Our GC says a safety should admit 60%/70%+ of applicants and she added that for majors like CS or Engineering you might have to dig deeper to find a guaranteed admit. This what she shared with S22 who was an A- student with good rigor etc. I see kids on CC all the time that think that schools with admit rates in the 30s are safeties for them. In our current environment it is better to be conservative when weighing a kid’s chances.
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I think a safety is a different thing for each and every kid. For some a 60-70% will still be a match or reach. For others a 40% will be a safety.
I’m not sure they should make blanket statements in regards to that.
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Agree but I know a kid who checked the box that they were 1st gen and had grandparents who attended a T5 school. Is there any way the college would know? Personal integrity means a lot but not everyone has it.
I’m not advocating being dishonest but every kid should play every card they have and assume everyone else is doing the same. My kid didn’t have any APs or test scores to boast about but finessed the system (honestly) in other ways to get the admit at the dream school. Like prezbucky stated above, we identified what the school was looking for and filled a need at that school.
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Which states or colleges specify that as a standardized weighting method within the state or for college admission recalculation of HS GPA?
Given that it is not a universally used method, it is risky to assume that method is used, unless explicitly stated, or based on a known policy that is used at all K-12 schools and colleges within the student’s state. Exaggerated weighted HS GPAs are likely to cause some students to overreach in their college application lists.
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We don’t have a specific budget we’re trying to hit but still don’t like the idea of paying $80,000+ for an undergrad education.
My son’s list included many schools that offer scholarships (including some of the long-shot top 50 colleges with full tuition scholarships) so we’re hoping one of those works out. Then there are the scholarships for the schools he was admitted to. He just submitted a research paper required for the big scholarships for his state flagship. And I’ve narrowed the outside scholarships to those that are above a decent amount and seem worthwhile (about 6 total). This process is still very time consuming which is why I’m involved.
He already knows which school he’ll attend if things don’t work out with his favorite colleges and this college happens to be a top ranked public university that happens to be in our state, so it’ll be ok. As many of his peers, he just didn’t want to stay in his state for college.
If that were true, schools wouldn’t even bother with RD. Obviously, many students get in RD.
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That’s true - it was shared in relation to my son who was a strong (but not tippy top) student with an A- gpa (UW). I think for strong students the 60/70%+ rule of thumb isn’t a bad place to start. Of course, for some students the 60/70% acceptance rate school could be a reach or match.
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The key words were “in some cases” which is true at some schools. Purdue also fills the majority of the class in EA and they are very upfront about it. Merit and honors also only considered in EA for both Purdue and UMD.
Here’s what is on Purdue’s admissions webpage regarding applying EA:
- Application deadline to be considered for Purdue’s full range of scholarships and the John Martinson Honors College.
- Priority application deadline for engineering (first-year), computer science, nursing, veterinary nursing, and flight (professional flight technology). Priority means we will continue accepting applications after this date only if space allows — if applying for one of these programs after November 1, check the closed programs page first.
The majors noted in the second sentence historically do close after the EA round.
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This may have more to do with the size of the state universities versus the state population of high school seniors than anything else. California has a large population, which makes the state universities relatively small in comparison, so the most desired ones (more than 2-3) are at the higher end of the selectivity scale. In contrast, Wyoming, Arizona, Iowa, and Hawaii have one or a few state universities to cover their entire 4-year-college student populations.
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This might come from plugging the schools into a site like CollegeVine. For example CollegeVine classifies Cal Poly SLO (admit rate in the 30s) and UW Seattle (admit rate in the 30s for OOS engineering) as safeties for my son. I’m glad we aren’t relying on those schools as his safeties…
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While I think the size thing can be true in many cases, I think there are some exceptions.
Purdue and IU aren’t safeties for certain programs, but I don’t think it’s because of the population size issue.
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A former AO at one of the top elite schools (Ivy but one of the top 3 Scea) - shared that an applicant who was legacy - mother was very involved with the school as alumni marked diversity of Native American since they had a very very very tiny link to it. Student didn’t get admitted- they knew she wasn’t really NA.
I do know people who could honestly check 3+ diversity boxes, though they mostly are not applicants to, students at, or graduates from elite colleges.
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True, sometimes kids who think safeties have just googled it. This site can be helpful for those families who really are new to this and think the school that was a backup school in their day still is.
Other times, there are aware up to date families with excellent college counselors who do have very good dat from their HS and indeed have “safeties” in the top50 or 30, or their competitive-state flagship really is a safety for their profile, in their HS. I haven’t posted D’s list for privacy, but also because I dont want to hear all the “there are no safeties !” And “those aren’t matches!” from well meaning CC folks who just dont know how our private HS works. I do try to steer families with highly competitive schools to talk to their GC because CC assessments won’t be accurate for these kids.
The OOS public EAs seem to be the most tricky to predict, especially with such different major acceptance rates, and also so many in this group really used to be safeties for HighStats kids, less than 10yrs ago.
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I think you missed the first three words I wrote: In some cases, it’s EA or no chance (UMD for example).
I’ve seen data showing that 3% of UMDs students were not EA but what I could find online now is 6%.
A school like FSU will go rolling after their deadline but then says things like this. Historically, they had one deadline althugh they added a 2nd, earlier for in-state students this eyar. The University reserves the right to close first-year admission earlier if warranted by enrollment limitations and the number and quality of applications.
U of Illinios says this: Meeting this deadline may give you the best chance for being admitted to our most selective programs. You may also receive special attention for admission to honors programs and for merit awards.
I didn’t say everyone or most or all but in many cases you have an easier shot at an Ivy, perhaps, then applying after an early deadline. It’s not a new comment - I’ve ready many similar comments on many threads through my few years on the CC.
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And I stated as such - I used that system because if you read on the CC and we see our fair share of 6.0 systems, etc. but the .5 for honors and 1 for AP is clearly the most listed.
This article linked below notes this.
That said, you are correct - as different schools judge differntly. For example, UF uses this method but a UGA only uses an AP bump (+1) and Arizona uses unweighted.
My intent was simply to say that many overstate their chances - and there are schools that most everyone can get into - and these aren’t necessarily bad schools. So harping on gpa calculation, while interesting, wasn’t my point.
Thanks
How Colleges Calculate Your High School GPA (road2college.com)
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Is there a potential disadvantage in honestly checking a box for, say, a student with high SES and/or without the correlated visual appearance? or does the college simply ignore that box-check? (Dinging an honest answer seems a bit oxymoronic.) Perhaps this topic is better off some other thread; just thinking out loud.
Yes, students at elite private high schools with dedicated college counselors are likely to get more detailed information from those college counselors, at least for colleges that the college counselors are familiar with (which may be aided by connections* to them). But then isn’t that part of what parents are paying for when they write the check for tuition?
*Not in terms of getting an applicant into a college, but in terms of letting the applicant know which (if any) elite colleges are more or less realistic for the applicant based on what the college counselors know of the colleges’ preferences, when a typical outsider would just lump them all into an undifferentiated “reach” category.
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Just got an email from University of Richmond. 85% of the class of 2026 was filled through ED and EA.
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Colleges which do consider race/ethnicity in admissions generally tend to be opaque and quiet about how they consider it, since such consideration is politically unpopular, even though those colleges feel that it is needed to get the racial/ethnic diversity they want for marketing purposes (as in “students like you [of race/ethnicity X, Y, Z] are welcome here and thrive here!” type of marketing messages they use to try to expand the pool of students interested in the college).
So it is doubtful that anyone outside a particular college’s admission office can answer your question (unless the college does not consider race/ethnicity at all, in which case the answer is obvious).
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