I’m starting to look at colleges, and I’m having trouble finding safety schools. I have a high GPA (around 4.0), a current SAT score of 2130, and am very active in extracurriculars and sports in my school. I live in New England, and would prefer a school in New England or preferably within a day’s drive or so (willing to consider schools as far as Pittsburgh or Washington DC). Any suggestions? Thanks!
Have your parents told you what they will contribute and information that you can put in net price calculators?
Howard in DC is probably an automatic full ride or close to it for you if you apply early enough.
Go to the Financial Aid forum and look at the pinned threads for some automatic merit aid schools. There will be some good safeties in that list.
Your state school is a possible safety too.
So you didn’t provide a lot of information besides your stats. In my opinion, squishy stuff like your ECs shouldn’t factor into safeties in the sense that if your properly filled out application won’t definitely get you in, but instead relies on some holistic evaluation of the quality of your ECs, then it isn’t a safety.
They key questions (besides of course what you can afford), are what are you looking for in a school?
Schools with early action or rolling admissions can make great safeties because you will be admitted before other applications are due. If for some reason you don’t have an acceptance by mid-December, you still have time to apply to another safety.
For example, Boston College and Northeastern both have early action. Northeastern’s application requires no additional essay with the common app. So you could apply to both Boston College and Northeastern and if you get in by mid-december, you have a safety. If you didn’t you’d still need to find another one. Other schools with early action - UVermont, UMass, SUNY-New Paltz, several other SUNYs. Schools with rolling admissions include Penn State, Pitt, and Temple. For rolling admissions schools, you can apply in September and get an answer in October. My D1 did that. It was quite a stress reliever.
For small schools, Ursinus has early action and lets you know within 4 weeks of a completed application. It’s a strong school for pre-med.
Ask your parents how much they’ll pay.
The NE isn’t a good region for large merit.
Northeastern and BC would be high matches at best.
Any OOS state school is going to be a reach.
It would be helpful if you could provide more information. What are you interested in? Do you prefer a large or small school? Public or private? Greek life or no? Details like this can aid the community when suggesting colleges.
If he got in EA they’d be safeties sometime in mid-December, well in advance of other application dates. Northeastern is trivial if one is sending in another early application using the common app. No extra essay.
I recommend looking for some schools that have EA or rolling admission in your desired location so you will know you are in by December.
UMass Amherst
“Any OOS state school is going to be a reach”
Why would this be true, given the stats?
It’s harder for OOS applicants to get in because I’ve found that the state flagships want to see higher stats for them. Like say OP is from Massachussetts. Do you think he would get in RD at UNC Chapel Hill with a 2130? It’s possible especially since there are different variables but it’s not a match for the OP.
UNC Chapel Hill is a special case and is one of the harder schools to get into from OOS.
The OP said north and east of Washington DC
There is no US public school northeast of Virginia that wouldn’t not be a safety for this student.
Well, UNC-CH is a disingenuous example, since they have the OOS cap. 
Some States favor OOS applicants and may even be more indulgent provided the student is full pay. Other states want to see higher stats than for in-state aplicants.
Based on OP’s stats, colleges with a 40-50% acceptance rates would be safeties.
An issue is whether OP can afford them - no point of getting into a college you can’t afford.
@wileycoyote : run the NPC on UMass Amherst, SUNY Geneseo, Christopher Newport University, Muhlenberg, Goucher, and UDayton. Bring the results to your parents. What do they say?