As noted, both of your students have a chance of admission to some school on their list, but in my opinion…no guaranteed admissions that are affordable and that’s what a safety school really is. OOS publics cannot be considered safety schools. Remember, their first mission is to provide spots to their well qualified instate residents.
How many matches/likely equal a safety>>
you could apply to 1000 match schools and none of them might be a safety school.
Please read this lengthy thread….read all of it. It includes the OPs original thread and many many responses as well. Bottom line…the first time this very well qualified student applied to colleges, he really had no true safety schools. He had no acceptances. He did a great gap year and really landed on his feet very nicely…but not until after a lot of heartache and a really lousy end to his senior year of high school. This was a national merit finalist with excellent grades and standardized test scores. And admissions have become MORE competitive since the 2005 admissions year.
This thread is old…but it should be required reading for every high achieving student who applies to a top heavy list of colleges. No one in this kid’s family or it expected him not to get accepted anywhere. He was that excellent an applicant. But he was competing for admissions with many many other well qualified applicants.