I think this really should say “very high achieving students”…many students don’t even apply to schools other than those that will accept them. Still others (sample of one…my kid) applied to all schools that folks said were safety schools for her…but they checked all her boxes, and she really liked them all.
I should add, we never read an issue of US News college rankings, and never looked at them elsewhere. As it happened, both of our kids attended well ranked colleges…but that wasn’t a criteria in our college search.
Absolutely. I don’t know where the rush for prestige comes from…It really makes very little difference in anyone’s life. In fact, there are studies that show happiness at the right school is much better in predicting life outcomes than ranking. All ranking does is weed out privilege (that was a WSJ article from several years back).
I say this as my D is applying to tons of “tippy top” schools, at which she’d get a great education. But she’s also get a great education at any of the state schools. Our issue is that NY state schools don’t generally have the college experience she’d be looking for, so was never an option.
These data confirm that how UC regards my daughter’s high school with their competitiveness and academic rigor. Her whole school’s numbers are compatible with that of 4.20 plus GPA and much better than 3.80-4.19 GPA group. I also understand that these are just numbers and they don’t mean a thing until she gets in.
As the parent of a kid currently going through the process with a similar stats (but wants to be a bio major) I would say that while both of your kids are likely to get into at least one of the schools on their current lists (and I would also say likely to get into more than one) the psychological value of having some rolling/early/safety admits is very high.
My son applied to one very, very longshot ED school (did not get in but that was not a big surprise) and is now waiting on several other top schools for regular decision. But, he also applied to a couple safety schools with rolling admission and he has those two acceptances under his belt. It makes all the difference to know he has two great places to go even if the rest are rejections. I think anxiety could be quite high otherwise.
In terms of what constitutes a safety, I asked that very question to this board last year and got a wide range of answers. Some people feel it must be a school that has an 80% admission rate or guaranteed admission based on stats. We defined it differently and looked at admits from our high school. If every single student who had applied over the past 10 years with stats in my son’s range (and even a little lower) was accepted, we considered it a safety. In both cases, it turned out to be accurate and he was accepted to both of the schools we considered safeties, neither of which have an 80% admission rate.
In terms of specifics, I definitely concur with Fordham and Syracuse for your daughter. And possibly University of Pittsburgh for both. And McGill for your son for econ but not 100% sure this would be considered a safety.
Anxiety rose quite a bit when GC said they did not feel comfortable labeling such schools as more than targets this year “after all the surprises last year.” I feel terrible for all the HS22s out there.
I strongly agree with @wilsonsl1 for getting some early admits before RD. My daughter applied to ED of her top choice but she was deferred. She didn’t want to do ED2 for schools offering that option and most of EA schools were past deadline.
Yeah… I know last year was crazy and who knows how this year will turn out. In our case, and perhaps I should have mentioned this, we went more than “a little” lower on stats. For example, we went down a good 100 points on SAT score and still didn’t find any rejections. And these safety schools had relatively high admission rates (one 40% and one 60%).
Anyone who has been on CC for a while knows this isn’t necessarily true. As I mentioned earlier, my kid is at his safety. There are a LOT of people here whose children attended/attend their safety. There are also MANY top students at safeties because that’s where they could afford to attend, or because they got a merit offer they couldn’t refuse.
The most troubling posts will be coming along at the end of March and early April. Those will be students who only chose a safety they didn’t care about at all, or who didn’t apply to a safety whatsoever. We have to remember that most students just attend college locally though and the concept of a safety might not even matter to them.
Syracuse looks good for them both, but doesn’t seem to offer EA. So they might look at it bu tI’d like an EA option. Likely they will both consider IUB and Pitt to check the EA/rolling criteria.
Perhaps because there are nearby non-flagship state universities that are admission safeties for them. This is probably true for a very large percentage of the college-ready-but-not-necessarily-super-high-achieving high school seniors, although there may be some for whom it is not true (e.g. those living in southern San Luis Obispo County or northern Santa Barbara County).
Both mine are at safeties. One is at what would I would argue is the lowest ranked of his 13 but he was smitten with having his own, modern dorm room. Living with another kid terrified him.
The other is at #16 of 17 and even though she wanted to cast wide and high and did, I knew it would be her choice when we stepped on campus Thanksgiving week of Junior year.
Tons go to safeties…for choice, for cost, to be close to mom, bcuz they love it or any # of reasons.
And btw many who go to their dream school look to transfer right away…wasn’t the right fit after all.
In the end find the right schools. Yea it’s awesome to get some early decisions, especially for the nerves. . But if a school is right for your child, don’t avoid it just bcuz they don’t offer an early non-binding decision.
I haven’t gone to the page to look for the thread, but I have to ask: was the kid an OOS applicant? Or was any other context provided?
Florida is a fantastic school with a lot going for it, but a kid with those stats should get in unless there’s something else we don’t know about. Based on a quick review of Florida’s CDS, that kid’s GPA and test scores alone, never mind her rigor, would lead one to reasonably believe admissions is likely. The 75th percentile SAT composite for enrolled was 1450 last year and only 39% of that cohort had a GPA of 4.0. Again, her rigor speaks for itself.
But, only 12.4% of the class were OOS (and only 8.4% of the total undergrad pop are OOS). If she is OOS, then we all know that’s a gamble for the highly sought after publics, and Florida is definitely in that category. But if she’s in-state, I think that kid gets in most of the time. I have extended family down there with kids who are at Florida right now, and most of them are not in that kid’s academic zip code.
As to the TO schools forgetting to tell applicants, the CDS tells the story at least insofar as it pertains to the enrolled population (who were obviously admitted): Provide information for ALL enrolled, degree-seeking, full-time and part-time, first-time, first-year (freshman) students enrolled in Fall 2021, including students who began studies during summer, international students/nonresident aliens, and students admitted under special arrangements.
I’m not sure about other TO schools, but Wesleyan requires all enrolled students to submit their scores, whether they were submitted for admission or not. So what you see in the CDS is a fair representation of the scores at that school across the student body. At least I think so.
My post could have been worded a bit more intelligently. I completely agree with what you say! My only comment would be that I probably don’t consider a school that a student is super excited to attend (in advance of a decision) as a safety! I consider that a target, but that’s simply because we tend to use the term “safety” as a negative.
My niece graduated from FIsher at OSU. She’s thriving with a great job in Chicago. Fisher is obviously an excellent program at an excellent school, but for her it was a safety. She got into WashU, Wake, and USC. She got into OSU first, however, visited on an accepted student day and walked through how her four years would play out. She put her deposit down before the other acceptances came through. It was he “safety” but it turned into her dream.
Now I’m freaking out. My 4.0 S23 has an 89.67 in AP Chem after his final he just took. I don’t know if the teacher will round up or not. Does this kill it for him? Vandy, WUSTL, etc.? Should we even bother visiting? Why fall in love with a school you can’t get into.
I’m probably being insane, but he had a 94 all trimester. ■■■ happened? Didn’t see this coming. Not used to seeing anything but As.