Thanks a lot. Any other suggestions would be nice.. Keep in mind the financial aid thing, I have 0$ saved up and we're pretty low income. Thanks!
[/quote]
You have a shot at merit aid at a few of the colleges listed already. If you're looking for a full ride, you'd probably have to go a notch lower. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that while loans are a part of almost every financial aid package, they can be avoided. If you receive money from outside scholarships, many colleges will use it to replace loans. I suggest you take a look at scholarship sites like Fastweb and start applying; you should be able to get at least a couple. A scholarship of ~$4-5000 a year can virtually eliminate loans. Many scholarships have deadlines in December, so it's best to start ASAP!</p>
<p>Middlebury is considered the "Ivy League safety" according to the Princeton Review.</p>
<p>bananainpyjamas:</p>
<p>Humilty is not your suit nor is friendliness. We could rename you based on your other posts "Friendless in Duke". Maybe if you went to your beloved safety UVA instead, you could have found both humility and friends.</p>
<p>Yes Greendayfan, I do realize that. In fact, I know all about a humble lifestyle so you're preaching to the wrong person from your big Massachusetts boarding school. I work 50 hours a week in the summer and 35 during the year so that I can save money for college. Sure, I have expenses but I have the foresight to see that I will need money for more than just food and clothing. I have still managed to put away a portion of every paycheck to save for college despite supporting myself and younger brother.</p>
<p>hsseniorlooking - It's funny how you think you can judge me based on my stating that it is possible to consider a prestigious school a safety. I realize now that it's apparently impossible to say that without coming off as pretentious. I used myself as an example because I can't vouch for others, but it's worth saying that I do know people at Duke who considered it a safety. I obviously don't know their admissions situation well enough to know if that's true or not, but there you go. I don't consider them arrogant for saying that, because ultimately whether or not your school was a safety, match, or reach doesn't matter. I also never said there was anything extraordinary about me beyond being lucky enough to go to an unusual high school. There were people at my school who considered Ivies safeties. I wasn't anything special.</p>
<p>And thanks for the low blow. You're a real class act. And you would do well to read the TOS. Discussing other posters is a no-no.</p>
<p>banana is right. If you are a top student at one of the top high schools in Va/NC/Michigan/Cali, then UVA/UNC/UM/UCB are rightly considered safeties. That is their responsibilty to the taxpayers of these states. To educate the best students of that state. It is the mission statement of large State U's everywhere. These just happen to be the best and most attractive to OOS.</p>
<p>Banana, it aint braggin if its true.</p>