<p>We all know about those kids who apply to the Ivies and dont get in, but what are some good school in which a over achiever like myself could get the same feel as an Ivy.</p>
<p>Northwestern, UChicago, Rice, Emory, Stanford, Duke, MIT, UCLA, UCB, Michigan, NYU…the list goes on. Some of these schools might even be just as hard, or harder to get in compared to the Ivies, since the Ivies are actually quite a diverse set of schools. Smaller schools like Williams, Amherst and Colgate also come into mind. </p>
<p>By Ivy experience–do you just mean the type of fellow students you’ll be living with/going to class with? If so…any of the above would do. If you’re looking for a specific type of living experience–i.e. big city, urban, rural, easy public transport, car required etc.–then “Ivy experience” really doesn’t mean anything.</p>
<p>Expirience the nobel prize winner teachers, diverse intelligent student body, and the prestigious name…ect</p>
<p>Windcloudultra has a pretty good list. I think that answers your question. Stanford and MIT are above most Ivy’s, and many would argue that Northwestern, Uchicago, and Duke are above the lower tier Ivy’s too.</p>
<p>Re: Experiencing Nobel-winning Profs–A good friend who attended Stanford once remarked to me that a science course he took with a Nobel winner was one of the worst experiences of his life. </p>
<p>One of the best teachers I had in college was a senior lecturer, and not even a prof. So there.</p>
<p>The same day that I switched out of an economic class at Harvard because the professor was so darned boring was the same day that same professor got the Nobel Prize.</p>
<p>^lol @ that anecdote.</p>
<p>UC Berkeley is a pretty good school to fall back on. It also provides a great deal of financial aid if you get a Regent’s scholarship and you apply for Leadership’s. It’s what I’m falling back on at least.</p>
<p>A lot of people I know treat U of M as a safety. When they’re not hating on it because we’re from Ohio.</p>
<p>UMich - Ann Arbor is a common one, as are the other top-flight state schools (UNC, UCLA and UVA come to mind). The Claremont Colleges also seem popular as a safety.</p>
<p>That being said the term “safety school” should be a misnomer, as one should only apply to those school which one would be more than ecstatic to attend. The term “safety school” really just doesn’t give off any vibe of excitement…</p>
<p>What makes the “Ivies” special is the combination of </p>
<ul>
<li>top-notch faculties across the board (or mostly)</li>
<li>primarily liberal arts / general education focus </li>
<li>attracting smart, ambitious, achieving students </li>
<li>history/tradition</li>
<li>prestige</li>
<li>alumni networks / connection to power elites</li>
<li>massive resources in terms of endowment, physical plant, financial aid</li>
</ul>
<p>No other universities (including Stanford, MIT, Chicago, Duke) can match the whole package at HYP. But lots of them have lots to offer in each of the categories, and depending on the category many of them have more to offer than many of the Ivies. It certainly isn’t the case that a rational student would prefer any of the Ivies to any non-Ivy, even if you exclude Stanford and MIT from consideration. (They make that proposition self-evident, but they aren’t any easier to get into than HYP.)</p>
<p>WindCloudUltra’s list is pretty good. Other private schools that belong on it are Washington University in St. Louis, Tufts, Brandeis, Caltech, Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, Georgetown, maybe USC and Notre Dame. Public universities would include UVa, UNC, also McGill and Toronto in Canada. (My older child’s BFF turned down Penn for McGill on economic grounds, had a great social and educational experience there, and is now weighing offers from the three tippy-top PhD programs in her field.) And lots of public universities now have very attractive honors programs, and Ivy-like strengths in particular departments. Also, lots of Ivy-quality candidates choose top LACs as their alternative. The HYPS equivalent is sometimes called SWAP – Swarthmore, Williams, Amherst, Pomona. Admission is very tough there – but on a Duke level, not a Harvard level. Other worthies include (but are not limited to) Wesleyan, Middlebury, Reed, Claremont-McKenna and Harvey Mudd, Carleton, Wellesley, Bowdoin, Oberlin, Grinnell, Haverford, Vassar . . . and the list goes on.</p>
<p>Every single place WCU and I have listed is a college that a student who would love Harvard could love. None offers the sheer range and volume of opportunity Harvard does (except for maybe Berkeley), but one student can’t even begin to take advantage of all that, and all of them offer plenty of dazzling choices, the chance to be world-class in something. None can quite match Harvard in the way that every other student you meet could knock your socks off with how great they are, but all of them have a critical mass of knock-your-socks-off types, and if you find your way into the right rooms you can have all the impressive peers you could ever hope for. Ivy admissions are not so perfect that they don’t leave hundreds, thousands of sensational kids to populate other colleges. You may have to work a little harder, take a little more responsibility for shaping your own experience, but that’s not such a bad thing.</p>
