<p>I visited Smith last week and liked it a lot (though it wasn't <em>love</em>). I'm wondering if I should apply for the sake of having a safety, or skip it because it's just another reach.</p>
<p>For ECs, I don't really have many awards, but I am very "well-rounded": chorus for many years, an editor on the school paper, president of the honor society, Mock Trial.</p>
<p>Can you recommend any other liberal arts schools that might be a good match for me?</p>
<p>When you are dealing with the upper tier of small colleges like Smith, they really look for "demonstrated interest". Just throwing an application into the ring might not do it. In the last 10 years, I have seen and heard of very qualifed applicants turned down by a "safety". Some of them were admitted to Ivies and like schools. Because they did not show the interest in their "safety", the college decided that this was not a student who would come to the school. With the common and online applications, the number of colleges each kid applies to has increased, particularly those who are applying to highly selective schools. At the same time, the colleges have been inceasingly concerned about yield. Rightfully so, since the old formulas and percentages to determine how many will matriculate have gone out the window. You should not have to worry abut this factor in a true safety school. Either you have checked out carefully, and given it due attention, or you should pick a school that accepts kids by their numbers, with your stats well uup there.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse: As I mentioned, I have visited Smith. I really am interested, and I plan on corresponding with the tour guide I met there, though, as my name suggests, I'd really like to go to Yale! If I got in SCEA, I probably wouldn't apply to Smith. (Actually, I might not apply anywhere else.)</p>
<p>Par72: You think Bowdoin would be a safety? I was thinking it would be a reach (in part because it's ranked very highly by US News this year -- well above Smith).</p>