<p>My true safety was Purdue; my second safety was Rose-Hulman. (I’m from the Midwest, so those made the most sense.)</p>
<p>Of the other colleges I applied to, some people would have classified Northwestern, USC, and Notre Dame as “back-ups”…but that’s not really how I thought about the application process. That is, I would have been just happy going to Notre Dame if I hadn’t gotten in to MIT or any other of the “reach” schools I applied to.</p>