<p>I’d be careful what you’re calling a “safety” vs. maybe a “match” or “low match.” Even going with the assumption that you have stats that make HPY reasonable reaches (as opposed to high ones, which they are for most people, even people with good shots at “lower” ivies"), many of the schools mentioned here will still be matches, not TRUE safties (ie. a school you are sure to get into). </p>
<p>For instance, the The Claremont Colleges were mentioned. While Scripts and Pitzer would be safties for that kind of student, I’d call Claremont Mckenna and especially Pomona matches at best – LACs that are that selective are idiosyncratic enough that you can’t COUNT on getting in, even if it seems pretty likely (they care a lot about intangibles like “fit”). And this becomes even more true if your reasonable Ivy goal is something below HYP, in which case schools like Pomona might also be reaches, depending on your stats. </p>
<p>However, one strategy that might work if you want to aim pretty high for your safties is to apply somewhere early, either through rolling admissions, EA, or both. I believe UMich has rolling admissions, as do many good state schools. An acceptance in November to UMich or an honors program at another school (where you might also get good money, BTW, if that is a concern) is a great safety, if you’d be happy going to a larger school. </p>
<p>Also, many top schools have early action, where you get a decision in December but, unlike Early Decision, it is not binding. Neither Georgetown nor UChicago could normally be considered safties, but if you got into one of them through early action – well, then it is! And then, unless money is a concern, you only have to bother sending apps off to places you’d rather go (or might rather go) than UChicago or Georgtown, which, depending on how you feel about either of those schools, might be very few places (I know one person who only applied to Yale RD, because Georgetown was her second choice and she’d gotten in EA). I’m sure there are other top-but-not-as-selective-as-HYP schools with EA if neither of those appeal, I just don’t know them off the top of my head.</p>
<p>Of course, if applying to UMich or UChicago or whatever early ends up in a deferral or rejection, then you need to find a true safety, and also maybe re-evaluate how strong your app is.</p>
<p>I agree with Weskid, but the whole reach-match-safety construct isn’t very useful for the kinds of students who are legitimate HYP-etc. candidates. All of their “matches” are “reaches”, and generally they are very strong candidates for admission at schools that aren’t classic safeties at all. That doesn’t mean they don’t need a real safety, but I can honestly say that I haven’t seen many students like that attending their safety because it was their only choice, unless they consciously adopted an all-or-nothing application strategy.</p>
<p>Michigan is apparently abandoning rolling admissions for an ED/RD structure next year. Which will make it a LOT less popular with great students applying SCEA to Yale or Stanford. I actually think that’s too bad, and that Michigan will miss out on some great people because of it, although it’s yields will go way up.</p>
<p>McGill and Toronto, by the way, ARE real safeties for top students. Admission there is completely numbers-based – no essays, although you may have to write one to get a (rare) merit scholarship or special program. And they are bona fide world-class institutions, topping several Ivies in the QS and Shanghai rankings.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Mostly by Pomona students.</p>
<p>JHS: That’s too bad about Michigan. And the point you make about people who are really good candidates for HYP-types is true – they do rarely end up with their safety as an only option. </p>
<p>Although, I have now gone and looked at the OPs other posts, and it appears they are NOT a strong candidate for HYP, or any Ivy, assuming the stats they posted are correct: <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/852316-what-my-chances-harvard-georgetown.html#post1063957568[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/what-my-chances/852316-what-my-chances-harvard-georgetown.html#post1063957568</a> </p>
<p>Which means, OP, that many of the schools that people have been posting about here will also be reaches for you.</p>
<p>I thought Chicago and Georgetown were somewhat similar to the lower ivies in terms of academics.</p>
<p>I’d be careful about considering any selective LAC a safety; stats (GPA, SAT, rank) can count as little as 20% of admission criteria.</p>
<p>In my (observed) experience, kids who look like legitimate HYP candidates – and that’s not just stats – don’t get rejected from every LAC if they apply to a few. It helps, of course, to apply to some of the larger ones (e.g. Wesleyan, Middlebury, Oberlin), and not just the tiny ones (e.g., Amherst, Haverford). It also helps to go against type a little. This is an area where being an Asian pre-med is a plus, but it’s a lot more of a plus at Wesleyan than at Harvey Mudd.</p>
<p>dudes a ■■■■■…he posted two different set of stats in his posts</p>
<p>Thanks everyone I will consider these schools</p>
<p>Duke’s acceptance rate for RD this year was 13.6%, which is definitely not safe…</p>