I love the advice to really enjoy all of your safeties. I have had some trouble finding safeties, and I plan (hopefully) to visit some this summer. If you can offer insight into some safety/likely schools that are similar to the other schools on my list, I would really appreciate it. I am looking at all schools within the context of those who have applied from my school.
I am looking for a medium-large school, (probably) private, with spirit, greek life or other very active clubs on campus, passionate students, and an urban environment. ACT (will get back soon) probably about a 32-33, SAT (will also get back soon) hopefully about a 1500.
P.S. I am still crafting my list, it is not going to be this small when I apply.
Tulane’s not a safety, and they will reject you if they have any suspicion that you are using them as such. Last year acceptance rate was ~25%, and is likely to go down with introduction of ED. Emory and USC should also both be reaches, since they’ve got acceptances rates of 24% and 17%, respectively.
What state are you from? If it’s not Florida, I wouldn’t use UF as a safety.
What can you afford to pay? What’s your unweighted GPA? Do you know what you’d like to study?
Assuming a GPA of 3.5+ (and the ACT that you expect), UAlabama would give you full tuition, is large, and has a lot of school spirit, sports, and Greek life (and it seems you’d prefer that weather).
Based on the acceptances and GPA/SAT/ACT from my school, this is where everything stands. I have discussed this with a college counselor and my guidance counselor as well. Please give some insight on possible safeties rather than making comments about reaches, etc. Every student is different! I really am looking for potential safeties and would really appreciate any comments on that! Thank you @usualhopeful, I will check out Alabama!
I am looking to study business.
So what funding will you have and do you need aid? If you don’t place any value on the comments here about reaches and matches, why would you value the information on safeties?
My D had a 32 ACT and 3.86uw gpa. Her safeties were Chapman and Denver. She only applied to schools where she would have been happy going to. Denver was her biggest safety. I didn’t expect to like it as much as I did. She got good merit money from both schools.
Believe what you want to believe, but no school with a <20 accept rate for which your stats fall smack in the middle 50% can be considered a match, no matter what your counselors tell you.
My daughter has similar stats, and also likes the urban environment. Her safeties will likely be Barrett, the honors college at Arizona State, and University of Pittsburgh. Tulane is on her list, but certainly not as a safety.
You might like a school such as Syracuse Univ. It seems to meet a lot of your wants. Ithaca College might be another safety , but I wouldn’t call the area urban yet its in a thriving college town. If you like cities, then maybe Loyola Marymount in Baltimore or Loyola in New Orleans. It’s hard to answer without knowing if you need merit, finanicial aid or you’re full pay. Also, we don’t know your gpa, home state or what you want to major in or what your interests are.
We will most like have to pay full price.
It should not be a barrier to my education, but if there are schools that offer generous scholarships, that would be great.
My state does not have an incredible school, and I do not want to stay in state.
I would like to study business (marketing, entrepreneurship, or simply business administration) or possible economics.
I love dance and ballet and would love if a school offers that. Or, if I’m in an urban area, there may be options there!
Temple. They’ve also got great automatic scholarships, although the GPA requirements are higher than Bama’s, and I think they use some sort of weird weighting system.
A lot of the schools with strong dance majors are smaller, although I’d imagine almost all places will have related clubs.
A safety is probably going to have a few things about it that you don’t especially like…it might be too big or too small, or in a part of the country you don’t especially like. It might be closer or farther from home than you really want. So it might make sense to make sure it has at least one thing that you REALLY like about it that you can focus on, and that will take away some of the sting of “settling” for your safety.
Like if you are a big fan of skiing, a school that is decent.academically but is A+ for skiing. Or is near beaches if that’s your thing. Or that is great in a sport you like. Or which has an especially good department in a field you are interested in (philosophy at Pittsburgh, astronomy at Arizona, etc) even if the college overall isn’t as good as you really wanted. It might be in a city you think you will enjoy, even if the college itself isn’t your dream school.
Again, these probably aren’t good reasons to make a school one of your top choices…but by the time the safety has come into play, your dream schools are long gone. These are silver linings in the clouds of disappointment. They are things that can keep your safety from being an across -the -board tepid version of the schools you really wanted to attend.
